Fishing a small water can throw up many a situation where adapting to the conditions is key – And sometimes that means fishing the bung. It’s a method which is widely used and offers some extremely exciting sport when the fish favour a static fished fly – It’s an ideal method for fishing buzzers, and more recently, in fact, lures, suspended at the optimum depth.
The only way to describe ‘the bung’ is as a float, a strike indicator. It’s designed to suspend a single or team of flies at a certain depth, allowing your fly to fish in the taking zone longer than when using a conventional sinking fly line. As is everything in fly fishing, the bung has it’s days and is extremely effective and often un-matchable when the fish switch onto it.
There are many types of bungs on the market with the most popular three being the Fish Pimp Indicators, Fulling Mill Foam Bung and the Yarn Strike Indicators.
Here are our top 5 tips on how to fish the bung!
- It may sound silly, but ensure you have an extremely buoyant indicator that’s capable of suspending your intended flies. There’s nothing worse than finding out your bung sinks under the weight of the flies beneath. The higher the indicator rides on the surface, the more visible it will be.
- Have a selection of colours – black, orange, yellow and white are by far the best depending on the light. Carrying a range of colours will ensure you’re equipped for varying lights throughout the day.
- Tie the bung as close as you can to your line on either a short dropper or NZ style – this will give you the best bite detection as the whole rig is in contact with the fly beneath.
- This might be a simple one, but don’t cast too far… keeping sight of the bung is essential to hooking the fish, as soon as it dips, you need to strike, if you cast too far you won’t see the subtle takes.
- A Fulling Mill Tapered leader for turnover is absolutely essential. Strike indicators or bungs are hard to cast, they aren’t very aerodynamic, so a steeply tapered leader will aid in presentation as well as turnover.
What flies to fish under the bung?
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