Flies for Tampa area

[David L. Darnell]

The lifelong best friend of my fishing bud lives on the bay.  He travels for a living and has plenty extra rooms he fixes us up with when we travel/fish.

I want to tie him some flies so I need info.

Thanks

DD

[Curtis Bias]

Root beer colored shrimp patterns kill in the Tampa area for several types of fish. When the shrimp come in contact with fresh water, they turn brownish. The fish will key in on shrimp this color in brackish water and along the mangroves. – Quarter sized crab patterns are nice. (Merkin etc.)

[Bob Riggins]

Here are the flies I use most of the time:

Schminnows in white (for snook), in black (for cobia), in chartreuse and in copper.  I tie them with either bead chain eyes or gold dumbell eyes, depending on where I want to be in the water column.  Mostly tie on 1/0 ro 2/0 hooks.  This is a very easy fly to tie and works for a wide variety of fish.

Kwans in both light brown and dark brown, depending on bottom color.  These immitate both shrimp and crabs so sometimes I tie in rubber legs.  They are fished close to the bottom, so use a weed guard.  Usually tie on size 1 or 2 hooks.  These are my go to redfish fly when they are tailing.

Gurglers mostly in chartreuse, but also in white.  I usually tie these with a fairly long tail.  The under body is a medium ice chennile with a sparce overwrap of long estaz to simulate legs.  Usually tie on size 1 to 1/0 hooks.  These are great speck flies.

Toads in a variety of colors, but black with some red mixed in can be a killer.  I sometimes tie them in white or copper and sometimes tie in rubber legs.  Depending on what I’m after, they could be on 1/0 to 3/0 hooks.

Of course there are the ussual clousers, deceivers, seaducers, etc., but the four I listed are a little different and well suited to the Tampa Bay area.  I rarely fish merkins, because I don’t like casting them and they don’t work any better than kwans.  I use gold spoonfly’s occasionally, but I don’t like tying them.

I tie almost everything with synthetic materials.  The flies are more durable that way and saltwater fish can be tough on flies.

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