I am looking at an 8wt 9' St Croix Legend Ultra for large mouth fishing on lakes in eastern PA.
Is 8 wt the way to go?

Having done a great deal of fly fishing for LM bass, although not in the USA, I would suggest that a 9 weight might be better.

Why?

First of all you have to cast big wind resistant lures and flies and a heavy line helps.

Second, LM bass inhabit dense structure and you need an outfit capable of dragging them out. You don't "play" LM bass, you skull drag 'em, or they will end up playing you!

A leader of at least 15lb test is the way to go, especially if the water you are fishing has some big bass.

Ron,

How large do LBs run around you?
I this area, 5lbs is a big fish.
I was going to up line a 7wt but thought that was pushing it on the larger flies. Also didn't think the 7 would pull them & keep them from "Playing with me".
A 9 just sounds a bit much for our lake large mouth.
But I am all ears & open to opinion before I buy.

Hi BigBass;

Part of the answer lies in how big are the lures you are going to use? Based on what I use to fish with up in New England I'ld think that an 8 weight would give you enough power to get the flies out unless there's a lot of wind. Leader to be adjusted according to local conditions of course but for large mouth I use to just put on a straight length instead of a tapered leader.

I think Ron use to fish for large mouth down in S.A. where they grow to the same sizes as south of the Mason-Dixon line and there is a lot of vegetation in the water. If you're fishing in really cluttered waters then I'ld go with his suggestion otherwise, in my limited experience, the 8 weight should do it for you.

Take care

Terry

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Thank you Terry
I think we're on the same page with the size of fish.
BTW Terry are you using about a 15 lb leader?

I have this exact setup. It's a great rig for the smallmouth here in MN and WI, but if you're fishing exclusively for largemouth, it's a little under-gunned for around here anyway. I'd step up to a #9.

As Terry points out, the biggest problem with largemouth on the fly rod comes with their ability to get you hopelessly tangled in the weeds once you set the hook. If you're fishing mostly clean water back east, it may not be an issue. But let's face it, most of the fun with bass comes with twitching surface lures across the weed beds. Once that bass slams that lure, the only thing that's going to get even a modest size LM out of a big weed bed is sheer pulling power so you can tuna boat him out of that weed bed before he gets any slack to work with. A #8 is a little light for that.

The bass just has too much advantage because of the flex in that long rod, it's really difficult to get any leverage. A largemouth starts rolling in the weeds and then he gets the fly line and leader tangled around all the lily pad stems and it's either game over or at the very least you have to go into the weed bed to untangle your line and then pull up a massive weedball with a fish in the middle.

My personal largemouth setup is a #9 with a 20 pound leader made of XT mono. Turnover is not an issue when you're chucking lures the size of parkeets, so tapered leaders are a waste of time and money, and largemouth are rarely leader shy.

Grouse

Grouse

What size Large Mouth up your way?

Would you still recomend the Legend Ultra in 9?
Does the Ultra have enough back bone?

From 1967 to 1994 I lived in South Africa. Many waters in that country are stocked with both Large Mouth and Small Mouth American bass. I caught them up to 8 1/2 lbs, but quite honestly a 4 pounder was a big one.

It was only in the period 1987 to 1993 that I used the fly rod for bass, and fouind out how effective it was. One of the best flies was a Dahlberg Diver. Before that I used spinnerbaits, crankbaits, top water baits, plastic worms and other plastic lures in abundance.

I truly wish I could fish for bass again, I miss them terribly, they are truly a wonderful sporting species.

Enjoy!

Ron,

Did you find the 8wt to be enough for the 3-4lb large mouths?

Sage now has a Large Mouth Bass Rod as well as a small mouth bass rod.
These are just the manes. One is a 7-8wt & the Large Mouth is a 9-10wt.
I don't know anyone that has fished it but the large mouth is said to be over kill in this rod.

The average size is probably 2-3 pounds. As I said, it's what you catch them in that makes all the difference. A 2 pound bass in clean water isn't a problem, but put the same bass back 30 feet in the lily pads and it's a total different story. And that's where all the fun fishing is, back in the weed beds twitching frog patterns on top.

It's going to be tough to find a compromise rod for largemouth. I replied to your PM with some suggestions, but really if you're going to fish them a lot then I'd say it would pay to get a specialized rod.

The Sage bass rods really aren't what many think they are. They aren't an attempt to create a better bass fishing fly rod, they exist simply to provide a rod that complies with the rod length requirements for BASS-sanctioned tournament fishing. These rods are a bad choice for non tournament anglers because they are too short.

Grouse