Ken, what are your definitions of "synthetic" and "jig" flies?
Let's talk about Clouser Minnows. I do hear them referred to as "jig" flies, but I think of them more as weighted streamers. And I also think of them as among the most effective flies I use. I've caught just about every species that I fish for - stream trout, steelhead, largemouth, smallmouth, stripers, blues, jacks, bonefish and tarpon, among others, on Clousers. (The bonefish Clousers are commonly referred to as "Crazy Charlies." I think that the Charlie was invented before the Clouser but they are fundamentally the same tie.) One day last year, wading at the mouth of the Narrow River, I had schoolies, a bluefish, scup, shad and a keeper sized fluke on clousers; tan and white during the day and black on black in the evening.
How, when and where to use those flies depends on when and where you are fishing. This early season I've had a great many schoolies on a standard chartreuse and white Clouser, tied sparsely two to three inches long on a 1/0 Mustad 3407 or 34007, using two distinct methods: In slow water, on a floating or intermediate line, using a fast strip; and in fast channels, on a sink tip line using a very slow retrieve. In the channels of the Narrow River recently, on the ebb tide, I've been casting a sink tip quartering up current and letting the line and fly sink and swing and swim in the current. I retrieve with a long, slow pull, trying to keep the fly deep. The method has worked very well for me. I was using a cast of two flies, but caught five on the Clouser for every one on the dropper so now I don't bother with the dropper. I try to swim the Clouser in a channel against the current.
I'll probably change tactics later in the year. When the water warms up I'll usually start with a cast of three flies, none of them weighted, on a floating line. I caught a lot of bass and shad last year on that sort of rig, with doubles and triples when the fish and the tide were right.
I had bass in the surf on Clousers with sinking and intermediate lines last year but I'm convinced that floating an unweighted fly (or a cast of unweighted flies)can be a more effective method of presentation in the surf and I'm going to work on that technique this year.
My biggest bass last year was 40" long and was landed from my kayak, anchored alongside a channel near the mouth of the Narrow River, in the early afternoon on a warm Saturday afternoon late in June - on a tan and white gold eyed Clouser.
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