Too Much Rain

It is that time of year again, where the last thing I want here in Massachusetts is rain, and after Irene there has been sporadic downpours that have left the lower Deerfield high and muddy, and with no car, the fishing options are slim to none. Back home, 600 miles away in Ohio, there has been a record rainfall which has welcomed group after group of steelhead. Metalhead has been played on repeat to keep me sane, but even that is doing little to keep me from wanting to fly home and go swing some flies in pursuit of fresh chrome. In the downtime I have reorganized my fly boxes to many times to count and scraped a little time up to tie. The tying has been reasonably random in the types of streamers. A few steelhead flies have been tied but a few good baitfish patterns have been tied, a good sculpin pattern, and a crayfish that has two rattles in the head to make it sound realistic.

Short Post

Its been awhile since I have been able to post. It was a busy summer, but I now have some fresh pictures to upload. A while ago I attended guide school at Hubbards lodge in Montana. It was a great experience and met a lot of great people there. I fished some good water and had a great time. Here are some pictures, there will be more to come. tight lines. I have a bunch of fly tying posts coming soon.

Is There A Similarity Between The Two?

Its Shark Week and it looks like sharks "sip" dries just like trout

PA Run

This past weekend I made a quick run to Pennsylvania to throw some flies at trout. I hadn't fished for trout in awhile so I needed to get my fix. To sum it up it was a great trip. I met Jared and Mike from Brooks Browns and Bows (brooksbrownsandbows.blogspot.com). Its a sick blog full of good fish pics. Took a half day sunday and went to fish the Yough and it was good. About half way through fishing it, I decided that I wanted to run a dry-dropper rig, so I tied on a hopper and a nymph. The nymph got tangled so I decided just to clip the dropper off. Not feeling a fly change I stuck with a hopper and on a long drift a good sized brown came up and pounded it. Larry and I both thought it was a fluke that we caught a fish on a hopper but that didn't matter, we took what we could get after all, trout don't come easy in August. I kept the hopper on and a few more fish took it off the surface to end the day. The next day, monday, we headed to Maryland to fish the Savage. Upon arrival I could understand why it was worth the drive. It is by far one of the coolest streams I have ever fished. No fish in the first small run and pockets of water, but when we waded up to a little bit bigger of a run, we saw a few fish rising. Larry said that the fish in this hole were just uncooperative, so mostly as a joke I decided to throw a hopper on and see what would happen. For those who have never fished or heard of the savage it is a tailwater stream in the mountains, meaning there are virtually no grasshoppers around, but I threw one anyways, and like the fish on the Yough, the wild savage browns liked my hopper too. Now whoever actually read all this I applaud you. It is safe to say that I wouldn't have read something this long, and I would have just skipped to the pictures but this was the shortest way possible to explain this weekend of fishing. Enjoy the pics.

Much Needed Fish Post

Its been awhile since there has been a fish post up here on Fly Bible, so I have dug up some pictures from the past month of fishing. Here are some pictures, Enjoy.

Although this rock bass is not a monster, while fishing a rod given to me over 10 years ago that casts a 1 wt. line and the 1 wt. line feels heavy, small fish like this can be a ton of fun.

Flies over bait. Caught on my flies in the same area two tournament bass boats were fishing. They weren't happy.

The reason I like to wear waders even in the summer...

Deer Hair Bass Bugs

Lately the fishing around my area hasn't been great, which has resulted in me doing a lot of tying. I've done a little bit of deer hair bass bugs in the past, but with the past period of poor fishing, I have been putting a lot more time into tying with deer hair.

Tube Diver

Mouse: white belly, ears, eyes, whiskers, tail, and feet.

7 piece frog. I saw one of these at a show and thought it would be good to duplicate. Not something that I am interested in tying again and its not something you would fish. Fishing has to be very bad for one to tie something like this.

Paddy Sr. Pheasant Tail

This one will be called the Paddy Sr. Nymph because of its simplicity. There is nothing complicated to it and it is a very easy and quick tie. Its not original, just a variation of the affective pheasant tail pattern. I think it is just easier to tie. Works the same.

Hook: traditional nymph hook
Thread: 12/0
Materials: Pheasant tail, dubbing, bead head, wire.
Tools: Vise, scissors, bobbin, whip finish tool.

Step 1: slide bead head onto the hook. Start thread behind bead head and spin a small amount of dubbing behind bead head.

Step 2: in the back of the fly tie in a piece of wire.

Step 3: tie in a pinch of pheasant tail in the same spot you tied in the wire. (5 pheasant tail fibers will work)

Step 4: dub the body giving it a natural taper.

Step 5: hold the pheasant tail down with your hand and wrap the wire up the body. Tie off the wire and clip any extra.

Step 6: wrap the pheasant tail around the hook shank to make a thicker body behind the bead head. Tie off pheasant tail and clip any extra

Step 7: whip finish and apply head cement.

Furry Baitfish

This is another very simple pattern. It is tied in three major steps and can be tied very quickly but it works. Its a lot like a clouser and Im not going to say that this is a super new/original pattern because its not, but it works, and its quick and easy to tie so I thought I would share. 

Hook: Size 6 Daiichi 

Thread: Ultra thread

Materials: dumbbell eyes, arctic fox tail (could also use craft fur), polar chennile

Tools: vise, bobbin, whip finish tool, scissors

Step 1: tie in dumbbell eyes at the very front of the fly. Tie in a pinch of arctic for as a tail in the rear of the fly. Tie in a piece of polar chennile

Step 2: Wrap polar chennile towards the front of the fly making sure fibers lay back and not straight up. Tie off behind the eyes.

Step 3: tie in a pinch of arctic fox on the top and another on the bottom of the fly. Make sure the darker color is on the opposite side of the dumbbell eyes. Whip finish and apply head cement.

 

Bass Magic

BThis is a relatively simple pattern. It doesn't use a lot of materials or any fancy type of tying technique, but wow does it work. In my bag that I carry there is a front compartment the opens and has foam on the from of it. I only put the most used flies there and I have a bunch of these in there. This pattern has been golden this summer, catching perch, sunfish, largemouth, rock, and smallmouth bass. It has worked on river and lake smallmouth as well as deep and shallow water largemouth and everything in between. Trust me this fly is killer. All a bass pattern needs is a rabbit strip, marabou, rubber legs and flash. that combo makes them go crazy. All I have fished this in is purple and black just because it has been working so well, but i have also tied blue, all black, white, chartreuse, orange, pink, and red. As you can tell I tie a lot of this pattern. It has a slow decent even with dumbbell eyes and that is a key feature. Tons of movement and it drives fish crazy!

Hook: size 6 (can go larger or smaller depending on fish)
Thread: ultra thread
Materials: dubbing, polar chennile, marabou, rabbit strip, dumbbell eyes
Tools: vise, bobbin, bodkin, whip finish tool, scissors

Step 1: tie in dumbbell eyes on top of the hook shank at the very front of the hook just behind the hook eye. Tie in a rabbit strip so the leather is facing up off the back of the fly

Step 2: Tie in a piece of polar chennile. Once it is tied in, use dubbing and spin dubbing around the thread and wrap the dubbing and thread up to behind the dumbbell eyes.

Step 3: Wrap the polar chennile up the body making sure the fibers lay back and don't stick straight up.  Tie off behind dumbbell eyes and clip any extra material

Step 4: Tie in 2 rubber legs on each side of the fly.

Step 5: Tie in marabou and make a marabou collar behind the dumbbell eyes. Whip fishing and apply head cement.