t this time of year every angler that I know has one thing on their mind and that is trophy bass, big bass in the 30 and 40 pound ranges that are migrating along our coast at this time. If there ever was a window of opportunity to get one of these fish on the fly now is the time.

But this is easier said then done as these big bass have a preference for the real deal, that is live or fresh dead bunker. It is easy to hook into a trophy bass by these methods as many times hook-ups are instantaneous coming as soon as one of these hooked baits hits the water.

To get a trophy bass on the fly at this time requires patience and persistence with the long rod in your hand. You will need to keep casting and not succumb to the ease at which you can catch a fish if you were to pick up a conventional rod and employ traditional livelining tactics.

So what tactics should the fly fisher employ to connect with a big bass? Here are a couple of tactics that I recommend that have worked for me over the years. My first and usually most productive tactic is to cast directly into the center of a pod when striped bass are erupting in them with a big popper that will make a lot of commotion. This would be my first choice of a fly to use rather than a big bunker fly.

To me this makes sense because if you look at all the spin fishermen that are connecting with big bass at this time the majority of them are throwing big pencil poppers. In a frenzy bass will zero in on this commotion as it flees away across the surface.

Another method that has worked is to fish a big bunker fly on a quick sinking line and allow the fly to quickly sink to the bottom of the pod. From here just twitch the fly along the bottom so it resembles an injured helpless bait that had dropped down from the pod above.

You can of course just fish your flies in the traditional manner of just casting out and retrieving so don’t rule this out either. In any method that you choose however you will also need a good amount of luck that your fly will be taken. Many times the bass that hit the flies in the bunker schools are the smaller size fish in the teen to low twenty pound ranges. But these are great fish to catch too and will put a hefty bend in your rod.

So if you want that trophy bass of a lifetime on the fly the fish are here. They should stay in Monmouth and Ocean counties waters close to the beach until the middle of July. So as I said, be patient and keep the fly rod in your hand, it will pay off.