A blog to Note

Just stumbled on this blog, and it is quite noteworthy. These flies are simply outstanding. Bad part? The entire site is in French. Not that French is bad, but I haven't kept up with my French in 7 years, and even then I wasn't conversational. I could make out enough to know I had no idea what he was saying, but either way, this chap is mean at the bench.

Bailfly

A Brief Pause

We've entered the time in PA where fishing is prohibited in "trout approved" waters so they can stock, which is 95% of the waters near were I live. The other 4.9% are warm water lakes (which in my opinion is an exercise in futility this time of year) and the other 0.1% is this small stream with no name that runs through State Game land. I haven't fished it yet, so maybe I'll hit it sometime this month. But slogging through mud to fish a stream of dubious quality..... let's just say I'm not feeling it right now.

Fly of the Week: the Orange Roughy

Continuing on with my now keenly picked interest in soft hackles... I've always been a big fan of the partridge & orange. It's simple and it's always been a pretty good producer.

I was in the fly shop the other day looking around and saw a lonely little bag of English Grouse soft hackles. Neat little brown/black mottled things.

So long story short, two flies at the vice later(I tied the hackle on backwards on the first one.Oops!) we had the Orange Roughy. I add the iridecent glass bead to it not to give it any more weight, because it really doesn't, but to add a bit more sparkle to the fly.



Orange Roughy
Hook: Nymph Hook 14-18
Glass Bead Head
Body: 6/0 orange thread
Rib: Copper Wire
Thorax: Purple Seal Dubbing
Hackle: English Grouse

Hammer Time

This video has been circling about, but in case you've missed it..... It's a hammerhead railing into a boat. Warning: Foul Language abounds.

Fly of the Week: Foxy Lady

This weeks fly has a little bit of an unorthodox way of being tied, so instead of just a recipe, I'll also be doing a step by step.

Foxy Lady:
Hook: #10 Nymph
Body: "Crawfish Orange" lite bright
Ribbing: copper wire
Shell/Tail: Green Fishair/holographic lite bright
Hackle: Guinea Hen
Tungsten Bead

Step One: Bead, meet hook.

Step Two: Add in the copper wire

Step Three: Add your dubbing

Step Four: Tie in the mixed green fishair/holo lite brite behind the bead.

Step Five: Take the cooper wire and wrap it around the body as well as the shell. Trim; keeping about one hookgap in the back to serve as the tail. 

Step Six: Tie in the Guinea Hackle. Fin!

If I had some of these, I'd kill more worms.

It's not everyday that I'm impressed with a piece of wood and a feather or two, but Andrew Field somehow managed it. His custom made floats are works or art, and that's not hyperbole.

He's based out of the UK, so Lord only knows what shipping would be to here in the States, but that's still not too much of a deterrent. He even has cases for them too!

Check out his Handmand Fishing Floats Here.

Fly of the Week: the Fiery Dervish

With the recent passing of Sylvester Nemes, I thought that I would do a tribute fly and tie up a soft hackle. And I also get an excuse to play with some of my new materials scored from the Easter Sports Show.

So I present to you, the Fiery Dervish/

The Fiery Dervish
Hook: #12 Caddis style

Tail: Rust colored hackle fibers

Body: Fiery Claret Dubbing (or in real people terms, a dark red synthetic dubbing)

Shell: Mottled Orange thin skin (you really can't see it in the pic, but it's in there!)

Hackle: Olive color Partridge

Bead head.

Tying a Uni Knot

I just found this great video on how to tie a Uni knot, as well as a few applications of it, from fishing-live-bait.com.

Uni Knot - How To Tie An Uni Knot - For more funny videos, click here

***Video was a fail, but the link is good so I took out the video. Just click the link and enjoy.

Knotted Leaders (Very Knotted Leaders....)

I was able to get out yesterday for a few hours and had a chance to try some of those hand-tied knotted leaders that I whipped up a bit ago. I won't go into the details of my exploits, but I learned a few things. Namely:

1: a 15 foot leader does not cast well with only 8 feet of actual line out.
2: My habit of leaving tag ends on knots can be problematic. Such as taking 5-10 minutes to untie a leader on every 3rd cast that has inexplicably tied itself to itself.
3: You can get so frustrated that you cut the damn leader in half, tie on 3 feet of tippet and have some success.
4:When approaching the bank of the stream, just because the snow goes to the very edge does not mean that there is ground beneath it.
5: A header into a snow bank is only arguably better than a header into a stream.

Happy Monday

Out of Business - Thoughts on Why Fly Fishing May Be Dying

I just want to take a moment to give a quick shout out to Joe Comwall, who wrote this poignant editorial on the "death by the drip" that fly fishing seems to suffering from, as well as providing suggestions on how we can staunch the wound.

It's thought provoking and definitely worth your time to read.

Thoughts On Fly Fishing Magazines, AFFTA, Fly Shops And The Business Of Fly Fishing