These factors contribute to diminishing their selectiveness. If you buy your flies over the counter look for Lefty s deceivers, Clouser minnows, or Popovic s surf candies in olive and white with silver or green krystal flash or flashabou tied in. If you tie your own you will find that the sand eel is a very easy silhouette to imitate simply because it is long and thin. Here are some hints on four effective patterns that have worked well for us over the past several seasons. This fly is effective during the day when the fish are hanging deeper in the water column.
Sand eels feed on copepods which are zooplankton.
During the day these copepods are found lower in the water column and not near the surface. This is in direct response to a toxin that is produced by phytoplankton during photosynthesis. The phytoplankton will be found on the surface as close as possible to the available sunlight. Since the zooplankton migrate downward during the daylight feeding sand eels will do the same. As a result this is where the bass will be looking for them.