Category Archives: Fly Tying

If your Mom’s throw rug was made of Golden Bird of Paradise would you steal it?

The mailman is starting to back away so I should cool my ardor a bit. Little padded envelopes keep showing up at my doorstep from Bernice, Julie, Deborah, Nancy, and Janice – and while I was hoping he’d think I was part of a Columbian cartel – the gals keep perfuming the packages.

One look at my gut precludes there being a romantic angle, and I’m afraid the last perfumed kilo gave me away.

It’s knitting yarn.

The shrinks would have a field day dealing with fly tiers, there’s 240 crayfish in a single skein of Bernat boa, but how many skeins will be needed over a lifetime?

… and is that just my lifetime, or do I need to include my brother, his buddy, my fly-less fishing buddies and their friends as well?

Hoarding is the equivalent of gathering up a mound of sand on the beach and if anyone looks perplexed, just point and exclaim, “this is infinite sand grains, exactly.”

It’s why your math teacher didn’t give you credit if you didn’t show your work – as both math aficionados and psychiatrists love to pore over your hoard-reasoning, similar to siphoning a trout’s gut to see what he ate – only mental.

Each of us has a imprecise system of amassing feather dander, because we’ve been caught short multiple times on common-turned-rare materials. These being the halcyon days of fly tying – with real materials from real animals, and as each one is pressured into oblivion based on its fur, taste, habitat, or simply steel belted radials – we wish we’d had the foresight to stock up.

Yea, you’re right – it’s never going to happen to you.

What funny is we’re still in the 80-20 phase, 80% of the materials we use for flies are natural, 20% are synthetic – and a couple generations from now that may be drastically changed. Will subsequent tyers hoard synthetics as we do vanishing species? I think so, partly due to the packrat nature of the hobby, and partly due to the lure of “better” – as originals are always better than substitutes.

For every tyer that used Swan for his Royal Coachman, there was an old guy looking askance at some younger tyer’s work, exclaiming, “.. close, but it won’t work as good as Swan, too stiff…”

Now I’m salting away skeins of synthetics – snapping up colors that says “crayfish” to me – while the rest of you shake your head in wonderment. Flamingo, Phoenix, Cardinal, or Hawk, may yield a better fly and none of these colors are currently being made. That’s no surprise as what’s fashionable is over in the blink of an eye, then it’s “last year’s” model – like bell bottoms or double knits.

Synthetics, especially those from the fashion industry, may have a shorter production life than natural materials, and we may have to purchase them accordingly to ensure a steady supply.

Better yet, do I hoard what I can find, then sell pinches for exorbitant amounts, akin to Polar Bear, Baby Seal, or Golden Bird of Paradise? You never thought “Aunt Lydia’s Rug Yarn” would be on par with Blue Chatterer – and will you be man enough to abscond with your parent’s bathroom throw rug when you discover its value?

Old guys learn to accumulate, young learn the hard way by missing the boat and wishing it were otherwise. Genius can lie in pawing through some box of forgotten treasure, searching for Puce rabbit and finding a pound of something no longer available – sparking the creative process.

Somewhere between the moths getting it all and your kids tossing it after your demise, these flights of fancy will yield umpteen flies any of which could be the next Light Cahill, Adams, or Pheasant Tail nymph.

It's a fast tie - is it the next Tup's Indispensable?

Amassing all this is just one of many excessive habits, justifying the drawer space consumed requires imagination and immersion, ferreting out the obvious and unexpected uses in an orgy of creativity.

With 500 yards of Dark Olive Ultra chenille, and 1000 yards of perfumed Mallard Bernat Boa, something that fish eat should result. It may not be the next Zug Bug, but it’s the fastest stonefly nymph I’ve tied. A couple of whacks of the scissor to shorten the top fibers into wingcases, a couple cuts to clean the bottom of fiber and you’re done…

It’s knitting yarn, a synthetic hackle, a Matuka streamer wing, a rabbit strip imitation, and a nymph style … so far … and it’s in short supply.

Stalking the elusive Ultra Chenille, it’s Vernille in the Wild

I figure it’s a cross between Euell Gibbons and Basil Rathbone, a mixture of natural curiosity and dogged determinism; a personal quest, my ongoing War Against Six Dollar Items, where I delight in finding products “in the wild” – unfettered by middlemen, fly shops, and their obligatory markup..

I’ve been chasing down Ultra Chenille (Vernille, Velvet Chenille, Suede chenille) for almost a year. I thought I had it when I discovered a manufacturer in Turkey,  instead it was an interesting crop of fibers and yarns, all cheap as dirt and as yet undiscovered.

The good stuff, and it's cheap as dirt

Ultra chenille is a great material, tough as nails, low buildup, and has a variety of uses from traditional chenille flies to the nouveau dressings unique to the product.

At $2 for 9 feet, it’s also pricey.

I’d toss the old rayon stuff if the price was low enough to replace it – mainly because ultra chenille wears better and doesn’t come apart in your fingers if spun in the wrong direction. The fibers being so much shorter – it doesn’t mat or bleed, especially after the flies have been fished.

Tie is the blue strand, fly shop stuff is the flesh colored strand This fiber is made by a manufacturer called “Silk City Fibers” located back East, and is marketed under the “Tie” name, to distinguish it from the myriad of other yarns they make. It’s neither suede, rayon, or cotton, rather a synthetic nylon called “Polyamide.”

Acid dyes will dye nylon just fine – allowing the possibility of scoring a 2000 yard cone of white and making whatever color you fancy.

Chenille and yarn follow a number of sizing conventions and the “YPP” convention is commonplace. “YPP” is Yards Per Pound, and the higher the number the smaller the diameter of the material.

“Tie” is a 3800 YPP fiber which is about 15% smaller than the size sold in the fly shop. Also good, because we can use it on smaller hooks without making the fly too bulky – and it’s likely available in a variety of sizes – something else that’s missing from the fly shop selection.

100 yards in a neat little bundle for only five bucks A cone of ultra chenille is $90 from a reseller – and while only a commercial tyer will get excited – searching on eBay yields a vendor with 14 of the 16 colors available from the factory.

50g skeins for $5 is a steal, and she has plenty.

The top picture is her color selection, and contacting the vendor directly will score you enough of “the good stuff” to make it worth your while.

The smaller size is especially useful, as it’s diameter is small enough to make trout flies – expanding your use beyond  traditional steelhead flies and streamers.

The War Against Six Dollars Items continues, with you folks the beneficiary.

Matte finish faceted beads, so you can torment all your pals when they produce the store-bought flavor

I keep a small supply of the taper-drilled beads on hand for special circumstances, but the metal beads I use on flies are all from bead stores.

At $2.75 per 25, all I’m doing is adding another dime to a tree limb, and being a cheap SOB, that goes against the grain.

There are positives and negatives with the “bead store” product; they’re available in a bewildering assortment of shapes, colors, and metals, and they’re about 1/5 the price of your local fly shop. The downside is the holes are small, and for certain shapes of hook bend, just can’t slide over the sharp turns.

Model perfect bends are the exception, but Sproat and Limerick are chancy at best.

I just got an order of specialty beads from Beadaholique.com, with a matte finish that includes a faceted sparkle. It reduces the shine of the traditional beads and adds a sparkle that looks especially good.

I’ve often heard complaints from anglers who under bright conditions thought traditional bead head flies “too shiny” – and if you’re one of those fellows, you may want to eyeball the “matte” flavor.

 

Indoor Indirect Light

The facets give off a sparkle very much like seal fur in dubbing – a whitish wink of light that really looks attractive next to the dull matte finish. They’re available only in Gunmetal and Copper colors, 4mm size. The interior hole is 2mm, which is the minimum size you want to order (smaller holes can only fit 16-20 hooks.)

Next to the faceted beads are traditional 5mm copper beads from the same source – the holes on the 5mm look to be about 2.5-3mm, suitable for larger flies like stonefly nymphs, streamers, and the like.

For jewelry beads these are on the expensive side; the faceted bead is $3.99 per 144 beads, and the plain copper 5mm is $3.33 per 144, I’m assuming it’s the price of copper that makes these a dab more expensive than normal – usually I pay about $11.00 – $14.00 per thousand beads.

 

Outdoor Direct Light 

From the above outdoor photo you can see the additional glare off the traditional smooth bead, and how the matte finish is absent that extra gleam.

I can’t wait to give these a try – as I find myself using beaded flies much more often than I used to – it’s often the easiest way to weight them and you don’t need seventeen split shot to get them to hug the bottom in fast water.

Be cautious on your first order, you may be using a hook style that prevents their use. I use mostly Togen hooks that are unforged – that allows me to grab the point area with a pair of pliers and move it the 5-6 degrees necessary for the bead to pass the sproat “kink” portion. I would not try this on traditional forged hooks (those whose wire is flattened on the hook bend) – only round wire hooks can be deformed and returned to their original shape without inducing too much weakness.

It’s fast, durable, light sensitive, and fish love them

It’s more of a preoccupation with efficiency, cheap materials, fast tying, and desirable physics.

Fast sinking flies allow me to cast at the target, and with low water and the increase in algae – it usually means I’m dragging less debris when the fly enters the “eat” zone. “Keeling” the fly so the point rides upwards gives me a slim chance at avoiding the bottom – giving the fly the ability to make contact without being hung or gathering debris and increasing the size of the fly.

 

Me, I just like the color. It’s consistent with my preference for blended dubbing – with multiple component colors present to present fish whatever color he likes best. These are 10/0 Mauve beads with an oily iridescent sheen, presenting multiple colors to a hungry fish, and hopefully inducing him to grab.

I was using these much of yesterday – one of those flies you can tie two dozen an hour; perfect for gifting pals and aggressive casting, where adorning a tree branch means you’re dry eyed and vengeful.

 

I call them “Jelly Bellies” as they’ve got that squishy-translucent, worm look to them. It’s a nice searching pattern with plenty of color – and reacts differently to direct sunlight or indirect lighting. The photo at top is indirect indoor lights, and the above is direct sunlight, note the pronounced rose tint to the glass. The foreground three are tied with a few fibers of aurora blaze Angelina over the top, adding some flash akin to Gary Lafontaine’s Sparkle Pupa.

You could go the “green” route and claim they’re lead free, or please your PETA buddies because everything on the fly is synthetic, but the real value is banging out 3-4 dozen while watching listening to the pundits describe the earthbound spiral of your retirement fund.

I scored these at Joann’s Fabrics, about a buck for a lifetime supply, and trout love them.

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Kinda Flies, half what you started to make, half what was laying close by

Sure I went fishing, but it wasn’t for very long. My fly box is showing the ravages of a lot of fishing, after a couple extended trips, visits by kinfolk, and overly aggressive casting, it’s looking mighty grim.

Everything with weight is gone, and I’m limited to #18 wet or #18 dry, and neither is appealing.

Respectable types –  pillars of the community with jobs, wives, and responsibilities, would’ve mowed the lawn or taken out the trash – hoping to fight again another day; instead, I sat the vise within visual range of the NFL – and tied weighty monstrosities whilst watching my beloved 49’er’s get crushed again. It’s fishing with pigskin – optimism abounds until the opening kickoff, then reality asserts itself.

I’m out of black, brown, olive, and gray flies, all the medium sizes and all the fast sinking stuff; what wasn’t left on the bottom of the Upper Sacramento is dangling off a tree branch on the Little Stinking. I’ll retrieve most of them this winter – once the leaves are shed and I can see them plainly.

I tie flies like a kid that can’t stay between the lines with his crayon. I start with noble intentions, knowing the color and size needed usually suggests a pattern, but half the materials require me to get up and find them – so I’ll use whatever is scattered across the work surface from the last thing I tied.

I’d like to think it was economy of motion, but it’s mostly sloth.

I call them “Kinda” flies – it’s Kinda a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear, only it has a cigarette butt for a tail.

It’s not “invention” that’s too strong a word to reward laziness, it’s more of a culmination of fishing experience where the right size and color proves worthy, and all the knotted legs and carapaces are for those with too much money or time.

That’s a baker’s dozen of Little Stinking Olives – the box that goes in the other pocket, safe from prying eyes and grabby mitts. That much pure Smallmouth Domination has never graced my vest, and I’m likely to get mobbed as soon as I step into the brown water.

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Decrease your dependence on offshore hooks, it’s all the rage

The Singlebarbed Carp flavor You’d think there’d be more fly fishermen given a child’s glee at throwing pennies in fountains. That early lesson may have given you the yen to throw quarters and dollar bills with every cast.

Fly tiers throw quarters – with little remorse for the other fellow who’s buying flies; we’re not certain he isn’t paying less than we do, what with our gargantuan collection of moth food, decaying flesh, and the angry spouse that comes with that turf.

As is Singlebarbed practice, we eat what we preach – and while a gear review might trigger a salivary response, reviewing all that flowery prose a season later is always more informative than first blush.

A practice conspicuously absent in our industry..

The demise of the Partridge hook company (assimilated by Mustad) marked the end of hook variety, as small hook makers would risk a limited run of specialty hooks; akin to Keith Fulsher’s Thunder Creek Streamer hook, (6X long, ring eye), the Carrie Steven’s streamer hook, (10X long, heavy wire), the Partridge Bartleet single salmon hook, and oddities – like the Yorkshire Flybody hook.

In an economic downturn, what sells is stocked – and variety suffers. As only the largest makers remain, and we’re gripped in the bosom of economic upheaval, expect plenty of standard dry and nymph wire, and damn little else.

I’ve been looking for alternative vendors for some time, as many are overseas, and hampered by a declining dollar, the search has been largely fruitless. Competition fly fishing is adding some variety to the mix; kirbed and/or barbless hooks – but most are in the same vein – standard dry and nymph wire – with a Czech variant thrown in due to recent popularity.

I’m stymied. The variety we’ve seen in the past two or three decades has largely vanished.

Unhappy with the traditional favorites due to their spiraling cost, this season I switched to Togen hooks ( of Togen Enterprises, Canada ) for my traditional flies. They’d made a favorable impression on the first blush – and are available at significant discount compared to the normal fly shop fare.

They look identical to the Tiemco/Gamakatsu/Daiichi fodder, boast the same chemical sharpness, cost about a third of normal, and fish extremely well. I would describe their cosmetic blemish rate as slightly higher than Tiemco or Daiichi, but blemishes aren’t defects – and the hook is unaffected.

The points are nearly bulletproof, and with a lot of rock hopping, heavy water split shot use – and the inevitable rock snags that result – I’ve failed to bend or break any of them. None were prematurely dismembered due to barb pinching, and only their Scud hook will crack the barb (suggesting forging) – versus the traditional soft-mash-to-flat of the unforged hook.

Searching for a heavy wire hook for Carp has been largely fruitless, so the Togen Scud hook; heavy wire, forged bend, kirbed (offset) shank, is my default for Carp and Bass flies.

Kirbed hooks have never enjoyed much popularity with fly anglers, but that’s all changing. Competition hooks are reintroducing Kirbed shanks as a means of increasing hook gape (the distance between shank and point) – due to the increased bulk of heavily weighted Czech nymphs.

The Togen Scud has a fine offset (kirb) of about 6-8 degrees, not enough to notice when tying the fly (requiring you to reposition the vice head).

Togen is most accommodating in their sales – covering both the casual and professional tier. Lots of 1000 can include different sizes and hook styles to qualify for reduced price. $68 dollars per mixed lot of 1000 (traditional trout styles only), and that decreases to $58 for 1000 hooks of a single size and style.

Considering that Tiemco hooks after taxes can range to nearly $18 per 100, you get 1000 hooks for the price of 3 boxes of the traditional fare. Pretty darned compelling, you’re throwing dimes versus quarters, and every little bit helps.

Togen lacks the variety available from major manufacturers, but I’m finding that variety is lacking in many of the largest fly shops, which are stocking the traditional Tiemco 100 / 3769 stuff in quantity – and very little else.

I like taking my business to an agile “little guy” – rewarding that customer focus and entrepreneurial spirit that’s also vanishing with each small shop closed.

Good hooks, great price, and I can’t imagine you not being happy at the outcome.

Their water is icy and their gals are chaste

I had my three days of Grace, wherein we tiptoed through the clean water, drank coffee with our pinkie extended, showered regular, and didn’t wipe our nose on our sleeve.

It wasn’t enough to weaken us measurably – complying with all those societal norms, but once our feet hit the brown water, we were back to Schlock and Chaw, throwing off the yolk of the Oppressor.

We’re in the Jungle – eating rat meat, growing stronger ..

I missed the party; Popov Vodka, Basic Cigarettes, and some lass minus all her clothes – it’s one of the tribulations of fishing brown water – all them young impressionable dames throwing up themselves at portly, balding fly fishermen.

Blueliners don’t enjoy such luxury as their water is icy and their gals is chaste.

I discarded the Marquis of Queensbury rulebook on my arrival, none of this dry-fly-upstream, respect your fellow angler stuff, when last here we’d discovered the Little Stinking Olive – and the watershed was recoiling in terror. 

Verify and refine – the pattern is absolute death on Smallmouth, and is typical of fly fishing; you start out looking for a Carp fly and wind up with something Bass can’t resist.

The creek is on the mend and the water has risen about six inches, mighty welcome to get some flow back, but it means the fish will be repositioning themselves and I’ll have to find them again.

I’d managed to tie four of these Crayfish patterns – without modification other than more lead, boosting the “keel” to 15 turns of 1 Amp fuse wire – looking to increase the sinkrate enough to be effective in 4 feet of water.

Old Nondescript’s Hole beckoned as I trudged past – and I stopped to take the maiden pull off my Hydration Pack, finding it tasting like someone had strained water through Pampers. Yecch. It was cold and wet – and not much else you could say in polite company. Waist deep in heavy metal and selenium, and suckling off Poly-Vinyl Chloride.

I’m a poster child for industrial solvents, likely to earn a brass plaque over some Porta-Potty …

 

The first fish was four inches, he’d clamped down on the fly and tangled up with the Boa fiber – the next was eight inches, the third cast yielded the above pound-and-a-half fish, and the fourth cast broke off clean in the mouth of Old Nondescript hisself..

… either that or a relative, a swirl the size of a bath-tub and he catches me using 5X. Mea Culpa.

The Togen Scud hooks work fabulous – weighted at the crest of the bend to flop the hook over so the fly rides point-up, avoiding the algae and bramble of the bottom.

This weekend I’ll fiddle with alternate colors – as the Mallard is no longer made – and I’ve split what I found with my Brownline brethren at Roughfisherman’s Journal. It’s a weighty responsibility, as it appears the complete eradication of Smallmouth Bass is within reason, and I don’t want the South to rise again in anger..

Them fellows take their bass seriously, and guns is always close to hand.

Me and the four Horsemen of the Little Stinking

I knew the weatherman was lying when the ATV crowd left at 8:30AM. It was supposed to be in mid-90’s, and I’d bypassed all the close fishing in favor of a trek to the clean water upstream.

A pocketful of experimental flies and the desire to observe the hookup had me three miles up the creek, sans paddle, and today she was the Little Stinking Frying Pan of Doom, accompanied by the other three Horsemen; humidity, rank decay, and the Reflective Pea Gravel of Searing Death.

I’ve got a liter of water, a pack of cheap cigars, and am on a mission from Izaak Walton..

At mile three I stopped and eyeballed the Big Bass stretch; in past weeks I’d sworn off this spot as the Carp are always in patrol mode. They’ll swim close by to lure you into sight casting, but never responded to anything I’ve thrown at them.

So I hunker down behind a screen of brush, and can see the tell-tale bubble stream of feeding fish, but there’s 30 feet of brush between me and the quarry.

Frustration is a powerful stimulant, and I’m addicted.

The fly made it to the water, but the path it took was torturous, like hanging Christmas tree lights around hedges, smooth curves don’t exist, and the line is draped over whatever’s tallest. I figured a half dozen casts before moving further upriver, and the last cast is on an intercept for a pod of three siphoning fish. I’d tried the flesh colored fly earlier and had an Ocher San Juan Worm swinging into their path. I couldn’t see any visible reaction from the fish – but the Nymph Tip started moving upstream and I set the hook.

I didn’t have to fear the fly line as it came up off the ground, but the five tree branches I was connected to enroute to the water was a bit troublesome. The extra resistance likely pulled the hook free – but as the fish went by, the line was headed for it’s mouth, rather than it’s arse, so I figured it was a clean take.

Sweet. Now I just have to lug in a Weed Eater to clear the bank debris and I’ll be all set.

 

The third digit in the temperature is making itself felt – and optimism has added visions of Sugarplums to the heat waves dancing off the rocks. I continued upriver to the deep stretch, only to find the fish hanging in the deep pool rather than feeding. They were smarter than me, hanging in the coolest part of the hole and avoiding direct sunlight.

Which is sounding plenty good to me by this point, and I start heading back to the car.

Shade is only available in a couple spots, and I plan my exodus around them – stopping to cool down and guzzle water rather than a forced march.

 

I still hadn’t tried my boa crayfish, and while enjoying a Brownliner lunch; a cheap cigar and bottled water, I knotted it on to test the construction. It’s made of the Mallard Bernat Boa fringe and a pair of rubberlegs for adornment, and it’s light, aerodynamic, and a pretty stark contrast to traditional bulky crayfish patterns.

Tied on a Togen Scud hook, and weighted to “keel” – flip over and ride upside down – avoiding the moss and bottom debris from accumulating on the hook – a problem noticed with the San Juan Worm. The real crustacean is available to the Carp, and Bass like crayfish – so I assumed it would be a good dual purpose fly.

I eased out of the protective shade and slammed the fly into the water to sink it – it had a medium sink rate (10 turns of 1 amp fuse wire) and looked really good when you yanked on it. A pair of “claws” off the tail area are simple trimmed from the fringe, and trail nicely behind the fly when motion is added.

I tossed it onto the far bank and drug it into the water – it didn’t even get damp before the line twitched and a smallmouth grabbed it. I released him and tossed the line further down – and it came right back at me with a big Smallmouth attached – jumping a half dozen times and heading off downriver despite my best efforts.

 

Three casts yielded three fish, and the fourth cast planted it firmly in a tree branch on the far side, which was appropriate as no fisherman should wield that much raw power..

It’s a really functional fly, the material is tough and resilient, resists fish damage, and is light even when waterlogged – allowing the luxury of using it on lighter rods, and lighter lines.

The natural twist of the fringe and it’s supporting braid allows the “claws” to flop around like marabou, yet everything tucks into an aerodynamic shape when yanked – just like a real crayfish.

Bernat makes a vibrant orange color called “Tweety Bird” that I’d like to try for the red crayfish. It’ll darken a couple shades when wet, and the brown water will darken it yet again, making it a good change up if the  Crayfish are the brighter coloration. The Little Stinking has both colors, but all of the live samples I’ve seen are the bluish Olive. I tied one other in the Peacock color, mixed olive and turquoise, but didn’t have a chance to try it.

Next weekend is a blueline pilgrimage, but I’ll have more than a single prototype in the box for the week following, you can be sure.

… Little Stinking Olive – has a nice ring to it, making all them trout fishermen think it’s some variant of a mayfly. Deceit rules.

You start with deductive reasoning, when that fails – you’re getting close to a solution

Logic and fishing is an uncomfortable pairing in the same sentence, but it gives you someplace to start.

I need a small olive clam whose shell is about the size of the nail on your index finger, light enough to cast with a #5 line, heavy enough to sink to the bottom quickly, resembles a clam in profile (loosely) – and has some small motion if lifted and moved.

Clams aren’t known for hopping away from your Linguini, so motion may not be a realistic factor. I’d like to have something move should I lift the fly out of the mud in front of a siphoning Carp, possibly drawing attention to the morsel.

The fly needs to be small (no larger than a #10) and drab, and the clam shell shouldn’t hinder hooking if possible.

The first that satisfies ALL of my requirements

Those are the requirements – and I’ve been mulling over solutions all week. I’m aiming to return to the feeding Carp I found on the Little Stinking, with a half dozen prototypes. Solving riddles is always a slow evolutionary process, and I don’t expect to be rewarded – at best I’m thinking I might eliminate some of the variables.

I’m an impressionist fly tier, convinced that knotted legs and precise imitation catch fishermen and not fish, and that credo imbues all the flies I invent. *

I’m leaning towards Prototype #19 (pictured above) – which uses the Bernat Boa fringe to give me an Olive cone shape that hides a 4mm gunmetal bead. The bead sinks the fly and prevents the yarn from altering it’s cone shape – keeping it flared and simulating the desired profile.

Both John Paul Lipton and John Montana put great store in the San Juan Worm, and Roughfisher’s “Clam Before the Storm” uses a similar “San Juan” style of fleshy foot – so I added that to give it a bit of movement.

With a three day weekend on the horizon this’ll give me a chance to start discarding what doesn’t work – and get me closer to what might.

* Invent = I’ve never tied it, I’ve never seen anyone tie it, it hasn’t appeared in any book, periodical, or magazine – but that doesn’t mean some fellow 100 years ago didn’t tie it first.

Catch me next, the Roughfisher’s creation brings the fish to heel

He tried to tell me but I wouldn’t listen, now I’m sitting here with a pleasant glow trying to put the proper spin on things.

A pal says, “go here, use this, you’ll kill ’em” – but we’ve heard that so many times it’s brushed off without conscious effort. Then all other options fail – we heed the advice, and we kill them.

Knowing of the impending confession, most anglers would choose to save face, “well, the spot was good, but then I noticed the post-coital phase starting to pop, so I used my …. and I kilt ’em.”

Us guys that fish the “stink water” have lost all self respect and much of our ego – so we cut to the chase and give credit where credit’s due.

Jean Paul Lipton of the Roughfisher’s Journal has created a monstrosity and should be punished. He calls it the X-Factor nymph, and claims it’s hell on Carp, I can’t vouch for the Carp bit, but it removed the thin veneer of selectivity from the fish I flung it at – and reduced them to primal eating machines.

It was traditional laziness at its best; I’d resolved to take the long trek up the Little Stinking to see what the sustained low water had done to the holes a couple miles upstream. I had time to putter and remembered Jean Paul admonishing me to try this bug.

As it is with every fly I lacked half of the materials, and improvised with what was laying around loose; copper Angelina instead of brown antron, varigated orange legs instead of clear, rust marabou for a tail, and copper wire rather than red. I banged out four #8’s – because they were closer than the #10’s, and tucked them in the vest.

Sunday morning was perfect, including a light breeze which would take us below the 100 degree mark for the first time this week. I was without drinking water however, thinking I still had some from Saturday and discovered both containers empty about a mile above the car.

I stopped at Old Nondescript’s hole and saw the beaver had restored his dam – giving that stretch an additional foot of water. It was a good place to start – the water was clear, 18″ deep, and I could see the nursery pods of Pikeminnow on the far bank.

I sidearmed the bug under the branches were Old Nondescript used to live and had a smallmouth on the line after the first yank. Figuring it was beginner’s luck I skipped the fly under the brush a second time, it didn’t have time to get damp before a larger bass came out of the water swearing.

I saw a swirl in the channel and laid the bug in above, and a 14″ Pikeminnow ate it, followed by four more bass, 5 sunfish, and a half dozen similar sized fast movers..

Gluttons, every one.

I moved up to the Big Bass Stretch and it was down low enough to wade, losing half its depth since the last time I’d visited. Two enormous carp were patrolling in circles, both would go 12 -15 lbs.

At this juncture I’ve landed about 20 nice fish, and could do no wrong. Merely dipping the fly into the water should have the fish rolling on the surface with little white flags.

The Carp are headed my way again, so I lay out a cast onto the clay of the far bank where it can’t make a splash. I tug it into the water so it can start to sink to the same level, and the tip of the floating line twitches.

A big bass will flare its gills to inhale a fly – just enough movement to show a twitch of the line tip – or disturb an indicator, but it won’t register on your fingers as the hook hasn’t contacted meat yet.

I set the hook on a 3lb smallmouth who streaked out from the bank and “T-boned” the incoming Carp right in the side. The Bass went south, the Carp went North and I’m laughing while trying to stay connected to the fish. I’d wind up with a leg full of water for my fun, and it was worth it.

Smallmouth bass are quickly surpassing trout as my favorite gamefish, they can be ornery, but they compete favorably with trout on every level, including aerial display.  Trout have tall pines and the Sierra’s in their favor, but Bass have the “Pumpkinseed” shape, and when you apply pressure to turn them, they shrug off your feeble flyrod with impunity.

I got “T-Bone” to pose briefly above, I never did see the Carp again, it’s likely they were still running for their lives.

Now all I have to do is figure some way to apologize to JP for butchering his creation.