Hello you chubby beautiful lil girl you!

[Finneus Polebender]

Sooooo........the lip grip calms the fish down?

they do tend to calm down rapidly when held that way , Colby is right about the bigguns , only real spines are the dorsal , but the main reason for me in most cases is like most fish they have a slime coating that can be damaged so the less handling along the body the better and they just wont slip out of your hands as easy with a finger or a thumb under the lip

 

[Badfish]

Nice looking fish!

 

[OnTheFly]

Hey thanks for the clarification guys. You never know the things that could happen while fishing an olive crystal bugger!

 

[brandon4455]

crazy
stuff. ive had takes like that while bank fishing with inline spinners and spinnerbaits. but sometimes they see me and turn around. it pisses me off Lol

 

[GungasUncle]

wouldn't you need a pretty big fly to catch a big one? those hooks seem so small! tie a fly with a 3/0 hook lol then you'd be doin it right

Not at all - if I'm getting crazy and fishing dries for bass (and chances are, I'm usually really targetting gillies, but will go for bass too if I know they're there) - I go with flies in sizes 8 and 10. Like I said - think of it as the fish snacking on something like an M&M - a size 8 or 10 hook will easily sink into the jaw of any bass - it's more of an issue of tippet strength, and keeping the fish from turning and running into heavy cover, and breaking you off or wrapping your line around an under-water stump or something.

Then again - if you wanted to - you could fish a stone fly or a big moth on a size 4 or 6 hook - bass will eat those too. Those are much easier to cast w/ a 6+ weight rod - which is more bass-appropriate anyway. With a 4 or 6 size fly, you can use an 8lb leader and be fine.