kyflyfishguy

Been too hot to fish

2011-08-06T11:53:00.001-04:00

Here in Old Kentucky, it's been too hot to do much fishing these past few weeks. With water temperatures in the upper 80's the lakes and streams are more like warm baths than cool and refreshing. My friend, Paul in Oregon says I'm catching pre-cooked fish. I think he may be right.

Last night, it was just a bit cooler with the daytime high only "nearing" 90 instead of being well beyond the mid 90's so I decided to put the SS Pond Scum (my pontoon boat) on top of the van and head to a local lake.

I took both a spinning rod and a fly rod. The fish I caught were both on the spinning rod trolling plastic worms in 25-30 feet of water. As evening neared, I put a popper on the fly rod but only had a few half hearted strikes. It was windy and that may have had something to do with the lack of success.

Here are a couple photos of the fish I caught last night.

These are some random fish I've caught this summer, as you can see, the pickings have been pretty slim. Read more after the break:

Catfish on a Fly Rod

2011-06-02T22:51:00.000-04:00

Yes, you read that right, a catfish on a fly rod. I know a lot of guys catch them on a regular basis, but this spring was the first time I've caught catfish on a fly. 2 catfish in 2 days. Both on a size 12 bead head pheasant tail nymph that I was using to chase bluegill.

Since my last post, I've also caught some trout in my local lake. The state of Kentucky decided to stock some trout on a put and take basis. The water in the summer months is far too warm for trout to survive, but they were fun while they lasted.

I do need to get to the tying bench soon to replace all the flies I lost last summer and this spring. Finding the time to tie flies has been a problem for me this year. Work has been busy and settling down to tie flies has been difficult.

Hope all are catching a bunch of fish this spring.

Jeff

This Ain't Fishing

2011-02-01T11:28:00.001-05:00

This is, unfortunately, the view out of my office window today.

The facts that 1) this is a view out of the office window, and 2) you can see rain, snow, ice, fog and generally miserable weather should be sufficient information to deduce that I'm working and not fishing!:-)

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten up the energy to dig out the vice and tying materials to start tying flies yet. I really need to because, according to the most recent information I have, Springtime will be coming sometime in the next 5 or 6 years.

Given the amount of flies I left to decorate trees all over the US last summer, I really do need to be prepared for such time as spring may really happen.

So, on with the most brutal winter we've had in years. Even though it's pretty bleak outside, Spring will really come in about 8 more weeks and I'll be posting fishing reports once again. All will be right in the universe.

Hope folks are staying warm, dry, and maybe even getting some fishing in.

It's Still Winter!

2011-01-26T20:59:00.001-05:00

Yep, it's still winter. My friend German from Chile sent some photos of one of his recent fishing trips. The fishing report was complete with the required smiling guys holding up HUGE trout, beautiful Chilean Mountains, and the guys sitting around a small picnic table eating lunch stream side.

It was green, it was warm, and it was summer there. Yes, Chile is south of the equator which means as we're looking out our Kentucky windows at a winter wonderland of ice, snow, frozen tundra and freezing our backsides off, German and his buddies are enjoying the height of summer, HUGE trout, and stream side lunches.

German, you, my dear friend, are a cruel man! But, thanks for sending the pictures. Your photos gave me hope that springtime will be here soon and that I can send photos of HUGE fish I will catch this summer (while it's the dead of winter where you live )

Winter's a bummer for fishing

2011-01-18T16:43:00.000-05:00

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted. Sorry.

The fishing is, in a word, lousy. The water conditions here in good old Kentucky are "solid". Unfortunately, it's not solid enough to go ice fishing without taking a very cold bath, but just solid enough to make it impossible to get a fly line through the ice. We finally have some snow melt today but looking at the future of the weather, that won't last long.

COME ON SPRING!

I will be tying a few flies over the coming 6-8 weeks. Mostly to replenish all the ones that I left hanging in trees, under rocks, and wrapped around submerged branches last summer's fishing season. I will be posting some photos and step by step on how I tie.

Like with my blog posts last winter, I'm not going to claim to be "all that" when it comes to fly tying and critique is welcome. The intent here is to make us all better and to tie some flies that are to be used to catch fish more than to be looked at.

I have some ideas on improving on some of last year's patterns and will post the experiments here (good or bad) so you all can look over them, copy if desired, or more likely, laugh!

So, you may ask, what does a fly fisher do in the dead of winter while he can't fish?

Play with electric guitars, what else?

Here's my latest project.

It started life as a standard made in Mexico Fender Strat. I've since added the black 3ply pick guard, upgraded the pick ups to HSS (Humbucker, Single, Single) configuration and the pick ups came from an American Deluxe Fender. I'm upgrading the tuners to US Spec locking tuners, added a switchcraft output jack, and fully shielded & grounded the pickup and control cavities in the body.

For those of you who play guitar, this makes sense. For those who don't play guitar, I'm speaking a foregoing language. Let's just say, all these changes are to make it play and sound better.

Just how fly fishers are always searching for that perfect combination of fly line, reel, rod, tippet and fly, guitar players are always searching for the perfect tone.

So far, I haven't found the perfect tone, but this beast is getting close. The closest I've ever found to that perfect tone is my Martin HD28V acoustic guitar. It's about as close to a perfect sounding bluegrass music guitar as I've ever heard (and I've played with some $30K + guitars).

So, banging away on some classic rock, picking out some bluegrass, and trying to stay warm this winter is about all I've been doing.

Again, keep posted, I'll be updating the blog more this winter.

Jeff

It's been a while

2010-10-16T21:00:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I updated the blog. Real life has gotten in the way.

Daniel and I did get to the Smoky Mountains last week for a few days fishing. I'll post the photos here in a minute.

The weather has been hot and dry all summer here in Kentucky and the fishing has been pretty slow. I caught a bunch of little ones but the fishing was a whole lot better than the catching recently.

In a few weeks, it'll be too cold to do much fishing so I'll start tying flies to replace all the ones that got lost in the trees this summer. I'll start the fly tying series again most likely right after Thanksgiving. I have some ideas for some new flies I want to try so I'll post them here and would like feedback from you guys. My goal in the fly tying series is, as always, not to put myself as some kind of expert but to generate ideas and feedback to make us all better fly tiers.

Follow the jump to see photos from our most recent trip:

Beautiful Fish

2010-08-19T08:59:00.000-04:00

It's August and the weather is still hot; however, the oppressive heat wave has broken. Oh, by the way, today is my loving bride's birthday. I seem to recall her saying something about 29 or something like that. I've lived long enough to not say anything more (although I do think she's just as pretty today today as she was the first time I saw her many years ago and, yes, it was love at first sight) so - Leslie, happy birthday!

Last weekend, I managed to slip out and do some fishing. I went over to Indiana and fished Laughery Creek. Laughery has some smallmouth but I wouldn't call it a major smallie stream. However, it is chock full of some of the most beautiful fish that swim in fresh water - the Longear Sunfish.

So, last weekend, I took Friday off and played hookie from work (oh by the way, yesterday was my 30th anniversary on my job). I loaded up the car and headed off to the great state of Indiana with my trusty Scott G2 3wt (8'4"). No, this isn't an advertisement for Scott rods, I just happen to really like this rod and it's perfect for a stream full of longers.

With the heat and lack of rain over the past couple weeks, the creek was warm and low but Laughery is a very fertile stream. Most of it is limestone bed with sand and gravel bottoms. It flash floods several times a year which keeps too much silt from settling on the bottoms. In other words, a near perfect stream for fishing these little gems.

The only issue with this stream is access. Most of it runs through private property and some landowners are a bit cranky. There are some areas I'd love to fish but it runs through some areas where the landowners would most likely shoot first and ask questions later. Too bad Indiana is one of those states where the landowner actually owns the stream bed. Oh well, access rights, stream bed ownership and ever limited places to fish are issues that I have neither the time nor energy to talk about this morning.

Back to fishing, I do have access to a couple areas on the stream so I hit the water with nymphs, woolie worms, and poppers in hand. Finding a few pools of about waste deep water, I started looking for areas where longears hang out. This sunfish likes slower current and weed beds or some vegitation. Looking toward the middle of the pool where I was standing, I saw a gravel point jutting out into the water and it was covered with some type of weeds sticking up out of the water. Having caught fish off of this gravel bar before, I was pleased to see the spring floods had left it alone.

From this one spot, I managed to bring 8 or 9 longears to hand. Most were small like the ones in these photos.

Some were a bit larger but all were very pretty fish. I do think these guys are some of the prettiest fish that swim in fresh water. I rank them right up with the brook trout.

Moving on upstream a bit, I saw a rocky ledge with a bunch of loose rocks on the floor of the stream. This area was about waist deep but with the low water was still one of the deeper areas. This type of bottom is not where I catch a lot of longears, but the green sunfish seem to like hiding down in the rocks and attacking anything that floats overhead. They did not disappoint.

All in all, it was an enjoyable day out fishing. I didn't have to work (Yea), I got to wade in one of my favorite streams, and I managed to bring about a dozen pretty fish to hand. I was able to sit next to the stream and smoke a fine cigar. Looking back, I can't think of many better ways to spend a Friday afternoon.

Hope you all are catching fish and staying cool.

Summer Heat and Project Healing Waters

2010-07-26T20:37:00.000-04:00

, it's still hot. I went to my favorite local lake last night to see if I could manage to catch a few fish. This lake is about 35 acers and is about 40' deep at the deepest point.

I decided to drop my thermometer in the lake to see the temp. I dropped it about 18" down and left it there for about 10 minutes as I fished. The reading was 88 degrees. That's warm water for darn sure. Needless to say, I didn't catch much.

In fact, all I've caught in the past couple weeks were some bluegill like the one pictured above.

Shifting gears, a couple weeks ago, I saw a request posted on one of the fly fishing forums where a guy was working with Project Healing Waters to take a group of wounded and recovering US Military Vets out fishing. He had a request for help in tying some flies. They are going to go to a freshly stocked stream to increase the chances the guys will catch some fish.

Being that it's really hot and this is a very good cause, I tied up about 3 dozen woolie buggers (in the colors and sizes requested) and some SJ worm soft hackles. Hope the guys catch some fish on the flies.

Being a weatherman in Cincinnati between June and August has to be the easiest job in the universe. Make a recording on June 15th, "Hazy, Hot, Humid, Chance of Afternoon Thunderstorms." and then just play it every day until the end of August. Job well done.

Well, that's all for now. Tight Lines.

Summer Heat

2010-07-06T09:49:00.001-04:00

Wow, it's been hot here recently. Today, I'm sitting in a nice air conditioned office "working". Actually, I'm sitting in a nice cool office looking outside at everything baking in the sun and wishing it was cooler so I would feel like going fishing.

I haven't been fishing in over a week and I'm starting to go stirr crazy. I did head over to my neighborhood lake (35 acres, is that a lake or a big pond?) on Friday afternoon but with it being a holiday weekend, the lake was very crowded.

I can't take my pontoon boat out for a couple more weeks because we loaned our van to my sister-in-law while her car is in the shop. Well, shop isn't quite right, while her husband works on her car (new shocks and new AC compressor). So, I'm relegated to fishing from the shore and with a bunch of holiday picnics going on, the shore of my lake was too crowded to fish.

Not only that, it was 93 degrees on Friday and by the time I got my gear from the basement to the car and headed over to the lake, I was pretty much wet, tired, and hot with little desire to fish.

I just looked at the most recent NOAA update and it's calling for 92 today, 96 tomorrow, 96 Thursday and 80 on Friday with storms coming in. Maybe Thursday before the storms would be good, or Friday assuming there is a lull in the storms. If it really does go from 96 to 80, that big of a cold front will probably put the fish down for a few days. The 10 day forecast is calling for mid 80's next week with some rain expected mid week. Assuming the weather guys are right (and around here, they can pretty accurately predict what happened yesterday and are about 50/50 on what's happening right now with significantly less accuracy by the hour when the predictions go beyond 45 minutes.), the fishing should improve next week and I'll be back to writing fishing reports instead of "wishing I was fishing" reports.

Hope everyone is having some luck fishing and catching.

Summertime Bluegills

2010-06-27T20:30:00.000-04:00

The summer heat and humidity has set into Kentucky. I've been going out in the evenings to hit the local pond for bluegill but while fishing has been fine, catching has been pretty slim.

Like many of you guys, I don't fish necissarily to catch fish. I'm not sure all the reasons I fish but mainly, it's just to get away, talk with God and spend some time on the water forgetting about the stress of my daily life.

Most of the fish I have caught recently are bluegill and not very big ones at that. Bluegill sure do save the day a lot of times when it comes to salvaging a fishing trip or just an evening out. On a 3 or 4 wt rod with some light tippet, they are sure a lot of fun to catch. They all seem to think they are a lot bigger than they really are. They get that flat body sideways in the water and turning them takes a littel more effort than it should for a fish their size.

I guess one could say I do love fishing for bluegill with my fly rod.

Tight lines folks, hope you're catching a bunch of big ones. I hope to get out later this week if the weather breaks and cools off just a bit.

Real Life Set In

2010-06-12T18:00:00.000-04:00

Well guys, sometimes real life set in to mess up our fishing. Earlier this week, my son woke up with a bad stomach ache. After a couple hours, it became obvious this wasn't a run of the mill 24 hour kind of bug so we went to the doctor.

He had appendicitis and had to have his appendix removed. Fortunately, it had not ruptured or perforated, and there were no complications from the surgery. He's fine, just a bit sore, but doing well (playing Halo 3 on his XBox as I type this). The biggest problem we're going to have is keeping him down until he's fully recovered. Doctor said no soccer or tennis for about 4 weeks which is going to be tough to keep him off the field that long. He will be back to fishing with me in 3-4 weeks.

Jeff

Memorial Day weekend in the Smoky Mountains

2010-06-04T14:48:00.001-04:00

What a wonderful time to be in the mountains. Although there were pretty significant crowds, we found the streams pretty much to ourselves. On one hand, I'm amazed at how few people ever get out of their cars when in places like the Smoky's and Yellowstone. On the other hand, I'm kind of glad as when we get 300 yards off the road, we usually have the place all to ourselves.

Here's a little slideshow I put together of our trip:
Slide Show of Smoky Mountain fishing trip

As you can see, we caught some fish, had some good food, and most of all, I got to spend some high quiality time with my son out fishing in the mountains.

Here's a photo of a Smoky Mountain brook trout to leave you with today.

As a parting thought today, take a look at God's perfect camo. This rainbow was in about 8" of crystal clear water and I was looking right at the spot he was hiding. I didn't see him until he rose to take the dry fly that I drivted over his spot. Simply amazing.

Tight lines and I hope folks are out catching a lot of fish.

A few bluegill and bass for your viewing pleasure.

2010-05-25T22:29:00.000-04:00

The summer fishing is starting to get off the ground here in Kentucky. It has turned from spring to summer with temps in the 80's and warm nights. The May full moon is this week and the bluegill are starting to get restless. I think they'll be on the beds soon. They are starting to get some really bright colors.

I haven't caught a lot of big fish but I've been catching a LOT of fish the past few days. They are hitting poppers, streamers, just about anything thrown out. The bass above came on one of the Crease flies I tied up on the blog earlier this year.

Here are some examples of the average type fish we've been catching.

And my favorite lake on a rainy day

That's about it for today. I'll have another trout report (hopefully if we catch any) next week.

Not much fishing recently

2010-05-24T14:38:00.000-04:00

I don't have a lot of fishing news to update. That pesky thing called work has really taken some time away from the important things in life such as fishing.

I did take the SS Pond Scum out for a couple hours yesterday afternoon and caught several nice crappie and bluegill.

Read more after the break

I found a new boat rod too. I had an older Cabela's Traditional Series rod in 8'6" 5wt that I had purchased for dirt cheap when Cabela's was changing over to the Traditional II series. I had honestly never cast the rod. I put the rod tube in my luggage and went on about my business in Yellowstone. We later went to Oregon to spend some time with a good friend and once again, I stuck the rod in my luggage just in case Daniel or I broke a rod or otherwise needed a spare.

A couple weeks back, while working my way through a period of extreme boredom, I strung the new / old Cabela's rod up and took some casts with it.

Even though I have more expensive rods, and much prettier rods, and rods with much higher grade cork grip, I cannot in any way complain about the action or how this rod casts.

In fact, far from complain, I honestly like the way it casts. The action is what I would call medium to medium fast (similar to my Scott G2 rods and my Winston BIIt). I'd call it closer to a "mid-flex) to use Orvis jargon. I have no idea who Cabela's got these blanks from but it's a pretty sweet casting little rod. If you guys ever were to run across one of these rods in the 8'6" 5wt configuration, I'd snap it up if for nothing else a spare.

I mated it to a Ross Cimeron #2 reel and a Rio 5WFF Selective Trout line.

It's a nice well balanced outfit and will serve well as my boat rod. If for some reason it were to take a dive to the bottom of the lake, I'd not be too worried (other than the loss of a really nice Ross reel).

Speaking of dropping things in the water. On my Fishpond Vest, I have a zinger attached to my hemostats. On the PFD vest I use while on the SS Pond Scum, I did not. Last night, I was tying on a new fly and holding it in my hemos. Upon tying off the fly, I let go of the hemos totally forgetting 2 important things:
1) I didn't have them attached to a zinger yet
2) the SS Pond Scum is a personal pontoon and as such, has no floor.

As I watched my hemo's sinking in about 30 feet of water, I thought, good excuse to get a couple new zingers and a new set of hemos.

Well, that's about it for now. Yes, I am writing this from work (don't tell my boss please).

Safe travels, tight lines, and hope you all catch some really big fish this summer.

At least I didn't get skunked

2010-05-11T22:05:00.001-04:00

A cold front blew through here over the weekend dropping outside air temps by about 25 degrees. This really put the fish down. My guess is it will still be a few days before they stop sulking at the bottom of the lake. All the streams are blown out from the rain and more rain is on the way. Stream fishing is out until the weekend at the absolute earliest and maybe longer if the significant rain being predected actually happens on Thursday and Friday.

Tonight's fishing started out kind of slow. After about an hour, I caught this little bass. Yes, that is a small Rapala in it's mouth and yes, the lure was almost as large as the fish. He thought he was a lot bigger than he really was. I'm guessing a young of the year bass. He was returned to the water unharmed. I hope he grows up to be a very large bass I get to catch in a couple years.

I did catch a couple nicer ones along about dark.

Even though the wind was blowing hard, I found a protected spot below the dam where the high bank offered a little relief from the wind and was casting along the rocks with a Rapala.

None of the fish I caught tonight were exceptional other than I caught about 7 or 8 fish this evening and wasn't really expecting to catch any.

Before the front blew through, I took the SS Pond Scum out for an evening of chasing bluegill with poppers.

There's nothing to gauge the size of this green sunfish, but I couldn't get my hand around it very easily. I didn't have an anchor dropped and he took me for a nice little ride around the cove I was fishing.

I caught several nice bluegill and one crappie on poppers that evening using poppers and woolie worms.

I am getting more used to the boat and am really enjoying fishing from it. I do need to get a lanyard to hold my camera so I don't drop it in the lake. It is waterproof but that's not going to do me a lot of good if I drop it in 20' of water.

Hope none of you all got any storm damage last week.

Good fishing and tight lines!

Jeff

Some fish from last week

2010-05-05T22:20:00.000-04:00

I've been hitting the water a lot the past few weeks averaging about 5 evenings per week. I really enjoy fishing this time of year before it gets too hot. I had the pontoon out a couple times and am still working on customizing it for my needs. I did get a trolling motor for it (A MinKota 30lb thrust). The little motor pushes the pontoon very well. At speed 5, it really scoots. I mainly tool around the lake on 1 and 2 because I'm really in no hurry to get anywhere when I'm fishing. In fact, I row the boat almost as much as I use the motor. I find the motor really good to help keep it in position on breezy days.

After the jump are a few pictures of the average kind and size of fish I've been catching. I'm not a big fish counter but I've probably brought in over 150 fish this spring. I just forget to count and the numbers are not really that important to me. I just treasure the time on the water.

I did buy a waterproof bible to keep in my storage box in the boat. I've spent some time just drifting around on the lake reading.

Here are a few fish pictures.

Even though I have the pontoon, I do fish from the shore a lot. One thing I find is I get to meet a lot of really interesting people while fishing and on the boat it's harder to chat with folks.

Tonight, I met a guy named Paul (not my friend Paul from Oregon, although this guy reminded me of him a little). This Paul is 70 years old. His wife passed away a few years ago and he served in the military back in the early 60's. We talked about life and stuff for about 45 minutes. He's a heck of a good fisherman and brought in several nice bass while we were talking. I've seen him at the lake before but this was the first time we sat and talked for any length of time. He's an interesting guy.

Thre is another couple who have a huge white dog and walk it around the lake I usually fish. They walk their dog almost every evening. By now, the dog knows me and always stops by to sniff and say hello. The husband and wife usually ask if I'm catching anything and stop by for a few minutes to chat.

There is a father and son who fish there a lot too. Last summer, I watched the father catch a 7lb bass while we were talking and fishing. They're interesting guys too.

There are just a lot of interesting people one can meet fishing and the boat makes that a little harder.

I do sometimes like the solitude of fishing from the boat, especially when I can just float along, read and cast when I feel like it.

I did catch a pretty decent bluegill last night and didn't have an anchor set. The gill pulled me all around the cove I was in before I could get him to hand. :-)

Well, that's about it for the fishing report today. I do hope everyone is out fishing and having a great spring. Anyone from Tennessee who may be reading this, I hope you're high and dry.

Jeff

The George Nymph

2010-05-05T21:58:00.000-04:00

This little fly slayed them while Daniel and I were in the Smoky Mountains last month. There are several steps but it is a very easy fly to tie. I'm not sure what it represents, it may be one of those flies that looks like a lot of things but matches nothing specifically. There were a lot of black stone flies coming off so it may have looked like a stone fly nymph, or just something buggy.
Read more after the jump:

The materials are:\
Any streamer hook. I tied these in size 12 and 14
black thread
black hackle (I used softish hen hackle)
turkey feather
peacock hurl
lead or lead free wire
white yarn (try to find some that has a bit of sparkle to it)

I won't go into a lot of detail but will show photos of the major steps.

Lay a good thread base and tie in some of the black hackle fibers for a tail (these are kind of messy but you get the idea). Tie them in just past the bend so they point down at about a 30 degree angle. The jaws of my vise are causing them to stick up but they really do point down.

Tie in your wire. Leave enough room between the hook bend and where you start the wire to tie in your turkey feather fibers and your peacock herl. Leave enough room in front to tie off everything. I take the wire to about the halfway mark (on a 12 hook with .15 wire it ended up being about a dozen wraps).

Take your turkey tail fibers (about 3/8" wide) fold them in half and tie them in. Tie them in so the shiny side will be outside when you fold them over.

Tie in 3 or 4 strands of peacock herl. and take your thread up to the end of the wire you tied in. Make a few wraps over the wire to hold everything in place (I actually did this before I tied in the turkey and peacock but I don't think it really matters.

Wrap your peacock up to the end of the lead wire. I always put a little head cement (clear Sally Hansen's nail polish is what I use, but whatever works). This seems to make a more durable fly.

Wrap the turkey feather over the peacock. I tie some of these with light color turkey and some with darker color tails. It doesn't seem to matter much to the fish. I tie about half and half. The light color worked better in the photographs.

Tie in a length of yarn. I take the yarn which usually has 4 strands braided and separate 2 strands for this fly.

Tie in the hackle. You can tie in by the tip or as I did here and tie in at the base. Again, the fish don't seem to mind and I do it both ways depending on the hook size. This particular one is a bit large for the hook. I usually try to find a hackle that is more suited for the hook size but, hey, I was in a hurry tying a bunch of flies for our trip. I did catch 4 or 5 nice trout on this specific fly before I hung it in a tree and lost it so, again, the fish didn't mind one bit.

Palmer 3 or 4 wraps of your hackle and fold the yarn over the top and tie off right behind the hook eye.

Whip finish and you have a fly that's going to catch some fish.

Again, another in the series of really easy flies to tie and one that works great on Smoky Mountain trout and I would assume trout nearly anywhere trout live.

Next are some random photos of a few other flies I tied for our trip. A few of these are quill body parachute flies and some random stuff.

I tied up a bunch of size 12, 14, and 16 Adams but didn't get any photos. You all have probably tied a bunch of them and, honestly, other than the colors, an Adams is about the same technique as any dry fly. Some I tie with wings, but most I don't bother with the wings and I do tie a lot of parachute style flies too.

Hope everyone is having a lot of fun out fishing this spring.

Good day to be a duck

2010-04-23T21:44:00.001-04:00

After about 3 hours on the job today and a string of 12 hour work days behind me, I decided to take the rest of the day off and go fishing.

Unfortunately, it was raining like a horse urinating upon a flat rock.

Read more after the jump:

It was a cold and uncomfortable rain. As a fisherman, we all get used to spending a lit of time in mild hypothermia so standing out in a cold rain for 6 hours isn't all that uncommon. I had a good gore tex rain jacket, a warm sweatshirt and water proof boots. It was just cold and uncomfortable but that was about all.

So, did I catch any fish?

Yes. The fishing wasn't fast and furious, but I managed about 10 bass, a couple crappie and one bluegill. I was using one of the Tinsel flies from the fly tying series. It makes a great minnow and I saw bass chasing minows along the shore so that's what I used (Matching the hatch in warm water).

So, here's one of the bass I landed.

Here's a pretty decent crappie:

But the highlight of the day was when a group of baby ducks came to visit with me for a while.

They were eating grass and something from the lake bottom right in front of me. I sat down and they climbed over my legs and one sat there touching my leg. I reached out and lightly touched him and he just stood there. They hung around me making little quackin noises. The gang hung around me for about 3 minutes and then moved on. I don't know why, but that moment was very special. A little gift from God on a cold rainy day out fishing.

Here are a couple pictures of the gang.

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures. I know I enjoyed my close encounter with the baby ducks.

Jeff

Fishing Report - Smoky Mountains April 14-18

2010-04-19T19:24:00.001-04:00

My son and I went to the Smoky Mountains to get a few days of fishing in over his school spring break. The first part of the week, we were with our church youth group (a chalet full of teen agers and adults who were having as much fun as the teen agers). The last half of the week (Thursday through Sunday) we went fishing.

Read the full report after the break:

Before getting into the fishing, a little about the park and what's going on. Cade's Cove loop road is closed until April 24 and the Clingman's Dome road is closed until sometime this spring. The Park Service is having the roads re-paved. The Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is also closed until sometime later this spring. This is putting some pressure on other areas that are normally less traveled (like the Elkmont trail, Greenbriar / Porters Creek Trail, and up the Middle Prong by Tremont). Like all the other times I've been in this park and other National Parks, park the car, walk 300 feet off the road and you'll be alone. One day, we fished Walker Camp Prong right alongside the road. We fished that stream for about 3 hours and saw one couple cooling their feet in the water. 3 hours and saw 2 people and they were at the point we were getting out to head back to the car.

So, how was the fishing? Wait, one other thing, watch out for photographers. I almost nailed one on a blind curve between Townsend and Elkmont. The woman was taking photos of some wild Columbine alongside the road and took a step backward (right into the road) for better focus. Had I been going 5 mph faster, or came by 2 seconds sooner, her day of photography (and our day of fishing) would have been over. Her day would have been having bones reset in a hospital, and mine would have been spent filling out accident reports. Be careful out there, most of these tourists get so involved in whatever it is they are doing, they forget there are other people in the park.

My son also made an interesting observation (that only a 15 year old boy could). Dad, why is it all the women with butts as wide as the tailgate on a Ford pickup truck think they have to wear really short shorts?

New Chota Abram's Creek Boots
While in Townsend, we stopped in to visit with Little River Outfitters to say hi to the gang and pick up some new wading boots for Dan. Being the sly dog I am, I noticed right off that his feet and mine are about the same size. His boots will fit my feet quite well next year when he out grows them. So, instead of getting a cheap pair of boots to last until his feet outgrow them (about 2 months at the current growth rate), I bought a really nice pair of Chota Abram's Creek boots. Wow, They are comfortable, seem to be well made and the price isn't too bad. I can't wait for Dan to grow out of these boots.

OK, now for the fishing:
The fishing in the Smoky Mountains last week was hot. The water levels are perfect, the water temp was perfect, the fish were eager to be caught.

I'll start with my son's grand slam (brown, rainbow, brook trout in 24 hour period) as well as both of our first brookies.

Brown - this was a really pretty fat and fat fish. It was his largest fish in the park to date.

Next the Rainbows. He caught a bunch of these but this is one of his nicer catches:

Now, for his first brook trout. My guess is about 7-8" based on the width of my hand and the amount of overhang on either side. I didn't want to keep this fish out of the water very long so I didn't measure it. In fact, I measure few of my fish. I judge the photos by known objects like the net or my hand or my rod in the images.

Here's the fisherman who caught these beauties. For the record, yes, the little brat outfished me. We ended up with the same number of fish at the end of the week (not counting the ones I caught when he wasn't with me) but his were bigger and heavier. Have you ever driven 300 miles with a teen ager who is eager to remind you his catch poundage is greater?

Can you say "Hat Hair?"

OK, I'll be fair, here's a better shot of him walking up the trail alongside Thunderhead Prong:

This is the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River about a mile above Sugar lands. If you haven't been there, this is a beautiful stream. Lots of traffic and tourists but a very pretty stretch of water.

The next few are some of the various fish we caught.

We were using Adams dry flies (and some Quill Gordon, but the Adams were more productive) with a nymph dropper. The droppers we used were Bead Head Pheasant Tail, Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear, Tellicos, and George's Nymphs. It didn't seem to matter much what nymph was dropped off the dry fly as long as it was a size 12 or a size 14. The fish were hitting anything in that size range. For the dry fly, same thing, size 12 and size 14 and it didn't matter as long as it was dark gray (Adams) with some brown.

We did see a few March Browns coming off the water but there was not a big hatch going on. We did see some nymph casings on the rocks and a few little black stone flies from time to time.

Dry fly action was slow but steady. Most of our strikes and fish came from the droppers.

Nice little rainbow:

Another nice little rainbow:

My biggest rainbow to date in the park:

A really pretty color on this little guy:

My first Brookie:

My second Brookie:

Daniel eating his "Victory" breakfast after catching larger fish than the old man:

The "Second Place is First Looser" Breakfast:

The master "in his own mind" at work :-)

All-in-all, it was another perfect trip with my favorite fishing partner. The fish were exceptionally stupid this year, they were as fat as I've ever seen them in the park and the wildflowers and weather were beautiful.

I'll leave you all with a few wildflower pictures too:

Dutchman's Breeches:

Trout Lilly (hey, as a fisherman I have to like this one):

Toadshade:

Trillium:

Foam Flower

Star Chicory:

Yellow Violet:

I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and stories.

First fish photos of the year!

2010-04-08T22:49:00.000-04:00

OK, I have freakishly large hands, or maybe that bass is really that small. The choice is yours.

More photos after the break.

This one is a little more like it.

This is my first bluegill of the year.

Here is a photo of part of my favorite home water.

For the past several days, the wind has been howling at 30 plus miles per hour and gusting higher. We had our first severe thunderstorms of the spring season and fishing has been slow. I haven't had the new Pontoon out since the first voyage and hope will get it out this weekend if the wind dies down. I don't recall this much wind for as many days in a row for a very long time.

Hopefully, I'll have some more reports from the SS Pond Scum in the next couple days.

Also, the waterproof Bible came today and it's really pretty cool. It'll give me something to read while sitting out on the water when the fish are not biting or I'm waiting on the evening rises this summer. Joe, thanks for the tip.

That's about all for this post. Hope you all are having some fishing success.

Thunderstorms and lightning rods

2010-04-05T19:41:00.001-04:00

I managed to get out and do some fishing today. Unfortunately, there was a severe thunderstorm watch issued for my area. After about 30 minutes at the lake, I started hearing thunder off in the distance. After another 15 or 20 minutes, the thunder was getting louder but no visible lightning. By the time I got to the car and started breaking stuff down, there was a pretty fair amount of cloud to cloud lightning visible off to the west and by the time I got home (20 or so minutes later) we were in the middle of a thunderstorm including pea sized hail, strong wind gusts and torrential downpour rain.

I love thunderstorms from the safety of my house, being stuck out in one while fishing is just dangerous. I packed it up and came home.

There's just something about standing by a lake with a 9' graphite lightning rod in one's hand that makes thunder take on new significance...

Although I don't know anyone who has seen it, but I have heard lightning can strike many miles from the storm. I've always figured when the thunder is more than just a distant rumble, it's time to be moving toward the car. As much as I enjoy fishing, living to fish another day is pretty important in my plans for the day.

A little rain isn't going to hurt anyone but when the lightning and thunder starts kicking up, it's time to head home.

Be safe out there. Spring thunderstorm season is in full swing in many parts of the country.

Jeff

Pontoon Maiden Voyage

2010-04-03T23:27:00.000-04:00

On Thursday this week, the SS Pond Scum made her maiden voyage.

It is a very comfortable boat, tracks well and when I get her all set up the way I want, it's going to be a great fishing craft.

Continue after the break to see some more pictures of things I've done to her so far.

The first thing I did was make some extenders to the roof rack on the fishing van. I used Schedule 40 PVC. I'll probably go to drain pipe but for now the Sched 40 is working. I cut a couple slots in it so it will kind of fit over the rails on the van's roof rack to keep it all centered.

I also used a couple pieces of left over PVC pipe to make a couple rod holders. One is for my fly rod and the other is for a spinning rod.

I also got one of those small rubbermaid boxes to strap down to the cargo deck to hold extra "stuff". You can see it in the above photo right behind the fly rod holder.

It was really windy the day I had her out and I figured out real quick that rowing with the wind is a lot easier than rowing against the wind.

No problems, the boat is very stable. I think one would have to be doing something really stupid to actually flip one over. I reckon a freak gust of wind may get under the pontoons and could lift it up if you were not watching for it but if it's that windy, I'm not going to be out on the water.

A trolling motor may be in my future thought.

Here's a photo out on the water looking back at the other shore of my local lake (wide angle lens makes it look a lot farther than it really is).

Here's a photo of all the fish I caught on the first outing.

OK, I got skunked but it was still fun to get the new boat out on the water and test her out.

Trolling motor is a possibility. I'm also considering a swivel seat but will try it with the standard seat for a while to see how it works.

New Creek Company Pontoon - first Pictures

2010-03-25T20:07:00.002-04:00

When the UPS guy brought the big heavy box to the front door, my wife said it says "Fragile" on the box it must be Italian. She asked me if I had won a major award. Upon opening the box, I thought it may just have the leg lamp inside.

Well, after my first attempt at assembling the new Pontoon, I did call my 15 year old son for some help. The second attempt turned out more like a boat than my first attempt.

Upon arrival, there were few parts that resembled a boat.

After a few minutes of staring at the assembled and assorted bags of parts, I decided to take the shrink wrap off of everything. The Chinese guys who packed this into the boxes really know how to wrap stuff up well.

While I was unpacking all the parts, my son started reading the instructions. I had to have a 15 minute chat with him explaining that real men don't need no stinking instructions. He smiled, reminded me he's a kid and went back to the instructions. Maybe some day he'll learn.

While he was wasting time with something as useless as instructions, I started laying the parts out on the floor in what looked like it may resemble a boat frame.

When my son (Young Brad Pitt - from an episode when he was impressing a bunch of girls with his fly casting ability - long story for another blog post - let's just say it worked. The brat) realized the futility of instructions (OK, he had read them through and through and actually almost knew what he was doing). We started assembling the parts. It went together remarkable easy with no tools (other than a BFH to get the seat bottom in because it needed to stretch a bit).

Once we had it all together, we had to sit in it and adjust the foot rests (OK, we had to play a little too).

I spent the next several minutes pumping the pontoons up (I think an electric pump may be in my future) and then wrestled the pontoons under the frame. I do believe there must be something alive inside them the way they wanted to wiggle out of the frame.

All in all, it really didn't take long to assemble. The next time will go much faster. It seems like it's going to be a nice boat. I really like the rigid storage platform behind the seat (many of these have nylon webbing, this is rigid steel) and it has a motor mount already installed should I ever decide to go the trolling motor route.

Just sitting in it in my basement, it feels like a very comfortable boat. The seat has good support, the angle of the back rest is comfortable, the position of the foot pegs is comfortable, and the pontoons are close enough together that one can rest his/her feet on it without too much of a stretch for a change of position.

I think I will be pleased with the new boat.

2010 First Fish

2010-03-18T18:56:00.000-04:00

Well, after a very long cold winter, and a very cold and wet spring, I finally got out on the water today. It was warm today but very windy. I, unfortunately, didn't take a fly rod with me. I stooped to fish extraction methods of using spinning gear.

However, I did manage to catch my firs fish of the season. I have no photos becaue I really wasn't expecting to catch anything. The water temps are in the mid to upper 40's and the fish are moving kind of slow.

I tried several different lures but finally went with a green rooster tail. I managed to land one small bass about 10" long and had another one on for a few seconds that was quite a bit smaller (AKA a dink).

Well, nothing much more to say other than so far this year, I haven't been skunked!

Hope you guys are all getting some time on the water.

Bought a Pontoon

2010-03-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

http://creekcompany.com/product.php?productid=16155&cat=254&page=1

Well guys and gals, I ended up buying a pontoon. I have one coming to me like pictured above. It should be here shortly. Once it comes in, I will post a full review and photos of the actual boat. The photo above is from the company's website.

Jeff

Shopping for a Canoe

2010-03-06T20:32:00.000-05:00

Here in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, us fishermen are in that painful countdown to spring. The sun is warmer and the days are not as cold. In fact, it got up almost to 50 today. The lakes still have a coating of ice on the top but it will soon be warm enough for the ice to melt and fishing to start again.

With the imminent coming of Spring, I'm in the market for a canoe. I've narrowed the specs down but am not sure what to buy.

I want it light enough to be able to lift on top of the van solo which means a max weight of about 60-65 pounds.

It needs to hold 2 people.

It needs to be stable (as stable as a canoe can be)

It needs to be able to be used solo and tandem.

Before anyone suggests pontoon or kayak, I'm not really looking to go that direction. I think I'm more interested in a canoe or perhaps one of the hybrid canoe/kayak thing..

80% of my fishing is going to be in small to medium size lakes. The other 20% is going to be in slow moving water. No whitewater canoing for this guy. If I'm ever in white water it will because I did something horribly wrong.

90% of my fishing will be with a fly rod but some with spinning gear depending on the lake and what I'm fishing for.

So, any suggestions welcome. Some guys on the forums have made some suggestions but if any of the bloggers have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Oh yes, I need to keep it below 1,000 too (I suppose I could go a hundred or two more but would really like to keep this under a grand).

I hope some of you all have had a chance to go fishing.

Jeff

Fly Tying Series #10 More Crease Flies

2010-02-27T21:14:00.000-05:00

Based on some suggestions and just thinking about it, I tried some more crease flies. This is my most recent attempt. I'm still not 100% happy but these are getting closer to what I thought it should be.

Fly Tying Series #9 Crease Flies

2010-02-17T22:24:00.001-05:00

These are still not turning out the way I want but they'll probably catch fish.

They are a little more boxy and chunky than I'd like. A couple things that will make this better. One is to use a longer shank hook so I can get a more sweeping curve or a more gradual taper. The other is sharper scissors. I used an old pair of scissors because I didn't want to use my good tying scissors on glued foam.

I'm trying to decide if I want to tie these with a "fish belly" profile or more of a straight taper profile.

This is my first attempt at these so I'm still in experimental stage. If I get some tied up looking the way I want, I'll post some step by step photos and the like but right now, I'm making so many mistakes that I'm just posting some train wreck pictures and will keep working on them.

A couple more photos after the jump:

Snow Pictures

2010-02-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

Since there is very little fishing to talk about and I've been too busy shoveling snow from my driveway and walkway to actually tie any flies for a couple days, I thought I'd show some photos of the snow here in Kentucky. Of course, I haven't gotten out much to take pictures beyond my yard and house but for those of you who live in places where there is no snow, we'd be happy to send some your way if you'd like.

Just repeat after me: Spring is 6 weeks away, spring is 6 weeks away, spring is 6 weeks away. Just like in the Wizard of Oz, you'll wake up in your own bed to the sound of singing birds and the smell of gentle rain on the warm spring breezes.

See some more after the jump

More Weather Rant

2010-02-11T14:59:00.000-05:00

What's going on in the world of Kentucky Fly fishing? Absolutely nothing.

Snow - ugh
what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!

Let's see, what can a fly fisherman do when there's a foot of snow on the ground, all the water is in a solid form and it's too cold to go out and fish even if liquid water could be found?

Well, I could spend more time in the office but that isn't going to be much fun. I already spend enough time in the office so spending more is out of the question.

That leaves tying flies, playing guitar, reading about other people fishing and marking days off the calendar until the sun shines warm again, the hills turn a thousand shades of green and the fish start biting again.

By my trusty calendar, mid-April is about 7 weeks away. That translates to approximately 49 days or 1,176 hours. What to do for the next 1,176 hours? I'll spend about 392 of it sleeping (that helps pass the non-fishing time quickly), hopefully not more than 325 working, about 20 behind the wheel of my car, That leaves about 439 hours to split up between eating, bathing (once a month regardless of if I need it or not), playing guitar, doing stuff at Church and tying flies.

One may thing 439 hours is a lot of time, but really, it's not that much time at all. At an average of about 6 flies per hour (including set up, clean up and putting away stuff), that's about 74 flies. I have to get my hour or so a day in on the guitar or I start having string withdrawal symptoms.

So, while 7 weeks or 1,176 hours may seem like a very long time, it really is not that much time at all.

Before we know it, the days will be warm, the mornings will be cool, there will be lots of bluegills in love in the shallows, bass will be on the prowl, crappie schools will be in shallower water and fishing will be fine.

"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

Everyone, stay warm, stay dry, keep repeating to yourself, 1,176 hours left (wow, 1,175 since the last time I looked at the clock. See, time does go by fast!!!)

Fly Tying Series #8 Crappie Flies (nightmare series) and first attempt at spinning deer hair

2010-02-08T19:40:00.002-05:00

This week, I"m going to post a couple flies I have recently tied. I'm not going to do the usual step by step for a couple reasons. First, I'm feeling incredibly lazy and was tying flies right before the big game party with our church youth group yesterday (Go Saints by the way). For some reason, the people at Church considered me "adult" supervision for the teenagers. Oh, what a misconception that was. It was more like the kids were the supervision for me. But, this is fly tying and not what a kid Jeff was with the other kids at church.

So, today, I'm going to post some photos of a couple styles of flies I tied yesterday. I'll give a description and materials. These fall on the easy side of the easy to tie scale.

I also tried my first time spinning deer hair. I'll post those at the end.

Read after the jump for some photos and see some of the really ugly flies Crappie seem to eat.

This first fly I have no idea what to call it or what the real name of the pattern is. I will say if it does not give you nightmares, I think you should check your pulse.

On the easy to tie scale, this is about a 1.5. On the ugly scale, it's a 10+.

Here's the picture. WARNING, THE FOLLOWING MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME AUDIENCE MEMBERS. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

OK, I told you to beware of looking at these photographs. However, Crappie seem to have a much more twisted sense of humor than most fishermen believe. This "Bordello" hot pink monstrosity is readily eaten by our local crappie. I don't know why, but the crappie like this hot pink nightmare generator.

The one thing I do with this fly that you can see in the photo is I tie on some small dumbbell eyes to the top of the hook shank. This causes the fly to "swim" through the water hook point up so it doesn't get snagged in stuff on the bottom as bad. I have also had success with this same fly with a opalescent pink plastic bead head. The one with the plastic bead head sinks much slower and a lot of crappie hit it on the sink.

I also tie this same fly using chartreuse green marabou in the tail and chartreuse chenille for the body.

Materials:
Hook of your choice. I like Mustad streamer 2X long hooks. These are size 6. It just depends on what size you want.
Tail: Hot Pink Marabou
Body: Hot Pink sparkle chenille
Weight: Lead dumbbell eyes (I like yellow mainly for the shock value but any color should work).
Thread - 3/0 and I use red but really any color will work. I think the red, especially as it's criss crossed over the dumbbell eyes and tied into a thread head in front of the eyes makes a hing of a "gill".

Again, it is ugly as a mud fence but it does work.

Really Ugly Flies

More in my nightmare series. The above 2 flies are variations on the tinsel fly from an earlier series. The materials and tying instructions are the same the only thing different is the clown like colors.

I'll be honest, I haven't tried these particular color patterns yet. I tied them mainly as a joke because the hot pink Crappie flies were so darn ugly. I wanted to see if I could top out the ugly scale with even more hideous colors. I think the chartreuse and purple with the yellow eyes may just be the ugliest fly I have ever seen. I may even give this pattern a name. Naah, I'm going to forget I tied it (unless it actually catches fish then I'll be glad I have 1,000 strands of this ugly purple holographic tinsel at my disposal at an average of 2 flies per strand, I have enough for a lifetime of tying these ugly flies, if it does not catch fish, I"m out a buck. It was worth the dollar just to tie this beast.

First try at deer hair bugs

Spinning Deer Hair
Here's what I've learned from feedback so far at FAOL and Warmfly.com.

I needed to pack it in tighter. I thought I was packing it pretty tight but it seems as if the consensus is I needed to pack it tighter
I should have used bigger bundles of deer hair which would have made it more full.
I was right in separating the tail feathers out like I did here (I do that on my poppers too).
The flat bottom was right.
Trimming this stuff to shape is a black art practiced and mastered by a few sages and hermits who read obscure manuscripts and chant incantations in mystical ancient languages.

I'll never be an artist. I doubt if I'll ever get to the point where I'm tying in intricate designs but I did kind of like tying with deer hair. There is something kind of fun about watching it spin around the hook shank when tightening the thread.

I didn't post any step by steps here because I don't feel like I have tied enough to have anything of value to say or any tips from my own experience. Tying 5 or 6 flies of a given type doesn't give me the right to offer any tips or suggestions to make it easier.

As I tie more of these I will make updates regarding my learning curve and what I've learned that has made it easier (remember, the emphasis on these flies is easy to tie, effective and inexpensive).

So far, the spinning of deer hair seems to be pretty easy once one gets the hang of it (by fly number 6 I was kind of in a rhythm). I know deer hair bugs are effective because I've caught a lot of fish on ones someone else tied. The jury is still out on inexpensive. Deer hair isn't cheap unless you have a buddy who hunts and you feel like dying your own. But when compared to the prices the fly shops get for deer hair flies, tying your own isn't going to hurt you either.

That's about it for this entry. I'm not sure what I'll cook up for next week. I may need to get busy tying some trout flies for my April trip to the Smokey Mountains.

I also want to tie up some of the diver / wiggle bug / wiggle popper flies too. This would be a continuation of the series number 6 and my quest for tying a fly that works like a Rapala.

Stay warm, keep tying, and just remember, spring is about 9 weeks away.

Jeff

Wintry Mix

2010-02-05T11:09:00.001-05:00

I always love it when the weather guy talks about "wintry mix". They almost make it sound appetising like something good to eat. Yumm, take a bag of wintry mix along the next time you go fishing. It's healthy, gives you endless energy and won't make you fat.". Yes, "wintry mix" sounds like the perfect foodstuff.

Read more of my "weather rant" after the jump:

Unfortunately, those of us who work and have to drive in "wintry mix" know it is really not a new high energy sports enhancement food nor is it a new sugary snack. Nope, "wintry mix" is indeed something quite different.

My old friend "wintry mix" is nothing short of the most despicable form of malformed weather to hit the Midwest each season. For those of you who may live in areas where you're not treated to this little present from Mother Nature, allow me to explain what "wintry mix" really is.

As its name suggests, it is a mixed bag of everything winter has to throw at us. It consists of cold rain, sleet, freezing rain, and snow. Some days, our old friend the mix will come and go doing nothing more than making life inconvenient for a few hours as the weather decides if it's going to rain or snow. Here in Kentucky, we usually end up with a brief period of snow and then cold rain.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no use for cold rain, but given the alternative resolution to the wintry mix problem, well, cold rain is not all that bad.

Today, the National Weather Service has issues a winter storm warning. The weather guy is all excited because it's the first winter storm of the season. It's going to start with our old friend Mr. Wintry Mix and then, after laying down a layer of ice, turn to all snow.

Here is the relevant quote from the NWS: "AND CONTINUE THROUGH SATURDAY AFTERNOON. SNOW ACCUMULATION OF AN INCH OR TWO IS POSSIBLE TODAY... WITH FOUR TO SIX INCHES EXPECTED OVERNIGHT... AND AN ADDITIONAL INCH POSSIBLE ON SATURDAY. TOTAL SNOWFALL FROM THIS SYSTEM WILL BE FROM SIX TO EIGHT INCHES"

Yes, you read that right, 6-8" on top of a layer of ice.

Yippie I can't wait to get out and shovel that garbage off of my driveway tomorrow.

Any of you guys living somewhere warm, I hope you're catching fish and yes, I am jealous as I look out of my office window this morning at the start of wintry mix.

Happy weekend... I hope to get some new flies tied. I'll post them next week.

Fly Tying Series #7 Foam gurglers

2010-01-30T14:05:00.001-05:00

This week, I'm going to post some foam bodied surface flies. The first, is by no means an original design. In fact, I first learned of it over on Fly Angler's Online. I'm not even sure the postings there are original designs. This fly can be tied in a lot of different configurations to make a spider, or just about any surface fly one can imagine. The ones I tie are VERY simple and the basic method to make this fly is the same regardless of the final style or what you're tying.

So as you look over the pictures, use your imagination on shape, size, if you want to sandwich different colors together, use rubber legs, use hackle instead of marabou, paint them, use dubbing on the hook, etc.

I catch a lot of bass (on the larger sizes) and bluegill on these flies.

Follow the jump to read more.

Fishing these flies is much the same method as a popper. There are different ways to fish it and under the right conditions any of them work. Some days, cast it out, let it sit until the ripples disappear and then lightly twitch it and let it sit until the ripples disappear and do it again. On some days, start bringing it back in as soon as it hits the water with erratic twitches with no significant pauses between the twitches (this tactic works very well on bass during warm summer evenings here in Kentucky). Then on other days, a slow to moderate "swimming" retrieve with constant motion interrupted by by a few pauses works great.

So, there are a number of ways to fish this fly and all of them produce.

Materials

Hook - 1X or 2X long shank hooks - I typically use streamer hooks but I reckon stingers and appropriately sized dry fly hooks will also work.
Tail: Marabou fibers. (I strip the fibers off the feather shaft and tie the clump in at the tail)
Body: 2mm craft foam cut in appropriate width for the size fly and hook you're using.
Thread: I use 210 Denier (fairly heavy) of appropriate color
Legs: Optional
Colors: Green, Black, Yellow seem to be the best producers around here. I have tied in orange, red, white and purple and have cuaght fish on all of these colors.

Start by tying in the clump of marabou tail feathers. This clump is pretty sparse but I have also tied them with much more "robust" clumps. The marabou seems to give it some life in the water.

Take thread back to about 1 eye distance behind the hook eye and tie in your strip of craft foam. I tend to tie most of these in green, yellow and black. (while optional, I do lay down a good thread base because I tend to use a drop or two of super glue to help hold things together and the thread base seems to help with this). Secure with 5 or 6 wraps and then take your thread back to about half the distance between your tie in and the hook point.
TIP: The one problem with these flies is the foam tends to not want to say put and after a couple fish have chewed on them, the foam will want to move to the side of the hook. 2 or 3 drops of super glue on the hook shank right at the tie in points will keep this from happening.

Next, make 1 or 2 more tie ins along the way with the last one being about where the barb ins on the hook. If you look closely, I made my middle tie in a little farther to the back. This was a mistake but it really doesn't matter to the fish. I doubt if they have dividers or dial calipers to measure the distances.

Your tie in just above the hook's barb needs to have a few more wraps because you're going to fold over the foam. I usually put 7 or 8 good tight wraps here (remember the super glue tip above.).

Next step is to fold the foam over the top and tie in at your middle tie in point.
TIP: A drop of super glue here helps hold things together.
TIP: To give the fly a thicker profile, you can insert another layer of foam here between the folds. I've seen some tiers get pretty artistic with multiple colors. I've tied a few up this way and while they look good and have a certain "oh ain't that cool" factor, I've never noticed them working better on the fish so I usually just skip the step for the sake of spending more time fishing.

Now, take your thread up to the front tie in point and make your last tie off. After a few wraps, take the tread under the foam up to the hook eye, tie in a good thread head and whip finish. You can use head cement or not, it's a personal choice. I usually put a drop or two of clear fingernail polish.

Here is something to keep in mind. When you cut off the foam, make it just a little past the hook eye. I typically cut these off at an angle (see above photo) to kind of simulate something that resembles a head. Also, leaving the top layer of foam a little past the hook eye makes these things kid of pop and gurgle when you twitch them back in.

The above fly has put a lot of bass and bluegill in the net. Also, on some days, I've caught crappie. One day last April (April 2009), I caught 50 crappie one evening using a yellow with black tail gurgler.

Experimental Fly -

ideas wanted.

OK, this is an experiment. I'm not sure how this is going to work, if it's going to work and would appreciate ideas from you guys.

What I"m looking to make here is something that will be a wounded minnow. Think about how a Rapala works on the surface. I'm thinking something that will kind of wiggle and maybe even dive an inch or so below the surface.

If I can get one with the action I want, I'd then find a way to cover it with something shiny like tinsel and give it a try.

Here' are some photos of how I tied it. Again, if you guys have links to a fly that will do what I want or have ideas to improve this, I'm all ears.

clip the tip of the foam on an angle to make it not as bulky at the tie in point.

This is the "lip" that I'll be gluing to the fly.

I'm thinking there has to be an easier way to get the lip on this or to make one act on the surface the way I want it to. Cutting the lip and holding it in place until the super glue sets up is kind of a pain. It violates my "You should never spend more than 5 minutes on a fly" rule.

I will make an exception to the 5 minute rule for spinning deer hair. Next weeks' flies will be deer hair. Now, before anyone gets their chops wet, I'm not an expert in spinning deer hair and when it comes to trimming the stuff, I have the artistic abilities of a brick. I'll be tying a few up, and post what I've done here. Like always, I would appreciate comments, suggestions, ideas for how to do it easier and hopefully will generate some comments, some ideas and some sharing of techniques to make us all better tiers and enhance our fishing with our flies.

Thanks everyone for your positive comments to date. (and I also greatly appreciate the less than positive comments, feedback is a gift).

I hope you all have a wonderful and wonder filled week.

Jeff

Best time to fish and apology

2010-01-27T09:46:00.000-05:00

First, I apologize for not getting the popping bugs up yet. It has been crazy with work the past few days and by the time I get off and wind down enough to concentrate on writing up a tying article, the last thing I want to do is write up an article. I promise I'll have it up before teh weekend. Over the weekend, if I can get some energy and it's not too awful cold in my tying room, I'm going to attempt some deer hair which may be next week's flies. If nothing else, it should be good for a laugh so I'd advise you to check it out when they're posted. I'm not much of a deer hair spinner so it may be a good exercise in what not to do..

OK, when is the best time to fish?

Let me start by saying I'm 49 years old and have been fishing pretty hard since I was 9. In the grand scheme of fishing experience, 40 years does not buy much. However, I am quick learner and spend a lot of time observing and noting when I catch fish.

I've read the solunar tables, fishing reports, and gathered all the information I can about fishing. Fishing and playing guitar are my passions. I am a much better fisherman than guitarist but I love doing both. Work, on the other hand, is something I have to do so that I can afford the things I love to do.

Over the years, I've learned and observed fishing is really not a thing that can be measured by A + B + C = Fish.

Yes, there are times when fish are less likely to bite. For example, when a major cold front blows through in the summer, fish will be put down for a spell. I don't know why and I'm sure some scientist can tell me, but as a fisherman, I know I'm less likely to be catching fish on those days.

When there is a strong Northeast gale and a storm is raging, I'm less likely to catch fish.

When there is a summer thunderstomr and lightning is flashing, I'm less likely to catch fish. Mainly this is because standing by a body of water with a 9' graphite lightning rod in my hand is not my idea of a healthy way to spend an afternoon. The fish may bite just fine in these circumstances and in my younger days I have proven that to be correct. Now that I'm older and wiser, you will not find me on the water under such conditions.

When the lakes are frozen over and the ice is too thin to support my substantial weight, fishing is going to be poor.

With all that said, I have also observed over the years that I really do not fish to catch fish. To be honest, I don't care if I catch fish or not. Yes, catching fish is great fun but it's not really why I fish.

I fish to get away from the stress of my job and find some quiet time. One of my favorite Bible stories is from 1 Kings. God tole Elija to go to the mountain and wait for His word. There was a storm, a fire, an earthquake and a great wind. God's voice was in none of those. At the end, God spoke in a quiet wisper.

In today's life, we have so much background noise it becomes difficult to hear that quiet wisper.

In the end, I've determined the best time to go fishing is anytime you CAN go fishing. Who cares if you catch 100 fish or you catch 0 fish? Catching fish is not the reason to fish. If you have caught youself fishing to catch fish, I would ask you to think about what you love in fishing and what is really important. I think you may realize, as have I, that catching is only one reason we fish but not necessarily the most important one.

Have a great day, stay warm, tie some flies and think about the next fishing trip. Springtime is only a couple months away!!

Cold, Cold and more Cold

2010-01-26T12:34:00.001-05:00

Wow,
I will be so glad when springtime actually comes. This morning, for a brief hour or so, there was a strange yellow ball glowing in the Eastern sky. In addition to the strange yellow ball, the sky was a very strange color. It looked something like the font in this sentence. Now, for some of you, a "blue" sky may not be a bug deal, but if the weather guy is to be believed, this was the first time we've seen the sky that color and had a clear view of that strange glowing yellow ball for about 21 days and it may be even longer.

Here's what greeted me out the window yesterday afternoon.

This isn't really a "woe is me" post. The changing of the seasons is necessary. The fish that live in this area have evolved over they years to survive these things. A good cold winter will help keep out some invasive species that cannot handle the cold. It will cull out the weak and unfit from the wild plant and animal populations. It's a good thing.

For us warm water fishermen, it means we have a few months where fishing is impossible. There may even be a culling of the fishermen herd that a good cold winter brings about. Perhaps those who are not really dedicated fishermen will take up golf. Maybe some of the pseudo fly-fishermen will go back to golf

Hopefully tonight or tomorrow night, I'll get some time to post a new batch of flies. The one bad part of this cold weather is my fly tying room is in a "3 season" room in our house and with space heaters, I can turn it into about a 3 1/2 season room but when it's this cold, well...

Here's what I'm posting next time. I is a collection of foam body flies and this one is one of my experiments.

Have a good week, hope you all who can fish are fishing and those who can't, I feel your pain.

Sunday Morning Coming Down - Confession Time

2010-01-24T16:12:00.001-05:00

Well, it's actually 3:30pm on Sunday. If the guy on the weather forecast is right, today is 21 days without sunshine. One of my co-workers said something to the order of "only 2 month until spring". At this rate, I think it's going to be a long 2 months.

At least it's been a little warmer the past couple days and most of the lakes have lost their surface film of ice. So, we once again have liquid water but my beloved warm water fish are still not very active.

I also have a confession to make to you all. I have done wrong in the eyes of fly fishermen all over the globe. I had some Christmas money and went to the local BassPro Shops and bought.... are you ready for this.... a new spinning reel and rod. I got a Shimano Sahara reel that is really sweet and a basic generic graphite spinning rod.

My good friend (and I do not use the word friend lightly) from Oregon calls spin fishing "fish extraction" and claims it is an abomination. In fact, this fine young man just calls it the "S"-word.

Me, on the other hand considers it an alternative fishing lifestyle. First and foremost, it's fly fishing, but there are days when I want to see the dark side or when fishing with spinning equipment is, well, just fun.

Alright, back to fly fishing talk now.

I have some foam body flies to post this week.

Next week, if I can get some time to tie, I'm going to be posting some deer hair flies. Now, before anyone gets too worked up, I've only tied a few deer hair bugs in my life and some of them end up being total train wrecks. So, if these turn out good, I'll post them with the step by step like in my other posts. If they turn out bad, I'll most likely do the same thing but be posting as examples of "how not to do it".

That's all for a Sunday afternoon coming down.

I hope all have a great week.

First fish of 2010 - when will it be?

2010-01-21T13:41:00.001-05:00

One of my friends posted on Twitter yesterday that we only have 2 more months of winter. She's probably right in one sense but in the "fishing" sense, I wonder when my first fish of 2010 will be?

Read more after the jump to see predictions and discussion and your challenge:

My last warmwater fish of 2009 was a largemouth bass caught the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. For Northern Kentucky, that is quite late. Normally, after Halloween, the fishing dies. This year, we had a warm streak the first 2 weeks of November and the fish responded.

My last trout of the 2009 season came the second week of December. The State of Kentucky stocks trout in Big Boone Creek in the winter months for a catch and release fishery that usually runs November through April (some years October through April depending on weather). I managed to catch quite a few stocker trout before the water turned from liquid to solid with ice flows and skim ice across the stream.

Even with waders and appropriate clothing, something about crunching through ice and pushing ice rafts aside to wade and fish just seems really cold and uncomfortable and the thoght of slipping and going under in 34 degree water just doesn't appeal much to me. I guess I really am a warm water fisherman at heart.

So here's the question, when will my first warm water fish of 2010 be caught?

I would ask about trout, but that quite honestly depends on when I get a chance to hit the tailwaters when the weather breaks also I am going to the Smokey Mountains this spring and will probably catch a few then.

The big question is when will the first warm water fish take one of my flies in 2010?

Based on years past, I'm hoping for the last week of March, but the second week of April is a much more likely guess.

Then on what fly and what type of fish.

Read my predictions after the jump and comment if you agree or when you think your first fish of 2010 will be - make your own prediction.

Here's my prediction:
When: Tuesday April 12
What: Crappie
Fly: Tinsel Fly (Fly Tying Series 1)
Color: Silver tinsel, white marabou tail

Fly Tying Series #6 Experimental Flies

2010-01-18T11:59:00.004-05:00

This week in the fly tying series, I'm going to show a couple fies which should work but I haven't fished with them yet so I'm calling them experimental. These are all pretty well tried and true patterns using some unconventional materials..

Read more about these flies after the break. The first fly is a boa yarn leach and the second is similar but using "fun fur" from Joann's Fabrics.

Have fun and remember, what other fishermen think of your flies is far less important than what the fish think!

The first fly is one that is talked about a lot over on the Fly Anglers Online bulletin board. I won't post a lot of photos on the tying steps as they are already over on that website.

Here's the link for the thing instructions over on FAOL.
FAOL Boa Leach

Let's start by asking "what the heck is boa yarn?" Here's a link to the Joann's Fabrics Website to see what this boa yarn stuff is. It's hard to describe so a picture is worth a thousand words.

Because I haven't tied many of these nor have I fished with them yet, I tie them pretty much the same way as Rick ties them in the link above. I did tie a couple with a few wraps of lead wire around the hook shank but am assuming once they get wet, they'll probably sink like a stone.

After laying down a good base of thread, tie in the boa yarn at the hook curve. The fibers should be facing away from the hook eye. and then take the thread up to about one eye distance from the hook eye, this is going to be the tie off point.

Next, wrap it to the front brushing the fibers back with each wrap. I have a rotary vise (Peak) and this is where the rotary feature comes in handy.

TIP:I have found when using the rotary feature of the vise to wrap materials up the hook shank, a simple half hitch at wherever the tie off point is going to be seems to help but that's just me, your mileage may differ.

Last, tie it off, make a slightly cone shaped thread head whip finish, and if you like, a couple drops of head cement (clear fingernail polish) isn't going to hurt anything.

Here's the finished fly:

I am going to tie up a couple of these with some marabou tails and some with Krystal flash or tinsel or flashibou (is that spelled right?) to give some extra "flash". Again, this is an experimental fly for me so I need to see what "my" fish like.

These next couple flies are tied the same way but are using a different material. While at Joann's fabrics looking for Boa Yarn, I came across this stuff called Fun Fur Yarn and thought it looked interesting. This is a link to Fun Fur Yarn. It's not as heavy or as dense as the Boa Yarn and when wrapped around a hook is kind of "spindly".

I don't know how it's going to work, but thought the flies looked "buggy" and wanted to give it a try. I tied a couple with bead heads, a couple with marabou and tinsel in the tail, and one with tinsel as an underlayment on the hook ant then using open wraps bringing the fun fur up the hook shank for a "candy cane" look.

Who knows, these may be flops, or they may end up being a "go to " fly. Here are some photos should you decide to experiment a little.

Hope you all have some fun with these and I hope they catch as many fish as they look like they should. I can't wait until the water temps warm up enough for the bluegill, bass, and crappie to start moving about so I can give these guys a try.

Next week, we'll get a little more traditional with some top water flies and one experimental fly. The top water fly next week goes by a lot of different names, over on the FAOL message board, they call it a "gurgle pop" but I've seen other variants of this fly with ones on shorter shank hooks being spiders etc. It's really just a basic foam bodied attractor fly but it sure does catch a bunch of fish.

Here's a peek:

Fishing vs. Work

2010-01-15T15:02:00.001-05:00

In the left corner, weighing in at 1,795 pounds is work.
In the right corner, weighing in at 75 pounds is fishing.

OK, men, I want this to be a fair fight. No hitting below the belt, no biting, and no gouging of eyes.

At the bell come out fighting. May the best man win, good luck gentlemen.

Yes, I am sitting in a meeting listening to someone talking on and on about something that is not fishing, and, therefore, not holding my interest level very well. Something about shareholder return and profit margins and lazy employees writing on blogs instead of listening to what the CEO is saying about profit margins and our shareholders and a lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with fishing, let alone fly fishing. I have to wonder if these folks even know what fly fishing is and if they do, have they ever gone fly fishing without their Blackberry's Blue Tooth ear piece glued to their heads.

This brings back memories of 2 summers ago. My son and I were fishing in Yellowstone and this trip was a turning point in my life. You see, I was one of those Corporate "A" listers (don't ask what the "A" is for because it is most likely just what you're thinking). I was working a bazillion hours per week and never went anywhere without the blackberry. Well, there I was in fly fishing paradise with my 12 year old son on the fishing trip of a lifetime. We finally made it to Yellowstone and were going to fish the mythical rivers of my dreams. Rivers like the Madison, Yellowstone, Firehole, Gardner, and Slough Creek. These are the rivers I've read about all my life and have dreamt of fishing since I was my son's age. Here I was, bringing my son to do something with me that I had waited 40+ years to do. This was indeed the trip of a lifetime.

However, there was some minor emergency going on back in the office. At the time, I'm sure I thought it was a major emergency. Unfortunately, all emergencies in the office are major emergencies, especially when one's boss is involved. Vacation? Who needs a stinking vacation when there is work to be done and emergencies to resolve. To be honest, this was probably several hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line and to my boss, the shareholders he so dearly loves and some of my business associates, this was a big emergency.

The sad thing, to me, it was also an emergency. I spent several hours on the phone and answering email when I should have been with my son fishing or just being stupid tourists driving around in circles taking pictures of bison and elk. Instead, I was looking at a blackberry, talking with my boss about contracts, agencies, servers and off-shore programmers. I was not talking with the fly shops about what fly was working best.

As if it needed to be said again, work is not the most important thing in life. The trip of a lifetime with my son is the most important thing. He will never be 12 again and those moments could not be recaptured regardless of how hard I tried. I told my boss it would have to wait till I got back or he was going to have to take care of it. The phone was turned off and my son and I spent the next 8 days of our 10 day trip being stupid tourists, fishing in the fabled waters of Yellowstone and even some non-fabled waters like Black-tail Deer Creek, Nez Perce Creek, Indian Creek, Grebe Lake and a few other puddles that held fish.

This spring, I'm taking my boy to the Smokey Mountains for a fishing trip and to spend some time being stupid tourists taking pictures of every deer and turkey we see in Cades Cove.

The wonderful thing of fishing is now that he;s 14 years old, he still does not mind to be seen in public with me. We're still good friends and we fish together as much as possible.

Yes, I still work but my attitude has changed from one of "loving my job" to seeing it for what it really is, work is a means by which I can afford to do the things I love to do. I don't "love" my job. I tolerate my job. I love my wife and son. I love to fly fish. I love my Lord and my church. Work is that thing I have to do to be able to do these other things I love.

Ding Ding Ding - Winner by a TKO 10 count - Fly Fishing.

In the end analysis, work put up a valiant fight. He sure didn't want to give up. Even when the Referee was counting to 10, Work kept trying to get back in the fight. He lost but he keeps asking for a rematch and will most likely not go away until I finally get to retire. However, Fly Fishing is the reigning champ and will remain so unless he offers the chance for a rematch. Let's hope fly fishing never accepts the rematch and remains reigning world champ.

Fly Tying Series # 5 Poppers

2010-01-12T14:47:00.002-05:00

Today we're going to be discussing one of my favorite flies for bluegill (the ultimate fly rod fish) and bass, the popper. There are probably as many different ways to tie this fly as there are fishermen who tie it. I do not think there is a right or wrong way to tie it. The essential elements are cork or foam body (spun deer hair can be used as well), a tail and (optional) hackle at the back edge of the popper body.

Just as there are many ways to tie a popper, there are just as many ways to fish it. Some days, casting it out and letting it sit until the ripples fade away and then giving a very subtle twitch is the hot ticket. Other days, casting it out and immediately starting to twitch it and "pop" it back in in a rapid retrieve works while still other days, a slow deliberate retrieve with no popping or twitching at all is what works. Typically, I start off slow and if that doesn't work, I speed things up a little.

I also find warm summer evenings during the last 45 minutes or so of daylight up until shortly after dark the most productive. I have caught fish in total darkness on poppers and during the middle of the day, but odds are best during that last part of daylight on warm summer evenings (at least here in Kentucky where I fish).

Materials:

Hook: I like the Mustad CK 52S hooks with a kink in the shank but any wide gap hook will work
Body: I like foam because it's easy to work, floats well and stands a lot of fish teeth quite well. I like the foam cylinders available at nearly any fly shop. Little River Outfitters in Tennessee has them (not on the website but if you call them they will ship to you) and they do not charge for shipping. Great fly shop, but your local shop, Cabelas, Bass Pro or any place that sells fly tying supplies should have this item).
Tail: Hen or Rooster cape feather (No need to use prime dry fly hackle here, the cheap stuff works great)
Hackle (same or contrasting feather palmered behind the body)
Eyes - optional can be painted or use doll eyes from a craft store or no eyes at all, I don't think it matters
Thread - I use 210 Denier (fairly heavy) thread for my poppers.

Tying:
Start with the hook. here is what I use:

use a size appropriate to what you're tying and fishing for.

One of the various ways to tie this fly is do I put the body on first and then tie in the tail and hackle, or do I tie in the hackle first and then put on the body? I find it easier to tie in the tail and hackles first and then slide the foam body up to them but I've done it the other way with the body already on and then tie in the feathers. What ever floats your boat, this is all about being easy and relaxing. Don't fret the small stuff.

I lay a good thread base down on the hook first and then tie in 3 feathers at the point where the popper body will stop. 2 feathers should be tied in for a tail. I usually turn the feathers so that there is a slight natural split in them (you will see most feathers with a natural curve, just put the feathers so that the natural curves are facing away from each other. I then tie in the 3rd feather that will be used for the hackle.

Variation: You can also use marabou for a tail and no need to palmer a hackle feather. I tie quite a bit of these and the marabou adds some more movement. there are days these work better than the standard looking poppers. Maribou is a wonderful feather for warm water applications.

This is a horrible picture but you'll get the idea.

Next, palmer 4 or 5 wraps of your 3rd feather to create a pretty decent hackle collar, whip finish and slide on your popper body.
Tips:
I poke my bodkin through the popper body to make it easier to slide over the hook shank.

I also put a couple drops of super glue on the hook shank to help hold everything together before sliding on the body. The thread base you laid down earlier gives something for the glue to bond to.

At this point, you can use sharpies to color the body, or I suppose you could paint it. Personally, I leave it alone because as often stated on this blog, I just don't think the fish are that picky some of this stuff is more to catch fishermen than fish.

You can also add eyes. I do like eyes and am not sure the fish care but I like them. A drop of super glue and one of the craft store doll eyes on each side.

Reader's Tip:
One of the blog readers suggested placing the hook "lower" in the popper body so that it's coming out closer to the bottom, thus increasing the hook gap. Sounds like a great suggestion to me and thought I'd pass it along. Thanks!

Before anyone yells, yes, I did get the popper body too close to the hook point and this fly would probably loose some fish. One thing I like about tying with foam bodies, if you make a mistake like this, it's easy to fix. I took an Xacto Knife and trimmed away the foam to give more clearance for the hook point.

As mentioned, there are plenty of variations on this fly. One can also use the pre-shapped popper bodies and can even turn them around in "sneaky pete" style. following photos show some variations I tie but the method is the same on all of them.

I hope you all have enjoyed this. As always, tie up some of your own, make them pretty if you wish, but most of all, spend time fishing with the flies you tie and don't be afraid to experiment. The photos here and
the ones in the fly tying books are suggestions. There's nothing wrong with being creative.

Next week, I'll tie an experimental fly. I haven't used it yet but it gets rave reviews from some of the guys on the fly fishing forums. It uses "Boa Yarn" and is essentially a leach or something else the fish like to eat. It's experimental so I don't have a lot of tips on how to fish it but it is another 5 minute fly. Here's a sneak peek.

The Ultimate Fly Rod Fish

2010-01-08T19:42:00.006-05:00

What to do on a warm summer evening after work? For me, it’s go in search of the perfect fish for fly fishing. Nope, I’m not talking about any member of the family Salmonidae. I’m not even talking about the mighty largemouth bass. The perfect fish for a warm summer evening with a fly rod is the lowly bluegill.

Pick up your 3 or 4 weight fly rod, a weight forward floating line, a handful of poppers and head off to the nearest pond. Fishing for bluegill is the true essence of fishing. There’s no stress involved, you’re almost guaranteed to catch some fish, you don’t have to worry about matching some obscure hatch, nor does one need a degree in Latin or understand the full life cycle of the mayfly. All you really need is to have an honest desire to have fun fishing, and enough security about your own fishing abilities to put up with the laughter and jibes from the trout purists.

Fishing for bluegill with a fly rod is nothing short of being a kid again. How many of us can say the first fish we ever caught was a bluegill? Come on, be honest with yourself, I know my first fish was a bluegill. In fact, it was with my father and grandfather at Prisoner’s Lake in Kentucky. I don’t remember the exact day but I know that was the first place I remember fishing. I don’t remember exactly what we were using but I can say without much of a doubt that we were drowning a gob of worms hung under a bobber. Even to this day, I still enjoy soaking the occasional worm under a bobber but the love of my life is catching these fish on a fly rod.

Why do I love bluegill so much?

What is not to love? All bluegill, regardless of their actual size, think they are a trophy fish. Bluegill are among the scrappiest fish in the water. What they may lack in size compared to a 20” brown, or a 5lb bass, they more than make up for in their never give up attitude. One word of caution, when you’re using poppers for bluegill, it’s not unheard of to have a rather large bass explode on your popper. The biggest bass I’ve ever landed on a fly rod (7lb 6oz) came on a 5wt and a popper.

To make it even better, bluegill are easy to catch, aggressive, and when you catch one, there are likely more to be found. I find the most satisfying way to catch bluegill is with a popper. This is by no means the only way to catch a bluegill, but if you don’t get a thrill watching one slurp down a popper, you better go to the doctor and have him check for a pulse.

In the end, they are easy to catch, just about any pond will have a healthy population, they fight all out of proportion to their size and a pan full of fried bluegill is one of the best culinary treats one could ever imagine. Bluegill (lightly rolled in a mixture of flour and corn meal with a light dash of salt and pepper), hush puppies, some fried potatoes and a frosty cold beverage of your choice (sweat tea is my favorite) is one of the finest ways to end a summer day.

The next installment of the fly tying series will showcase some poppers you can use for catching the perfect fly rod fish!

Wonder if my buddy, Mr. Anonymous will approve of poppers and bluegill?

What the fly tying series is all about

2010-01-06T14:39:00.000-05:00

t seems someone suggested I need to take lessons. In a way, that is pretty funny and I like the guy's sense of humor.

I did want to take this opportunity to reinforce just what the fly tying on this blog is all about.

First, I do not have an expensive SLR digital camera so my photos should be seen as giving an idea. I'd rather spend money on fly fishing and fly tying gear (and the occasional old Martin Guitar) than on expensive camera equipment.
The intent here is not to showcase a bunch of pretty flies. Over the years, I've found fish just don't care a bit about how pretty a fly is. If it is about the same size and color (and I'm not even too convinced about color) as what they are feeding on, and it is presented in a manner similar to what they are feeding upon appears in the water, the fish are going to check it out and see if it is food. If you're lucky, you'll raise your rod tip before the fish spits it out realizing it is a bunch of feathers tied to a piece of wire.
The intent is not to teach fly tying. My intent is to give ideas for some flies that have caught fish for me and may not be just like the ones in the books. I like to experiment with different materials and techniques. Some work, some don't. The ones I place here are ones that have worked.
I would be more than pleased if you all saw something I tied and wanted to make it pretty or improve upon it. That is the real intent, get the imagination flowing, have some fun tying some 5 minute flies that will catch fish and not spend a lot of time worrying if the hackle is just the right size for your hook, or if the hackle is tied in at the 2/3 point or the 5/6 point, or if you have 3 parts to the tail or 2 or 4 (I doubt if fish can count).
Lastly, I try to focus on flies for warm water. There are thousands of pictures, books and websites dedicated to trout fishing and trout flies. There are fewer covering warm water fishing.

So, have fun, look at the flies. Maybe get a good laugh, but try a couple of these, improve upon them, make them pretty and catch a bunch of fish and if you don't catch a bunch of fish, have a great time fishing anyway. That's what it's all about.

If you have something positive to say, please post. If you want to tell me to go take lessons, well, I guess that's OK too. Everyone has a right to their opinion. I will remove any posts that are abusive, use foul language or are otherwise inappropriate for a family audience.

Jeff

Fly Tying Series #4 - Black Bird Soft Hackle

2010-01-05T20:11:00.002-05:00

Hi, today we're going to tie my variation on the Blackbird Soft Hackle. I don't really want this fly to get too confused with Hugh Hartsell's Smokey Mountain Black Bird Soft Hackle. My fly is different but it is a very effective fly.

This is primarily a trout fly but I have found it to be VERY effective on bluegill and I've caught smallmouth bass on it too. I think, in a fish's mind (remember, a fish has an IQ of about 3 so there's not a lot going on in there to begin with), this looks like some type of an emerging nymph or other "water bug". (Fish don't speak Latin either).

Read more about tying and fishing with this lovely fly after the jump.

Before we get started with this interesting little fly, I wanted to say a word about fly tying tools. One could go totally mad trying to keep up with all the goodies one can buy with which to tie flies. I have a number of tools that I use only rarely (hackle guards when I'm tying really small flies, dubbing twister, and some others).

This photo shows the tools I use most. These are the ones I just cannot live without.

Needle nose pliers. These are invaluable. My main use is to smash down barbs on hooks but they are good for picking up and holding beads while placing them on hooks and any other jobs where one needs long skinny fingers. I like the ones with smooth jaws for smashing down hook barbs.
Wire cutters. These are great for, well, cutting wire so that you don't damage your scissors.
Whip finish tool.
Good scissors and cheap scissors. Keep the good ones for cutting thread and feathers, use the cheap ones for hair, tinsel, and other stuff you'll use when tying.
Bobbin - This particular one has a ceramic insert in the tube but any bobbin will work
Bodkin - this is the long needle looking thing. I find it invaluable in applying head cement and other tasks where a long pointy needle looking thing is necessary.
Hackle pliers
This basic tool set will get you through any thing I'm going to be showing here.

Blackbird Soft Hackle
If you're fishing warm water in a lake or pond, this fly is one I use to hand as a dropper behind a popper or other surface fly. If I'm using it in a stream for bluegill or smallmouth bass, I fish it just as I would in a trout stream. I cast it across and slightly down stream and let it swing across the current. Most strikes seem to come right at the end of the drift or just about as soon as it hits the water. When I tie it down a few sizes for trout, I fish it like any soft hackle (swing across the current). I do get some fish on a dead drift but most seem to come when fishing across and slightly down stream.

Materials

Hook: any wet or dry fly hook with down turned eye warm water size 8-14, trout size 12-20 (14-18 is what size I use for most of mine).
Tail (optional) a few hen hackle fibers about 3/4 to 1 hook shank long.
Ribbing (optional) - gold or copper wire
Body - 3 - 5 strands peacock hurl. (depending on hook size)
Collar / Hackle - Starling. Just about any part of this bird works. I tie some with the iridescent neck feathers and some with feathers from the back or upper wing. It all depends on the size fly and if I'm going to tie traditional soft hackle or palmer the feather up the hook shank. (I will show both below).

Let's start tying:
This photo shows four steps which I'll describe.

Lay down a good base of thread.
Tie in your peacock hurl at the hook bend.
Tie in your wire (I used gold wire here but copper works too)
wrap your thread about 2/3 of the way back tot he hook eye.

Next, wrap your peacock hurl around the wire as shown in the photo below. Wrapping the hurl around the wire gives it some extra strength and makes it much easier to work.

TIP: I sometimes (usually when I'm not being overly lazy) put a few dabs of clear fingernail polish on the hook shank before I begin wrapping the peacock up the hook shank. I find this also helps hold everything together.

Next, wrap the wire / hurl up to where you left your thread at the 2/3 mark and tie in your starling feather. If I"m tying it in as a collar as this one for a more traditional soft hackle, I tie the feathers at the base and have the shiny side facing the hook eye (when I remember to look at the feathers). If I'm tying in at the hook bend so that I'm palmering the feather all the way up the hook, I tie in by the tip to give a nice taper look.

Next, take your thread to just behind the hook eye and wrap your feathers up to the thread tie off point. I try to brush the hackles back so that they have a slight rearward profile but with Starling it's easier said than done. Tie off, whip finish and you're done.

In the next series of photos I'll show one with a few wraps of lead wire to get it down deeper and the Starling upper wing feather palmered all the way up.

Tip: In this fly, I didn't use wire, but I made a thread loop to wrap the peacock around. What the heck is a thread loop? Well, after you tie in the peacock, pull 8-9" of thread out. Use your index finger (I reckon your bodkin, a pencil, straw, or a stick would work as well, but since my finger is always attached to my hand and easily available, I use my finger) and fold the thread over to form a loop. Using your finger to keep some tension on the thread, make a few wraps around the hook shank and you have a loop. Now, tie in your feather by the tip, and follow the photos for the rest.

(see the second photo in the series and you'll see the thread loop hanging below the hook shank).

That's about it for the blackbird soft hackle fly. It is a highly effective fly for both trout and warm water species. Tie a few up, give it a try and let me know if you caught fish. There is something about starling feathers that just make this fly very effective.

The next 2 weeks, I'm going to focus on foam bodied flies and poppers. For a little teaser, below are a couple photos of the finished products. I my even throw in a bonus fly tied with boa yarn just for fun.

Happy fishing and I hope you don't have the same snow cover on the ground as we have here.

Jeff

Knots.

2010-01-02T12:15:00.001-05:00

Today, I'll be talking about knots. Mid week, I'm going to put up a couple more flies. As promised, I'll put up the Black Bird Soft Hackle fly using starling feathers and I'll add a bonus fly too. Next week, I'm going to be showing some basic foam bodied topwater flies and the week after will have some basic poppers. Even though I don't use the fly that much, I will do a couple variations on the Woolie Bugger this winter and have a few more that need to be restocked in the fly box. I may do some traditional trout flies closer to spring. I'm going to the Smokey Mountains in April and will need to stock up on some Quill Gordans, Tellico Nymphs and George's Nymphs so I'll post them too as a change of pace to the warm water focus. I'm looking forward to posting some new flies and hearing your comments.

KNOTS
Yes, there are thousands of knots out there and I suppose most of them work to one extent or another. Most of the instructions to tie these knots must have been designed by Rube Goldberg or someone with 4 hands. I couldn't imagine trying to tie these multi step knots out on a stream. Fishing is supposed to be fun and if your idea of fun is to tie the most complex knot known to man, then this is probably not the article for you.

With most of the popular knots, I believe learning how to tie it consistently, and quickly under "on the water" conditions is more important than a slight percentage strength advantage one knot has over another. What follows after the jump are the knots I use. You may use others, these may not be the "strongest" knots but they work for me. I can honestly say that I rarely loose a fish because the knot failed. The knots fail when I tie them sloppy, or fail to check them from time to time. Line abrasion and fatigue account for far more line brakes in my experience than does an honest knot failure.

Read more after the jump, including a couple videos I found on You Tube and my favorite knot tying tool.

(None of the following videos are mine. They are all publicly available on You Tube. I find watching a video to be an easier way to learn a knot than looking at diagrams, your mileage may vary).

I'll start with attaching backing to the reel. I use the "Arbor Knot". This is one of the easiest of all knots to tie and one ties a limited number of these. Only when you set up a new reel or change the backing does he/she need to tie this knot.

Now, for attaching backing to fly line. There are different schools of thought regarding this I've read where some use the nail knot and some use the Allbright Knot. I've used both and here are what I see as advantages and disadvantages.

The nail knot is a smaller knot and will slide through the eyes better. If you honestly think you'll be catching a lot of fish that will take you into the backing, this may be a knot to look into. Now, what I see as a downside, the Dacron material of the backing doesn't seem to "bite" into the plastic coating of the fly lines like mono line does. I have never had a nail knot slip off the end, but it seems as if it could be a possibility.

The Arbor Knot is a bit larger but I don't see how it could slip off. The truth is, for most of us 99% of the time, this is an academic discussion as I can really count on both hands the number of times I've had a fish take me to the backing. I've never had a bass, bluegill or crappie take me to the backing, they just don't run that long. I've had a couple large trout in fast water, a couple catfish and one that I have no idea what it was because it broke off at the tippet. I assume it was a carp the way it was ruining.

Here's a video of the Allbright Knot:

The Nail knot is one you'll need to learn to tie. As mentioned, it is OK for tying backing to fly line (although I prefer the Allbright. It is also used to tie a leader to the fly line or to tie a loop section to a fly line that does not have a loop already in the end.

I highly recommend doing yourself a favor and getting a Tie-Fast Tool. They're sold at any fly shop, Bass Pro, Cabalas etc.

Here's a link to the instructions page on their website:
Tie Fast Tool

Here's a video on using this tool to make a nail knot.

Now, for attaching leaders to the fly line.

Remember, fishing is to be fun and relaxing. I would suggest doing yourself a favor and getting a fly line with a loop already in the end and getting leaders with a loop already tied in the end and just using those with a loop to loop connection.

However, what to do if your loop gets damaged or you just like tying your own.

Use the nail knot shown in the video above. Here is a tip. When your pre built leader gets too used up to tie any more tippet to, keep the heavy end with the loop already on it, and nail knot that piece to the end of your fly line. Presto, instant loop at the end of your line. I've done this on several lines and it works,, is cheap (read free because it's a piece you were going to throw away) and "green" because you used something you would have otherwise thrown in the trash (You were not going to toss it in the stream were you?).

If you want to tie your own loops, the perfection loop is a good one.
Here's a pretty good video. This is an easy knot to tie, just be careful to not make the loop too big.

Now, for tying tippet to leader. The opinions are as varied as there are fly fishers tying tippets to leaders. The blood knot, the double surgeon's knot seem to get the most of the coverage and they both work just fine.

Here is the blood knot:

Here is the double surgeons knot:

The knot I've been using for the past couple years is the "splice" knot using the Tie-Fast tool. This is essentially a variation of the double uni knot. I've tested it against the blood knot and the double surgeons and it seems slightly stronger than a blood knot and about equal with the surgeon's knot. I find it easier to tie than both of them, especially stream side or lake side.

Here's a link to the instruction page:
Tie-Fast Knots

Last knot in the chain is the one to tie a fly to the tippet. There have been books written about this aspect of fly fishing. I'm not going to write a book. All knots have their place and if you have the manual dexterity to tie some of the more challenging ones that are supposed to be stronger, there's nothing wrong with it.

Personally, I find the clinch knot works, is easy to tie, and holds just fine. It may not be as strong as some of the other knots out there today, but it has served me well for over 40 years of fishing and I don't really see much reason to change.

I've also used the Palomer Knot but keep going back to the simple clinch or improved clinch knot. Here's a video for the Paolmer Knot.

Prayers Answered - Not Fishing Related

2010-01-01T12:49:00.001-05:00

At 3:10am this morning, after over 95 years of life, my grandmother passed on to be with the Lord.

A lot of members of the fly fishing community from LRO's forum and the FAOL forum have been praying for her so that she would go quickly, at peace and without pain or suffering. The Lord did just that this morning. I was able to be with her and my mother when she passed from this life to the next. It was very peaceful.

She lived a long life, she was ready and it seems as if the Lord was ready.

No fly fishing content in this blog post. This is my memorial to my grandmother. She was a good woman, she was loved, and she will be missed.

Fly Tying Series #3 - San Juan Worm Variation

2009-12-29T10:24:00.002-05:00

This is number 3 in the fly tying series. Today, I'll share a variation of a San Juan Worm using soft hackle collar.

This fly is devastating on bluegill and bass. I have also caught trout on this fly in the Smokey Mountains and in Yellowstone. There are a couple little tricks I've learned for working with the ultra chenille. I've picked some of these up from other tiers and some from trial and error.

Here is the finished fly. Read on after the jump for some step by step instructions.

This fly can be fished by itself or it can be used as a "dropper" under a popper or hopper (just love the rhymes today). I find it best fished by itself in streams. Cast it across and slightly down stream and let it swing in the current. A lot of strikes happen right at the end of the drift. Rather than just pulling up and casting at the end of the drift, I twitch it a few times and lower the rod tip to allow it to go just a few inches more down stream and then hang on for 10 or so seconds. A lot of the strikes come just as I'm thinking it's time to pull up and cast again.

In lakes, I hang it about 18" below a popper or bass bug. The popper serves as a very effective strike indicator that actually catches fish. When a bass or bluegill hit this, there is no doubt.

Always use barbless hooks or crushed barb hooks on this fly. The only problem I've ever encountered with this fly is they sometimes take it pretty deep. Those end up in the frying pan as they would die anyway after being hooked in the gills.

Materials used:

Hook: Any standard 1X or 2X streamer hook. I prefer size 8 and 10.
Body and tail: Thin ultra chenille (brown and red seem to work best, green is also OK).
Weight: Optional, you can use a few wraps of lead wire, or a bead head.
Collar: Any soft hackle. On this fly, I was using grouse back feathers. Hen, pheasant, partridge, any soft hackle will work.
Thread: I used black on this for the photos. Tan thread is what I normally use for brown and red thread for the red chenille flies.

Start by laying a good thread base back to the bend of the hook. Tie in a length of your chenille at the hook bend leaving a tail about the length of the hook shank off the back. TIP: hold the end of the tail piece several inches above a lighter, match, candle, or any other source of flame (5 or 6 inches is about right). The heat from the flame will singe the fibers and form a nice pointed tapered tail as in the photo below. Not only does this form a nice tail profile, it binds the end to keep the thing from unraveling on you as you fish it.

Next, take your thread about 2/3 of the way back up the hook shank. I usually put a half hitch in at this point to secure the thread. You're going to leave it there for a few minutes.

Next, wrap your chenille up to where you tied off your thread. (TIP: if you have a rotary vice, this is a good time to use its rotary feature.) Make tight wraps. You want a nice segmented look. I usually wrap back over the first layer of wraps for about 3 segments and take it back to the tie off point. The purpose of this is to form a bump or collar like a real worm has.

Tie off your chenille with 8-10 tight thread wraps.
Tie in your soft hackle feather. I tie in by the tip. I've never found much difference which side the shiny side of the feather goes. If I'm paying attention, I try to tie the shiny side down.

Next, make 5 or 6 close touching wraps with your feather. I brush the hackles back with each wrap. The goal is to make a nice slightly "cone" shaped group of hackles at the head of the fly.

Tie off the the hackles, make a thread head and whip finish. I'll usually put a drop of clear nail polish for head cement to hold everything together.

Here is the finished fly.

You can also make a similar fly using yarn of the color of your choice. One tip I have found when using yarn is after you have the fly tied is to take a wire brush ( I use a .22 caliber rifle cleaning wire brush, but Velcro or any other course thing will work) and "rough" up the yarn to make it more "fuzzy".

Here are a couple pictures of variants using yarn instead of chenille.

The next fly in the series will be a "Blackbird Soft Hackle". This is my take on Hugh Hartsell's Smokey Mountain Blackbird Soft Hackle. Here is a teaser pic. I should get this fly up by mid week next week.

After Christmas Tying, Avatar, Christmas Break

2009-12-27T14:58:00.001-05:00

Here it is, a couple days after Christmas. My son has had friends over nearly every day of Christmas break and they have been up playing XBox until all hours of the morning. It's kind of a lazy time around the KYFLYFISHGUY household.

There won't be many opportunities to go fishing for about 3-4 months. Which sounds like less time, 4 months or 120 days? I'm not sure.

I have been busy at the tying bench. I tied up a couple more flies for the fly tying series last night. I tied a fly that I believe was invented by Hugh Hartsell called the Smokey Mountain Blackbird Soft Hackle. I changed it just a little because I didn't want to copy Hughe's fly directly but I did want to give him full credit for inventing this fly even though what I tie is just a bit different.

I also tied some foam bodied topwater flies. One is a version of the "gurgle pop" that you will find on Fly Anglers Online. I haven't changed this one much but thought some of you all may like to see how I tie it.

After church today, OK, I can't lie, we skipped church today, and took Daniel and his friend to see Avatar. I was teasing the boys that it was a "chick flick". In all honesty, it is a pretty decent flick (considering the stars are blue people). I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. I would say it is definitely worth the money to see.

Daniel has had friends over every night since they got out of school for Christmas break. I think the earliest they have been to bed has been around 2:00am. Between Xbox and just "teen boys" talking about whatever it is teen boys talk about they have been up most of the night. Back when the big thing was painting buffalo on cave walls or carving images of trees into rocks, I was a teen age boy once. Most of our conversations centered around how well some young lady filled out her bear skin dress or how tight her saber tooth tiger pants fit (as well as how nicely curved the lines of the pants happened to be). I have to assume teen age boys have not changed all that radically in the 10,000 years since I was a teen so my guess is their conversations centered around various attributes, talents, and well fitting clothing of various young ladies they know or wish they knew.

So, besides skipping church to go to a movie, tying a bunch of flies, and trying to not know what my son and his friends are talking about and not having to work, the Christmas Break has been pretty uneventful.

Fly Tying Series #2 - Woolie Worm

2009-12-26T10:53:00.001-05:00

This is installment number 2 of the fly tying series. My goal is to bring a new fly each week through the winter. Remember, the flies I tie are intended to be chewed upon by fish, drug through lakes and streams and sometimes hung in trees. They are not intended to be seen in a shadow box or in a person's pretty fly collection.

This week's fly is the woolie worm. There are about as many variations of this fly as there are people who fish it. My woolie worms are fairly traditional in appearance, if not materials.

This fly can be tied weighted or unweighted. Weight can be a bead head, chain eyes, lead wrap, pretty much anything that adds weight to the hook to get it deeper. I fish this fly unweighted a lot and find the SLOW sink rate is irresistible to bluegill.

While I've caught crappie, bass, bluegill, a couple large brown trout and a chub or two, I see this as primarily a bluegill fly. I've probably caught 20 bluegill to one of any other type of fish I've ever brought to hand with this fly.

I like it unweighted. Cast to likely cover for bluegill - edges of moss banks, edges of weed beds, around boat docks, brush stick ups, or any other structure that will hold bluegill. If the water is less than 5-6' deep, I like to fish the unweighted version. I just let the fly sink for 10 seconds or so and then bring it back using a very (did I mention VERY) slow retrieve. If you don't get a strike in the first, oh, I don't know, let's say 10 feet of retrieve, bring it back and cast again..

The overwhelming majority of my strikes on this fly happen while it's sinking or within the first couple feet of the retrieve.

I don't think this fly really looks like anything specific they eat, but it kind of resembles a lot of things they eat. It may look like a caterpillar, it may look like a leach, it may just be so darn ugly they want to get it out of the water. Whatever the reason, there are some days the bluegill seem to fight among themselves to be the first in line to eat this fly. Then there are other days when it does not work.

I frequently use this fly as an exploring pattern. If I'm just poking around looking for where the fish are holding, this fly is one of the "go to" patterns. Also, if I'm just in the mood for not working too hard and taking it easy. Because this fly is fished so slowly, there's not a lot of casting or frantic activity involved.

The next time you have a warm sunny evening, a pond with a bunch of hungry bluegill and an hour or two on your hands, give this fly a try. I think you'll be glad you did.

Materials:
Streamer / wet fly hook size 6 -10
Thread - your choice for color, I usually use black.
Tail: red yarn (can be formed in a loop or just a length of yarn)
Body: Yarn or Chenille in your choice of colors
Hackle: I usually use a hen neck hackle, but pheasant, grouse, partridge, any soft hackle will work.
Weight - Optional, lead wire (or lead free wife), bead head, chain eyes, etc.

After a good thread base, tie in a short loop of red yarn. (this is optional, but I kind of like the little red tail).

Next, tie in your body and hackle. In this case, I'm using a yellowish brown yarn. It's the same color I use for under bodies of hopper patterns. I tie the hen hackle in by the tips about even with the hook barb. (Tip, if you mash the barbs down, there is enough of a bump to help hold the fish but it still comes out easily and it will come out of you much easier when you snag your ear or back of your neck).

After tying in the body and hackle material, take your thread back up to a point just behind the hook eye.

Quick Tip: when taking the thread back up to the hook eye, be careful not to crowd the eye. You're going to be tying off the body and hackle up there and finishing everything off. You don't want the finished materials blocking off the hook eye.

I didn't take pictures of the steps of wrapping the yarn up the hook shank because there's nothing really special there. Just wrap it up with touching turns. You can double it up if you want a thicker body, but with the hackle, it's not really needed.

Tie it off with 3 or 4 good tight wraps.

Next, palmer (fancy word for wrap) the hackle up the body. Take a look at the next photo. I don't wrap them too close or too far apart. It's a "feel" thing but if you look at the photo, you'll see how I do it.

Tie everything off with a few more wraps, whip finish and if you wish, put a couple drops of head cement, let dry and go fishing. This fly will catch fish.

Next are a couple photos of one with a few lead wire wraps for weight and tied with chenille instead of yarn, just to show a variation.

The next installment is going to be the soft hackle worm. I'm sure there is some official name for this fly and there's probably some guy in a fishing Mecca that invented it. I'm not claiming any originality for this fly but the soft hackle chenille worm does catch fish.

I'll get it up on the bog sometime next week. Thanks for looking and if anyone has suggestions for flies you'd like to see, drop off a comment. If it's within my skills or I can find a decent pattern, I'll give it a try.

Here's a photo of the finished product:

Repost: American Angler Broken Fly Rods Article

2009-12-24T13:19:00.000-05:00

I ran across a link to this article on Fly Anglers Online bulletin board.

Busted - Broken Fly Rods

It is an interesting read.

Merry Christmas to All.

Jeff

Fly Tying Series #1

2009-12-24T11:48:00.002-05:00

Over the winter, I'll post some information and instructions for some flies I tie. Photos of the major steps and finished product will be included, and a little information about how I fish with it and what types of fish I catch.

Here are a couple things to keep in mind. I tie flies for fishing not for showing in display cases. If you're looking for flies to show in display cases, this is the wrong place. I've found that fish don't care if it's 3 wraps or 5 wraps and they couldn't care less if the thread head is perfect.

I tie fast and some would say sloppy but, again, I've never found fish to be overly concerned about how neat a fly is. The looks of a fly are more for bragging rights among other fly tiers. I'd rather have my bragging rights be through the fish I catch. Now, don't get me wrong, when I put my mind to it and really concentrate, I can tie some pretty flies and have done so (I may even post a blog or two with some pretty flies), but I find tying flies I don't mind hanging in a tree or getting stuck on a stump to be more rewarding than remorsing over a lost fly.

First for fly tying materials:
I like to hit the craft stores and other unlikely places to find interesting stuff to use in my fly tying. The Christmas Decoration section is a great start. Look at the stuff I got at a Dollar General store just this week:

I'll start the fly tying series with my "Tinsel Fly".

The Tinsel Fly has proved to be very effective on warm water fish like bluegill, bass, crappie, pumpkinseeds, etc. It is a very easy fly to tie. It is essentially a minnow imitation and when fished unweighted is very effective when bass and crappie are chasing minnows in shallow waters. In these conditions, I let it sink about 3 or 4 seconds, twitch it and start a very slow retrieve then let it sink. Most strikes come on the sink. I think the movement of the marabou tail and the very slow sink rate of this unweighted fly must resemble a dead or dying minnow. When cast into a bunch of hungry crappie who have been thrashing minnows in the shallows in early spring, it's not uncommon for me to bring 40 - 50 to the hand in an hour or so.

Before we get started tying, one little "trick" I'd like to share is threading bobbins. The stuff used to pull dental floss through teeth makes a perfect device to thread bobbins. Here are 2 photos, one of the stuff and one how it's used. This can be picked up in any pharmacy or grocery store in the area where they sell toothpaste and dental floss.

OK, now for the Tinsel Fly.
There are two ways to tie this fly. One is by laying a base of red yarn down and the other is by tying the tinsel onto the thread base hook. The yarn gives it a little more body and the red left at the head seems to give the impression of gills. On some days, they really key in on the red and on others, the straight tinsel fly works better. I'll give instructions for tying the yarn based one and show a photo of the straight one. They are tied the same minus the yarn step.

Materials Used:

2X long Streamer hook Size 4 - 10 (6 and 8 seem to work best for crappie, 8 -10 bluegill, 4-6 bass)
White Marabou Feather
Silver Tinsel (can use gold or any other color you like)
Red Thread (I used black for these photos because it showed up better, you can use black it works)
Red Yarn (optional
Lead Wire, bead head, chain eyes (optional, I prefer this fly unweighted)

This fly can be tied with a bead head, chain eyes, a few wraps of lead wire, or as I prefer, unweighted.

Start with a good thread base. I like to take the thread back to about where the barb is on the hook (yes, I do flatten the barbs of my hooks, as much because they come out of me easier as they come out of the fish easier. If you've ever had a hook go past the barb in YOU, you'll understand the value of mashing down the hooks).

Next step, tie in a clump of white marabou feathers. I like to have it extend out the back of the hook approximately the length of the hook shank. Experiment with your fish and see what they like. It seems 1 hook shank length is the ticket around here.

While you're back there, tie in a length of red yarn as well.

Then tie in a length of tinsel (silver, gold, holographic, green, red, whatever suits your fancy. I've found silver to be the best, but I do tie it with various types of tinsel. Holographic seems to have a nice shimmer in shallow water but seems less effective when fishing more than a couple feet under the surface, Silver has been the top producer for me).

Wrap your thread back up to about 2-3 hook eye lengths from the eye (look at the picture following this, on this tie, I went all the way to the hook eye because I was thinking more about photos than tying, the next photo shows what I'm talking about.

Wrap your yarn up to the thread and tie off with a few firm wraps. DO NOT cut off your tag end of yarn yet.

Now, wrap your tinsel up to the point you tied off your yarn and tie off the tinsel. Clip the tag end of the tinsel leaving your yarn tag end in tact. Wrap the yarn up to the hook eye and tie off.

I usually use red thread on this fly but the black showed up better in the pictures. I have fished the flies with black thread heads and haven't really seen a difference. Heck, the fish may think the black head is eyes. Fish have an IQ of about 3 so they're not all that smart to begin with.

You can make the red head area as large or small as you wish. It really is not as big as the photo makes it look so just use your eye to judge what looks best.

Here is what the fly looks like without the yarn. This fly is VERY productive without the yarn so don't be afraid to tie it the easy way. This really is about a 5 minute tie (if you're taking your time and take a few sips of coffee between steps).

That about wraps it up for the Tinsel Fly. I'm sure this has some name, but I just always called the Tinsel Fly.

The next installment will be my take on variations of the wollie worm. I may be a bit unorthodox in how I tie this fly too. Here's a pic of the finished product.

Tomorrow is Christmas so I doubt if I'll be updating until the weekend. In addition to the woolie worm, I have a different spin on the San Juan worm to share, some poppers, and whatever else I may decide to tie up this winter.

I hope you all enjoy. Leave a comment on the blog if you like the flies or have questions.

Jeff

PS. if you need to buy any of the materials listed here, check out Little River Outfitters. I'm not affilliated with this shop, but have been a happy customer. They don't have a lot of fly tying stuff on their website, but have a huge fly tying area in the shop. Just give them a call, tell them what you need and they'll ship it to you. They do not charge shipping on orders which helps . Yes, there are LOTS of other fly shops out there, but these guys have always treated me right.
js.

Marital Advice for the Fly Fisherman

2009-12-23T10:03:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try to get to the bench today and tie some flies. Tomorrow, I'll write up something about what I'm tying, give some photographs of the steps and talk about what I use the flies for and how I fish them. I'll be talking about the tinsel fly (minnow streamer) and maybe some poppers.

For today, I'm going to go off the deep end and talk about the subject at hand which is the result of a long history of email banter with one of my best friends.

Like many guys who spend a great deal of time fishing, I meet lots of people. I have hundreds of friendly acquaintances. However, the ones I consider true friends number exactly 5. True friends are those with whom you feel comfortable sharing your deepest thoughts. These are the people who will really laugh with you instead of at you. These are also the people who will laugh "at" you when it's appropriate and can tell you the truth about yourself an still remain your friends.

Well, I have a friend (one of the 5) with whom I've had an ongoing email banter about marital advice. He has a ton of "home projects" that his loving wife seems to believe are more important than fishing. How many married guys share this same situation? I know I do. My friend's projects are such silly things as repairing the roof after a hurricane blew it away, replacing siding on his house the same hurricane blew off, and taking care of a flood in the basement of his house after a water line break. (how many guys are fortunate enough to have their own trout stream in the basement and his wife actually wanted it to be stopped. women!).

OK, because of the sage wisdom I've shared with him over the years, he suggested in a recent email that I offer the same sage advice to the folks who may accidentally stumble upon this blog while they were hopelessly lost in cyber space.

One such piece of wisdom I've shared is the "cave man" approach. This approach goes something like this: "Woman, I'm the man of this house and by golly, I'm going fishing. I'll be home when I'm home and I, by golly, expect to have a hot meal on the table when I get back." No, it's never worked for me either and the most common reaction is waking up to a paramedic asking if I know my own name.

Another one is the subterfuge approach. In this approach, one has fly fishing gear always hidden away in his vehicle. When the wife has a project, there is always something one needs from Home Depot. On the way to Home Depot, or on the way home from Home Depot, the fly fisherman makes a slight detour to the nearby stream or lake to catch a few fish. All the wife really needs to know is the traffic was horrible and the lines were quite long. This approach works until one gets caught. At that point, it no longer works.

My personal favorite is the "guilt" approach. One word of caution though. The line "my old girlfriend let me go fishing anytime I wanted", or "my ex wife let me go fishing anytime I wanted" is probably not the best way to start the guilt trip. See above mention of waking up to paramedics asking if you remember your name.

So, my friend thought that I had so much sage wisdom to share that I might as well share it with the world. So, from time to time, I may decide to share some pearl of wisdom you all can use with your wives (or husbands for those lady fly fishers out there) the next time some home project stands in the way of fishing.

It may range from the "cave man/woman" to the "guilt trip" to the "this is THE best week of the year to go fishing, I"ll do my projects next week" and my favorite, "fishing's about over for the year, I have to get as much time on the water the next 2 weeks before winter sets in". All of these approaches (especially the last 2) have been known to work to one extent or another.

Next blog post will probably be about some flies I've been tying recently for warm water fishing. I promise this blog will get back to fishing soon.

In the meantime, I'll leave you all with a few photos to remember what fishing looks like.

Why I like fly fishing gear

2009-12-22T13:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm a GEAR JUNKIE and I'm not one bit ashamed to admit it. Not only that, but I like really nice fishing equipment. I have a Fishpond vest, a Winston and a couple Scott rods. I also like Ross Reels and Orvis reels.

I'm not a total gear snob and own a number of rods from Cabelas and every TFO rod I've ever cast was excellent. My Cabela's rods are also great casting and feeling rods. My son has a custom built rod from Steve at Midwest Custom Fly Rods that was by no means expensive but is a wonderful casting rod.

So, why do I own so much equipment? Well, it's because I'm a fly fisherman and one cannot have too many fly rods and reels.

I also tie my own flies which means I have enough feathers, hair, string, tinsel and other fly tying soft stuff to make several feather beds. I'll never be able to tie enough flies to use up all of my feathers, but every time I go to a fly shop, I buy more. Every time someone is selling tying materials on one of the bulletin boards, I feel compelled to buy it. Why? I don't know, I just do.

While I like this stuff, I don't consider myself an equipment snob. I am somewhat of a guitar snob with Martin guitars, but when it comes to fishing, whatever catches fish is good with me. I'm a died in the wool gear junkie and this is my confession. Unfortunately, I have no intention of giving up my bad habits of collecting fishing gear until such time that I cannot buy more (either financially or when I'm dead).

The one aspect of this sport I have not tried, yet, is rod building. It looks interesting but I'm afraid a rod I built would just look like a rod I built so far, I've chosen to leave that to the professionals.

So, where does all of this lead? I guess it's nothing more than a confession that I am a gear fanatic and the fact it's snowing outside, all the lakes are frozen over with a thin skim of ice, the streams are frozen around the edges and I can't fish, which all leaves me with far too much time on my hands.

That's about all for now.

Thoughts on being a fishing bum.

2009-12-21T12:52:00.000-05:00

OK, I'll admit it, my life's ambition is to be a fishing bum. More specifically, a target shooting, guitar playing fishing bum. Unfortunately, I have this little thing called wor... WHO.. wwwwoo. oh well, that thing I have to do 5 days a week so I can afford to do the things I love to do 2 days a week. Somehow, that balance seems somewhat unfair, but that's the way it is. With any luck, I have about 4 more years to go to that same place at the same time every day and leave at some unspecified time that ends up being whenever the wor.. wo. wwwoor. that word I have trouble saying, is finished.

Let's take a closer look at what a fishing bum really is.
Dictionary.com defines bum in the following way:

"1. a person who avoids work and sponges on others; loafer; idler.

2. a tramp, hobo, or derelict.

3. Informal. an enthusiast of a specific sport or recreational activity, esp. one who gives it priority over work, family life, etc.: a ski bum; a tennis bum.

4. Informal. an incompetent person. "
Dictionary.com goes on to say a bum is one who: sponges on others for a living; leads an idle or dissolute life.

Hmm, now if I think about it, I really am a bum in training. There have been many times I took off work early (half day vacation :-) ) to go fishing. I've avoided work around the house to go fishing. I've planned family vacations around fishing. This past summer, my son and I went to Oregon to "visit" my friend Paul and go fishing. While there, I did manage to sponge a few meals off of Paul's good graces. Heck, Paul even hooked us up with a celebrity in the fly fishing world and got us access to a couple lakes on his private farm. Unfortunately, I have been sworn to secrecy at risk of sudden and painful removal of fly rods from my hands if I were to ever say who this celebrity is or give any type of location to his farm. In fact, Paul and his best friend Keith got us so lost and turned around by their "accidental" wrong turns and "turn arounds" that I couldn't find this secret location again if my life depended upon it. Let's just say, there were some nice fish there and that is probably saying too much. But "leads an idle or dissolute life" being a trait of bumdom, I can probably get away with this one indiscretion.

Paul, on the other hand is my hero. Paul is, indeed, a fishing bum on a full time status. He and Keith are nearing the state of perfection as fishing bums.

So, what does one bum in training do when with a mentor bum (bum mentor's abbreviation BM just didn't seem fitting)? He spends a week living the life of a fishing bum, of course.

Jeff & Dan being fishing bums:

Now, what does a real fishing bum look like? Here is a guy I ran across on one of the Oregon rivers. I believe this gentleman has the right look to be a proper fishing bum:

Notice the hat, the fishpond vest, the delicate grip on the fly rod, the "I'm going to stuff that camera up your backside if you take another picture" look on his face. Yes, a proper fishing bum.

Here's another guy that has potential to be a fishing bum. I also ran across this guy on a river in Oregon.

For a better look at a future fishing bum in training, one has to look no farther than this photo:

And a couple handsome fishing bums in training on an undisclosed "sworn to secrecy" river somewhere in Oregon.

That's about it today. We've established that being a fishing bum is a state of mind as much as anything else. In order to be a full time fishing bum, one must give up his job, luxuries, warm bed, etc. To be a bum in training, all one has to do is be willing to give up these things more frequently than makes one comfortable.

Blogging from a mobile device

2009-12-20T18:29:00.001-05:00

Well, with the snow and cold there is little else to do than sit inside and think of things to do. I checked my weather report on my new ZuneHD only to see it is currently warmer in West Yellowstone than it is here in Kentucky. That just ain't right..

So, sitting here all depressed because I cannot fish and nothing better to do, I thought I would see how well I could blog from the ZuneHD.

It is slow typing on the little touch screen keyboard. Other than that, it works fairly well.

How does this tie to fishing? It really does not. The only tie I can see is I can blog, tweet and Facebook from a hotel while I am on fishing trips.

Also, this is just a cool toy. I like it as well as the iTouch. I like Zune software even better than iTunes.

SNOW

2009-12-19T11:18:00.000-05:00

Darn- snow. The temperatures have been such that there is very little liquid water around these parts. Even though I usually fish with floating fly lines, it is difficult for the fish to see a fly laying on top of ICE and even more difficult for them to break through the ice to attack my perfectly presented fly. It may be March before I get to go fishing again. What a sad state of affairs for a fishing bum. I guess I'll have to tie a bunch of flies to replace the ones I left hanging in trees last summer, read about other people fishing, organize my photographs into albums and just reminisce about my fishing adventures of 2009 while dreaming about yet to be had adventures of 2010.

Here is what the snow looked like out my back door:

With little fishing to be had, I went target shooting. In addition to being a part time fishing bum (as my friend Paul in Oregon says, "Fish Bum In Training, or FBIT for short), I also like to shoot flintlock muzzleloading rifles. While not the best shooting I've ever done, this wasn't a bad target for just plinking around in a non-competitive situation.

That's about it for today.

The value of a good fishing hat - CAUTION Shocking Photo Below

2009-12-18T14:40:00.000-05:00

A good fishing hat should:

1) cover your head

2) protect you from the sun
3) be just about as ugly as possible
4) never be washed
5) a really good one will cover the fisherman's face so others don't have to look at him.

6) not be in bright fish scaring colors (not that fish care about fashion but I don't really want to see your hot pink hat while I'm out fishing)

7) be cheap enough that when (yes, I did say when) you step in water over your head, or a big gust of wind comes along, you won't be too upset about watching it go floating down the stream.

Here is an example of a fishing hat that meets 6 of the 7 criteria (it does not do an effective job of covering my face.

First Blog Post

2009-12-18T12:44:00.000-05:00

Over the past couple years, I've been reading so much about invasive species such as didymo, Whirling Disease, and New Zealand Mud Snails, and others that one has to wonder how they got here and how they are really spreading. Several areas have banned felt wading boots as a way to stop the spread. On the US Government website (http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/didymo.shtml) it says it's been around in Canada since the late 1800s but it didn't really start causing problems until the 1990's. What caused something that has been around for so long to all of a sudden start causing problems? I don't know and it seems none of the experts do either.

Here is a pretty good video by Fish & Game New Zealand:

With so many manufacturers starting to shy away from felt soles and so many streams starting to ban their use, I guess the next time I buy wading boots, I'll have to go with the new rubber soled ones. The problem is the reports I've read show them as being "almost" as good as the felt soled ones.

Here's a pretty decent article from Mid Current discussing the differences in performance rubber vs. felt:
The Truth about Feltless Soles

Here is one from Field & Stream:
Get Studs for Rubber Soles

Here is an editorial piece from the Idaho Statesman
Is it time to get rubber soles?

This is from Ian Rutler's Blog (Ian is a guide I've fished with in the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee).
Sticky Rubber vs. Felt

In the end, I like the idea of not being the guy who spreads nasty stuff in our rivers, but I don't much like the idea of being the guy who gets his favorite fishing hat washed every time he goes out, nor am I much in favor of chasing my had down stream or taking an unscheduled cold water bath. I mean, as a real fisherman, I take a bath once a month if I need it or not so why would I go falling in a cold river just to clean behind my ears?

I'd really like to give the rubber soled boots a try before "jumping in" (boo, couldn't help myself) and buying a pair.