Fly of the Week: Shad Fly

Do to a hectic schedule, a laptop that was down all last week (hence no FotW last week) and being a bit under the weather this week, things have been a bit quiet around here. I have to apologize for that, things will pick up again, promise!

Here's a neat little warm water baitfish fly: the Shad.

Fly of the Week: the Lite Brite Buzzer

It seems that every time I'm on Youtube looking for a fly video for here, the one I find is made by Davie McPhail. Either this guy makes some cool looking bugs or it's a damn conspiracy.

Anyway, here is (yet another....) fly by Davie, the Lite Brite Buzzer. This fly is real simple to tie but yet the end product looks like it wouldn't be.

Fly of the Week: the Fluffy Minnow

Since it appears that iMovie needs more than 40 minutes to upload a 5 minute video to Youtube and work seems to think that I should show up on time, this is a bit later than I wanted to post this. But rather late than never, I guess.

So without further ado, the Fluffy Minnow.

Fluffy Minnow

Hook: Streamer Hook - size 4

Tail: Pearl Krystal Flash

Underbody: Bill's Wooly Bugger Maribou Chenille Olive

Overbody/Tail: Olive Rabbit strip

Head: Pale Pink Lazerlights

Fly of the Week: the Jungle Beetle

Terrestrials are in full swing right now, so it only makes sense to present one as the FotW. And this is one of the sweetest beetle patterns I've seen in a very long time. If you have some Jungle Cock and a UV torch lying around, you're going to have a lot of fun with this (and if not, just watch anyway. This fly is damn good.)

Fly of the Week: Texas Rose Muddler

The Fly of the Week this week is the Texas Rose Muddler, a Muddler Minnow variant. This is a very nice variant that I can see working great for warm water fish, but I really wanted to include this video because of the way that he does his half-hitches.  I was taught a way that wraps the thread around your finger but his way, with a little practice, seems to be worlds simpler.

Fly of the Week: Golden Crane Caddis

Use the Crane. There is no defense against it.

This caddis emerger pattern is smooth, silky, and oh so buggy in the water. Fish this one right in the film or just under the surface.

Golden Crane Caddis

Hook: Size 10 (this is a nymph hook but an emerger hook is best. Sorry, I was fresh out.)
Body: Tan Spectrablend
Rib: Copper Wire
Wing: Gold Mallard Flank
Hackle: Partridge

Fly of the Week: Tenkara Fly by Davie McPhail

If you fish Tenkara, you know instantly what I'm talking about. And if you don't I'm sure you've seen them; the funny lil dry flies with the hackle the wrong way.

Well, here's a video from Davie McPhail that shows you how to tie one of those funny lil buggers, and he takes it to the next level with a couple of nice details that I think will work great. Enjoy!

Fly of the Week: the Foam Hopper

With the dog days of Summer nearly upon us, I thought that it's only fitting to do a FotW on that Summer fly favorite, the foam hopper.

I found this video on YouTube that shows a foam hopper that is not only easy to tie, but also uses this cool little tool called a "Beaver Tail Foam cutter" that makes cutting the foam bodies almost remedial.

And if your interested in getting the foam cutter, down there it is on Amazon.


Tight lines!

Fly of the Week and some Epic Failure

I have to apologize for being late with the fly of the week, but this week I wanted to try something different. I received a couple dozen flies from Brian Davis and thought that they were so stellar I would post them up as a fly of the week. I can't give out the recipes, but Brian said that if anyone is interested in buying some, they can contact him at davis.audio@verizon.net and he'd hook them up. 

The flies are wonderfully tied and he gave a ton of color combo's. These look to me to have bass and panfish written all over them. 

Thanks again to Brian for the awesome flies. I'm already looking forward to giving them the old college try next week (sooner if I'm lucky.) If you haven't checked out his blog yet, you should. He has some great stories and a lot of fish porn over there. 

And here's the epic failure part..... I took a bunch of pics and thought that I'd put them in a nice little slideshow, using Flash. Well, apparently Blogger doesn't allow Flash files to be uploaded and to host it elsewhere slows down the whole process, so I'm just going to have to post a very boring series of pics. 

Wordpress is looking better and better......

Here you go. The flies are a lot better than my crappy pics suggest. I really need to break down and get a better camera. Or maybe clean my lens. Someday....

Fly of the Week: the Electric Minnow

I had found a streamer quite some time ago, and after re-finding it in my fishing vest, I sat down with it to play with the design. This streamer was little more than a hook with a wad of silver tinsel attached to it. After some thinking and a couple spins, I came up with the Electric Minnow.

the Electric Minnow
Hook: Size 8 nymph hook
Body: Gold Tinsel
Hackle: guinea hackle, attached via the pull-through method
Wing: holographic lite-bright.


Until next week... and I promise that fly with have 0% guinea hackle in it. Even I think it's getting ridiculous.

Tight lines.

Fly of the Week: WBD

I almost didn't post this, thinking that today was Friday. Then I panicked a second thinking that I missed posting the FotW, then after about 30 seconds realized that today was indeed Wednesday. That's the kind of week it's been......

Fly of the Week: the Spotted Popper

Yes! The camera has been found sneaking around in my pack and we are back in business. This week I'm doing a popper. Now before you start ragging, yes I know it's not the best popper. It's probably not even mediocre. but it's my first one, so bugger off (I'm still not counting that one I tried to make from the wine cork. Man did that get ugly....) It is most defintely not on the par with this guys, but I'm pretty sure he's half cyborg to begin with.

Fly of the Week: the Purple Plopper

Wow, did Wednesday sneak up on me. Here is a flymph that I came up with. You can treat it up and float it like a dry or you can add a little weight to the leader and fish it under the surface as an emerger. If using as a dry, it's pretty big so it will "plop" into the water, getting those trouts attention (and if done right, not spook them.)

Oh, and sorry about the bad photo. This one was the least worse and I decided to quit while I was ahead.

Fly of the Week: Bird of Prey Caddis

Today I picked up the book Fly Fishing Guide to Upper Delaware River by Paul Weamer. The majority of this river is fairly close to my house (between an hour to Philly at it's mouth to about 3 hours to the border with NY.) I have never fished it but have always wanted to. And since a three hour drive is a little far for a scouting trip, I figured this book would be the next best thing.

Fly of the Week: the Pompous Jerk

I was flipping through last Falls issue of Fly Fisher and Fly Tier and they had an entire article on purple flies. I think that purple flies are great producers, along with blue, as most flies have very little to none of these colors in them.

The fish haven't seen a plethora of these flies, don't know what they are and as such, hit them up because they just don't know any better.

Fly of the (last) Week: the Black Ghost

Finally, I have it. As good as it's gonna get any time soon, anyway. The Black Ghost is one of those streamer patterns that I've always loved but a) had no idea how to tie and b) didn't know where to start.

Fly of the Week: check back this weekend

I've been working on the Fly of the Week, the Black Ghost, for a bit and it's not quite ready for prime time. It's a matter of a) not knowing what I'm doing, b) not having the right materials, and c) really not knowing what I'm doing.

If your really dying to see the Black Ghost, you can see the pics and the step by step on NAFFF right here. I've never tied a streamer like this before and it's proving a little more challanging that I thought (stupid feather wings....)

I plan to have this up on Sunday, when I have time to really sit and work on it.

Also, this is the last in the NAFFF series. While I have a few other flies in the wing (get it? wings? fly humor......) if anyone has any suggestions of a fly to post, or one they would like to see tied up, drop me a line at flyfishinado(at)yahoo.com. Even better, if you have a fly you wouldn't mind sharing, send it over. Sharing means caring.....

Fly of the Week: the Leadwing Coachman

Our fly this week hails from the classic wet category. And if you've ever tried to tie a classic wet, you already know that this means it's going to be a pain in the a**......

I attempted to tie a wet fly once before. Once I realizes that it was only going to be an exercise in frustration, I promptly walked away and did not look back. So when Allen said that he was going to tie a Leadwing Coachman as one of the patterns for the NAFFF tie-a-long; I was a little apprehensive.

Fly of the Week: Picket Pin

This weeks Fly of the Week comes from the Northwestern part of the US of A; the Picket Pin. This is the fourth installment of the NAFFF tie-a-long and so far is the first that I had never tied before. I had did a quick Google Image search before the step by step was posted, and my reaction was a bit along the lines of  "WTF..." But Mr. Pocono's great instructions made this fly almost as easy to tie as a Woolly Bugger. (Click the prior link and scroll down until you find it.)

Fly of the Week: Adams Flymph

The Adam's what?! A flymph. A dry fly and nymph hybrid. Per Allan, who is running the NAFFF Fly-Tie-Along (where I've been stealing these patterns) :