Lake Fly fishing

Question
Dear Gary,
      I live on a small 66 acre lake in northern Jersey. There are Largemouth, Chain pickerel, and panfish of all sorts. i am often discouraged to flyfish it because no one on TV is ever flyfishing a lake for bass. How do you suggest i catch big bass, Pickerel, and panfish (When,What,Where)
Thanks, Sam

Answer
Sam,
Great question, there are a lot of opportunities for flyfishing lakes.

I would try setting up with floating and sinking lines to give you some flexibility in finding what depth the fish are at. For panfish, I would try an assortment of dry flies such as ants, hoppers, and poppers. For Bass and other fish, try Wooly Worms, Wooly Buggers, Clousers, Minnows, and Leach imitations. Here is a link to the Orvis website where you can view patterns by species of fish you're after just copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.orvis.com/store/shop.aspx?dir_id=1236&shop_id=1447

One of the keys will be water temperature. Judging by the weather, it looks like you are still fairly cold there. Fish will not be as active until the water temp reaches 60 degrees and up.  

I hope this helps,

Gary