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> > A Peek in the Boxes: Part Two
Oldredbarn has attached these 2 pictures. The message is below.
| Oldredbarn | May 10th, 2013, 8:43 pm | |
 Posts: 2608 | A few years back, Mr. Dry-Fly gave Troutnutters a peek at his "nymph" boxes...This is a trip to the dark side, part 2, the streamer boxes. :) I'm abbout to journey to the "Tip of the Thumb" to Port Austin to hassle spawning small-mouth just prior to heading to Grayling for trout. I think that most of us started chasing, just about everything, other than trout. As kids we fished for Bluegill, Pumpkin Seeds, Bass, and finally figured out how to fool a trout. All these early learned skills served us well as we progress down the road us anglers follow. Here in Michigan we fished small farm ponds, small creeks, from shore, off breakwalls into lake Michigan, or hanging over an old row boat that came with a cabin your parents rented for a summer vacation. In these two boxes: Dennis Collier's " "Gizmo Bugger" & his "Mini-Bunny Bugger", Holschlag Bugger, Whitlock's, "Near Enough Sculpin", Fox Tail Grub (tail tied with rabbit taken from a zonker strip), a few from Jack Gartside (in memorium), his Softhackle Streamer, Sparrows, and the Gurgler, a fly known as the Llama, Foxee Red Clouser, Mixed Media, a variation of Turk's Tarantula, some fancied up Madsen Skunks, Merlino's Hex Sculpin, the Michigan Big Ugly (don't leave home without it!! :), various versions of the "Perch Candy" from Park's fly shop in Gardiner MT, and even a small streamer from our own Eric... Think these will cover 2-3 days of fishing? :) Let's talk tackle...Something I don't do much here, For the bass I'm using a 9' 7wt Loomis I've owned for 20 years. Attached is a Marryat 8.5 reel that I have also owned for 20 some years. I'm trying out a Rio "Outbound" line...The leader is a trip for Mr "Far & Fine"...2' 25lb test Rio FluroFlex, followed by 18" of 20lb, and 2 more feet of 16lb...Pretty complicated, no?! ;) When I asked my friend Mike Schultz at Schultz' Outfitters, "What about tippet?", he laughed and said, "No tippet Spence, rope!" Last years largest small-mouth was 22". Not to mention the occasional pike etc. I have a little wink for Paul & Kurt before I end this post...From Mr Marinaro, "Anyway, there is nothing sacred about tradition if it is a perpetuated mistake." ;) p228 "A Modern Dry-Fly Code". Wish me luck! Spence | |
| "Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively "Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood | ||
| Jmd123 | May 10th, 2013, 10:04 pm | |
 Posts: 2611 | Nice, Spence! Some of those look almost like KBFs... ;oD You are all set to come here and fish - some of those darker Bugger variants are what works at this time of the year in [REDACTED] Pond, including yesterday! I think you'll have a ball. Don't let those big smallies jerk your arm out of it's socket when they hit! Also, be sure to take pictures! My local smallie action is hatches on Cooke Pond. I've thrown streamers around in there on several occasions but never had much in the way of interest. However, caddisfly and mayfly hatches will bring the smallies to the surface and then they're easier to locate and fool. And, the place even has a Hex hatch which really gets those smallies going! Also, speaking of smallies, have you fished the Huron much in the last couple of years? Haven't heard anything from you about it, just curious. Have a great time! When are you leaving? Jonathon | |
| No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere... | ||
| Oldredbarn | May 10th, 2013, 11:18 pm | |
Posts: 2608 | I won't be anywhere near a "pond", redacted, or otherwise...The real hatches, the ones you are missing paddling around on the pond, are happening in the river...View Alex's pic of Henny spinners from the Pigeon he posted to get me geeked on the "Caddis" thread. You have some rockin rivers near you...Why are you not wetting your waders there?Some of those look almost like KBFs They all look like the infamous wooly bugger including your KBF/Comet fly...Like I said, somewhere else...The articulated patterns from Galloup,Russ Madden (Circue Peanut),Chuck Hawkins' Nut Cracker, all owe their pedagree to the Wooly Bugger...Murry's Strymph or Hellgrammite as well...I'm pissed at myself because I can't remember the guys name that gave us the original...My Wings just won in OT forcing a game 7 and I can't even remember my middle name...:) Anyway...You get the point...No matter how we tweak it or get creative on it...Bottom line its hard to beat the wooly bugger if you toss streamers. Even the old Michigan Big Ugly...Wooly Bugger. :) Get your behind to a Michigan stream...ASAP! That's advice from an old man...A river rat. ;) Spence Do you remember Gonzo from Sesame Street? The Little Anarchist? The one blowing everything up...The flies I tied with the bead chain eyes, the Fox Tail Grub I've dubbed the Gonzo Fly...The head of it looks just like Gonzo. :) I'm going to blow up some smallies with it...:) PSS...I guess I will be near a pond...One of the Big Ones...I'll be right on the rim between Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. I'll be having so much fun you will be able to hear me up there in Oscoda!!! Yahoo! :) PSSS Wooly Bugger origins: Russell Blessing, Pennsylvania Fly Tyer as early as 1967 to resemble a hellgrammite, or Dobsonfly nymph,Of course!!! Another one of those Pennsylvania Boys! Should of known...:) | |
| "Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively "Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood | ||
| PaulRoberts | May 11th, 2013, 12:08 am | |
 Posts: 1776 | Nice Spence! Didn't know you dabbled in the dark side anymore. | |
| Oldredbarn | May 11th, 2013, 12:16 am | |
Posts: 2608 | Nice Spence! Didn't know you dabbled in the dark side anymore. Paul...It's a return to childhood. :) Don't they say that when us old farts get older we morph back into little kids? What did you think of the Vinny quote? I put that in there just for you...I thought you might get a kick out of it. Spence | |
| "Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively "Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood | ||
| PaulRoberts | May 11th, 2013, 12:22 am | |
Posts: 1776 | Hey, kid's have most all of the fun. Are you calling me a heathen?! OK, ya got me. | |
| Oldredbarn | May 11th, 2013, 12:56 am | |
Posts: 2608 | No sir...I just thought you and Kurt would understand Vinny's insightfulness...I love the man...Sometimes he nails it. I'm reading his section on fishing small flies and I nearly copied the whole thing and sent it to Tony...Tony loves those small bugs and he seemed to express the fun he was having so well. He talks about fishing the water cress farm that is upstream on the Letort and has the river running through it...He would try and fish it with only little openings of actual water...The rest was mats of plants...He worked out a plan to fight the fish he caught there...He was a youngster playing and you could hear it in his writing... You should of seen Eric and some of the strategies he worked out from years of fishing the Letort and Big Spring...It was fun to watch a guy who had figured it out...Like playing chess...Here are the rules, here are the obsticles...Reminded me of your stories of fishing those little mountain streams... Even as old as we are, we still need to take care of that 10 year old inside us... BTW...The Michigan Big Ugly are the big black monsters in the lower right of the first pic...Lead barbell eyes, wrapped lead along the shank, leech yarn body, schlappen palmered over the leech yarn...Marabou tail...Ouch...A jig not designed to hassle the little ones. :) | |
| "Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively "Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood | ||
| Jmd123 | May 11th, 2013, 9:16 am | |
Posts: 2611 | Been on the Pine three times already, Spence! First two times were just dead, last time on Wednesday the flies and fish were starting to wake up. I'll be hitting this stream hard in the next couple of weeks (and through the rest of the season) and checking out the Rifle (EXCELLENT Light Hendrickson/Red Quill hatches plus numerous caddisflies and early brown stones, etc.) this coming week. I have two locations on each stream to hit (and there's plenty more if I ever get curious enough to check them out), so with [REDACTED] Pond I have five trout fishing spots I can rotate throughout the week! And, hatches will be starting on the pond soon too so I have plenty of hatch-matching opportunities here. But those dark Woollies, right now they are just damned deadly on everything including the trout! Jonathon | |
| No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere... | ||
| Entoman | May 11th, 2013, 11:48 am | |
 Posts: 2604 | Very nice, Spence! Those two rows of little slim buggers on the upper left of the right side of the first box - they would be killer out West on spring creeks and still waters. Are those little red metallic beads on the black ones? Cool... | |
| "It's not that I find fishing so important, it's just that I find all other endeavors of Man equally unimportant... And not nearly as much fun!" Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman | ||
| Oldredbarn | May 11th, 2013, 2:06 pm | |
Posts: 2608 | Kurt. It's interesting you pulled those from the pack. I like to show a bunch of flies to guys and see which ones they feel are fishy. I do it all the time myself...I'm easily distracted by some fly that catches my eye when I should be tying with a purpose. I'm forever behind with the flies I need because of it. :) Those are Dennis Collier's, "Mini-Bunny Bugger". He's from Colorado. Found him on Hans' web site and he has a couple I found interesting. There is a black tungsten bead with a red thread collar. The green one's have the same but with an olive thread collar. I used UTC 70 thread. There are some in there with craft bead heads, like the one I copied from Eric, but they might be covered up. I may have arranged these for the picture and just may have covered up things I might not want to share...I mean totally by accident. :) Are there really any secrets sir, in this age of the Internet? "There is nothing new under the sun." Some tiers like to change a little something and rename the result...Collier, for example, uses rabbit stripped from a zonker strip for the tail, where most would use marabou. Do the fish care? :) That fly will see duty in the Au Sable for sure. Smaller streamers are a bit of the rage these days with the boys in Grayling. Again... Nothing new under the sun. Paul, Kurt, and myself have lived long enough to see a trend come around for the second or third time. :) | |
| "Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively "Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood | ||
| PaulRoberts | May 11th, 2013, 4:32 pm | |
Posts: 1776 | Are there really any secrets sir, in this age of the Internet? "There is nothing new under the sun." Some tiers like to change a little something and rename the result...Collier, for example, uses rabbit stripped from a zonker strip for the tail, where most would use marabou. Do the fish care? :) I can't always answer the last question but... I can say that while Buggers are decent generalist imitators of the larger bottom critters smallies eat, one CAN go further or make something "new under the sun".  This photo goes back a ways. It was digitized from a transparency taken from a color print! :) It says, first, that smallmouth love crayfish, and it also shows a jig I used to tie and fish on UL spinning tackle for smallies and brown trout. It eventually became a fly for fly-fishing. I call it the UltCrayfish and published it in FR&R about a decade ago. Tim England illustrated the directions beautifully, but blew a step, rendering the directions all but useless if you actually wanted to tie the fly. When I mentioned this to Jim Butler, the Ed., he groaned "Noooo!" And seemed more disappointed than I. Guess it's still a secret lol. Good egg he is, Jim. Really liked him. Here's the fly version doing what it does VERY well:  I'll share a few patterns when I get some time this evening. | |
| Jmd123 | May 11th, 2013, 4:58 pm | |
Posts: 2611 | Guys, have any of you ever tied and/or fished an old Whitlock's Crayfish? I never could get the ones I tied to ride hook-up, but man was it realistic. Many years ago, on one I bought in an Orvis shop before I started tying, I caught my first REALLY big bass on a fly rod, in the 19-20" range, in a friend's farm pond. First time I could ever stick my whole fist in a bass's mouth! I haven't tied one in quite some time, but I have seen many somewhat simpler crayfish imitations in the magazines and catalogues over the years. But I still have an old book on fly tying for bass and panfish and it has step-by-step tying photographic instructions for tying that fly. So, when I'm feeling ambitious, I'll have to give it a whack - maybe black bead chain for the eyes, to get them to ride properly hook-up? Jonathon | |
| No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere... | ||
| Oldredbarn | May 11th, 2013, 6:11 pm | |
Posts: 2608 | Jonathon. To get it to ride hook up use lead barbell eyes and tie it on top of hook shank. I don't think bead chain is heavy enough to flip a fly with some material on it. Paul...Boy do I wish I could pick that brain of yours sometime. Is there any fish out there safe from you and your shenanigans?! :) you think like a predator. I pity those fish yet hassled by you. ;) I used to say that the Browns tucked up a bit tighter to the undercut bank when I crossed over into Crawford Co, I think the fish of the world tremble when they hear you are about. | |
| "Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively "Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood | ||
| Entoman | May 11th, 2013, 8:36 pm | |
Posts: 2604 | Here's a great thread where a bunch of us discussed crayfish in some depth. http://www.troutnut.com/topic/5304/crayfish I found Paul's posts particularly informative. I've posted big crayfish patterns before (towards the end of that thread above), but not the little guys on jig hooks. They are much more effective than the big boys in terms of number of hookups. These are for fishing either hi-stick or under a hinged indicator rig in pocket water. The Truckee has an inordinate population of crayfish, so imitating them is quite effective. Especially the babies that are often available in astounding numbers some years. The jig hook facilitates a horizontal presentation. These aren't usually fished with action, but they could be. Similar patterns have been popular there for years, though not on jig hooks. This one goes back at least 20. I'm not aware of anybody preceding this use on the Truckee, but it wouldn't surprise me. Baby Craw Jig #12 Here's another "Jig" fly that's popular for big Eagle Lake trout. My family has been fishing them for many years and making tremendous catches there with them. I first saw the fly when my nephew was tying them for spinning gear. Slung under a bobber about 4 ft. or so they were deadly when a breeze was blowing up a little chop to naturally jig them up and down. I adapted it for fly rod use by tying it on a smaller hook, otherwise it is the identical "fly", if you can call it that...:) Perhaps John (Cutbow) can mention more about it's origins and who came up with the idea, especially to cover the tie-down area with green mylar. I just know it goes back quite a ways. Eagle Lake Leech Jig #12 | |
| "It's not that I find fishing so important, it's just that I find all other endeavors of Man equally unimportant... And not nearly as much fun!" Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman | ||
| PaulRoberts | May 12th, 2013, 10:32 am | |
Posts: 1776 | Spence, are you buttering me up? :) Are the fish safe from you or me? Do they tremble at our vibes? Sadly, no. The Gods are always throwing enough lightning bolts that fish and fishers alike run for cover, reminding us we're all merely mortal after all (sigh). Following are some of my stabs at the benthic macro-critter "problem", so called bc FF's can't solve it by being dainty. Jonathan, all you have to do is add weight to the shank to flip the hook upside down. Lead eyes and/or lead strips tied alongside the shank. Reserving buoyancy and drag to the now-topside of the fly helps too. Weighting is esp important to mimic large benthic critters: crayfish, hellgrammites, sculpin, darters, and some other small stream fishes like dace. These are not components of the drift so the fishing is different -more direct. You are slicing current as much as courting it. Going up in tackle (6-7wt) helps, and with many of these flies you are still "slinging lead". You begin flirting with the edges of the question: “Why am I using fly tackle?” Here are some larger critter flies I came up with for browns and smallies (surprisingly similar fishing), although I've also caught big 'bows, pike and carp on them too while fishing for the others. These are weighted with lead eyes and/or lead strips lashed to either side of the shank. These images are all digitized from transparencies… The first two are of the UltCrayfish, the fly version of the spinning jig. It is simply deadly. Trout and I appear to be speaking the same language when I tie it on:   The UltCrayfish is tied with hair (squirrel or Austalian Possum) which limits the fly size. I tie them on 3xl #10 Mustad's (9671 I think), the largest I could tie them. So for larger craws I had to look elsewhere:  I use poly felt for carapace and yarn for pincers, and I think a #3906B:  Feathers work too of course, esp in slower water, but are more fragile:  I messed around with Swiss Straw but found it too fragile, esp for toothy browns. Also in this image is a Clouser-esgue dace pattern:  This is the UltScuplin. It looks like a sculpin and acts like a sculpin. It swims. The color mismatch here was on the day I discovered the sculpins in this particular clay flour-laced stream were a pale olive. I then tied the UltSculpin in a pale olive too. I often fished this stream at the dividing line where browns petered out (but were big) and the smallies appeared:  The UltSculpin looks much better in the water than on the vice. And it doesn’t look bad in the vice:  | |
| Entoman | May 12th, 2013, 3:15 pm | |
Posts: 2604 | Wow, very nice, Paul!!! Beautifully tied. All would prove deadly on some of my waters. | |
| "It's not that I find fishing so important, it's just that I find all other endeavors of Man equally unimportant... And not nearly as much fun!" Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman | ||
| Jmd123 | May 12th, 2013, 3:17 pm | |
Posts: 2611 | Beautiful flies, Paul! Extremely imitative in all the right ways. How much lead/lead substitute wire do you use on these? BTW I have tried lead wire/substitute in a number of different configurations and use variously-weighted eyes in my flies, almost always on top of the shank. So almost all of the flies I have tied this way DO ride hook-up, however I had much difficulty getting a Whitlock's Crayfish to do so and that's why I eventually gave up tying that pattern...can't lay it down on the bottom and jerk it up without hanging it up - doesn't work too well. I am just wondering if anyone has a fool-proof configuration for this, or if I just wasn't using enough weight? Jonathon | |
| No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere... | ||
| PaulRoberts | May 12th, 2013, 3:51 pm | |
Posts: 1776 | Enough weight on the shank should flip about any fly. Don't know how to answer how much -except to say it's "a lot". For crayfish it's thick lead wire affixed on each side the full length of the shank. Sometimes three strips, one on each side and one across the top (opposite the gap). | |
| Entoman | May 12th, 2013, 5:05 pm | |
Posts: 2604 | We are talking about a few things here that could easily confuse some readers if they don't understand the distinctions: 1. Weight translates into depth, which is the reason for it's application. 2. Orientation has been discussed here with a double meaning - one is whether the fly drifts upright or inverted; the other is whether they fly is drifting vertically or horizontally. Two different aspects treated with different design considerations. 3. The Jig style allows the fly to drift horizontally. This can't be accomplished with a conventional hook that will always hang vertically to some degree if suspended off the bottom, in line with the tippet from which it's hanging. This is true no matter how it's weighted. That's why sinking lines are invaluable at times when using flies on conventional hooks. If a horizontal presentation under little tension is desirable, it's pretty much the only way. Both jigs and conventional hooks will go more or less horizontal under tension. 4. A long shank (2X & longer) hook's tendency is to go upside down with any added weight or too much material trailing underneath. Getting such hooks to fish inverted is easy. It is the opposite that proves difficult. Most fly designers attempt to fight this with material applications in ways that provide re-orienting drag, shank bending, and applying the weight underneath the shank. These are all techniques employed to solve the problem, often with mixed results in actual use. Getting a fly to drift upright that has beads, bead chain or barbell eyes is very problematic, whether on top or slung underneath. Under tension, the best results are often obtained with copious quantities of materials on top trailing back with nothing underneath. The best example of this is the Zonker style. If too much weight is employed though, even these designs often tend to go inverted when the tension goes away. 5. Bead chain or barbell eyes are not usually employed to imitate eyes or just to provide depth (though they do the latter very well). The cool thing about them is they cause interesting things to happen to the water as it flows past the fly. The marabou and other soft materials flutter tantalizingly in the wake. Tie a Clouser with craft fur instead of bucktail for the best example of this. Did that help, or just make things murkier? | |
| "It's not that I find fishing so important, it's just that I find all other endeavors of Man equally unimportant... And not nearly as much fun!" Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman | ||
| PaulRoberts | May 12th, 2013, 5:49 pm | |
Posts: 1776 | For my crayfish, and other macro-critter contraptions, I've always fished them under tension, so the vertical hang issue is non-existent. The jig caught smallie in my first image was caught on spinning gear. | |
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