Fly tying....getting back into it.

[flyfisher]

3 hours ago, Bdnoble84 said:

Cool. Brushes are pretty sweet

they really are.  I made a brush table and it works decent but a buddy of mine has one he bought and his is way nicer.  It makes for a more consistent brush than I can do.  

 

I am intrigued by the brush idea with power pro though....may have to mess with it this weekend

[Bdnoble84]

18 minutes ago, flyfisher said:

they really are.  I made a brush table and it works decent but a buddy of mine has one he bought and his is way nicer.  It makes for a more consistent brush than I can do.  

 

I am intrigued by the brush idea with power pro though....may have to mess with it this weekend

Keep thinking about playing with it on jigs. Those ones posted would look awesome on an 1/8oz jig.

[Fallser]

I posted a couple of these before, but I finally wrapped up my fly rod jig tying.  The jigs range from 1/32 oz to 1/16 oz.

Buck Tail

 

Hair Jigs  I have no idea of what type hair it is.

 

Marabou Jigs

[Fallser]

Just finished up some bass flies.  They are hybrid of three different patterns I tie.  I just tied these eight up, if they work I'll tie some more.

 

Hook - Ahrex Trout Predator Long  Size 1/0

Thread - White or Yellow

Tail - Zonker Strip

Body - Estaz twisted with either Saddle Hackle or Schlappen 

Thorax(?) - Half a spinner bait skirt

Head - Stonfo Soft Heads #2

Eyes - Fish Skull Living Eyes, 7 mm

[PaulVE64]

On 4/15/2022 at 9:13 PM, Fallser said:

Just finished up some bass flies.  They are hybrid of three different patterns I tie.  I just tied these eight up, if they work I'll tie some more.

 

Hook - Ahrex Trout Predator Long  Size 1/0

Thread - White or Yellow

Tail - Zonker Strip

Body - Estaz twisted with either Saddle Hackle or Schlappen 

Thorax(?) - Half a spinner bait skirt

Head - Stonfo Soft Heads #2

Eyes - Fish Skull Living Eyes, 7 mm

You'll drove smallies crazy with these. Are you throwing them on a fly rod?

[Fallser]

3 minutes ago, PaulVE64 said:

ou'll drove smallies crazy with these. Are you throwing them on a fly rod?

Yep.  They're really not that heavy.  I can easily throw them with my 6 wgt.  I'll give them a try for largemouth, around here.  I tied them mainly for my trip up to Lady Evelyn Lake in NE Ontario in late August.  I'll probably fish them on an intermediate or sinking line, depending on how deep the smallies are.

I just finished up tying up the frogs I plan to use for bass, chain pickerel and possibly pike.  I may have posted this pattern before. It's a supersized version of one of my panfish bugs. I tied a large(3/0) and small pattern(1/0)  The larger ones I scrapped.  They were just too bulky for my 8 wgt, plus they always landed upside down.  The smaller ones landed upside down maybe 70% of the time.  I took out my only hollow plastic frog from my dark side box, and discovered that it was weighted in the back.  So I inserted some worm weights in the back of the smaller ones, hopefully that will offset the weight of the hooks and they'll land hook up and be weedless.

Hook - Gamakatsu double hook, size 1/0, attached to 40 mm Big Game shank.

Body - two pieces of 6 mm foam(white, yellow, chartreuse) glued together. Hook and shank are sandwiched between the pieces. `

Thread - White, Big Fly

Legs - Spinner bait skirt layers

Eyes- 8.5 mm Living Eyes

Colors- Permanent Markers

 

These are another re-do.  I stumbled on the "Gutless Frog" last year, on another board, and tied up a dozen.  I tied them on 3/0 hooks and glued the body together.  They turn out to be to large for the Ontario smallmouth and the body didn't slide down to expose the hook point.  I tied these smaller, and in an oval(?) shape with plenty of space for the body to slide down.

The one change I made is I didn't add front legs.  None of the plastic, soft body frogs, that are fished by dark side bass anglers have front legs.  Which makes sense, since when a frog is swimming the front legs are pressed against the sides.

Hook - Ahrex Trout Predator Long, size 1/0

Body - 5 mm wide, strip of 6 mm craft foam(yellow, white or chartreuse)

Thread - White, yellow, chartreuse, Big Fly

Legs - Spinner bait skirt layers

Eyes- 6 mm Living Eyes

Colors- Permanent Markers

Here's a larger version tied on an Ahrex PR378 GB Swimbait hook size 2/0. I only tied two up, if they work I'll tie a couple more.  Same materials as the "Gutless Frog".  Only change, instead of the ends pointed out, I glued them to the sides, giving it more of a frog head.

The last of the frogs.  These came out of one those, "Why did I buy this material" situation. When Dragon Tails first came out I brought a couple of packs, large tails and small tails.  Didn't particularly care for the flies that I tied with them.  So they've been gathering dust.  I was sitting at my tying desk after consuming some vodka looking at them. They sort of had a frog shape to them.  "Let's see what I can come up with".  Here they are.

Hook -Ahrex Trout Predator Light, size 1

Body/legs - Front third of a large Dragon tail or the front third of two small dragon tails

Thread - White, yellow, chartreuse, Big Fly

Tail/feet - pieces of a brush I brought but never used

Head - 40 mm piece of 7/16 inch foam cylinder

Eyes- 8.5 mm Living Eyes

Colors- Permanent Markers

[PaulVE64]

Im just getting into fly fishing. Right now im sticking with a floating line and lightly weighted streamers. I'm figuring out how to build my own leaders with mono.

[flyfisher]

Just now, PaulVE64 said:

Im just getting into fly fishing. Right now im sticking with a floating line and lightly weighted streamers. I'm figuring out how to build my own leaders with mono.

I haven't used a "built" or tapered leader in over a decade for bass.  I just go with straight leaders of various weights to suit what I am chucking out there.  Saves hassle and a lot of cash too.  A spool of mono of flouro will last you forever and is the same cost as like 4 tapered leaders.

 

[PaulVE64]

Ive been using 5ft of 20# Big Game to a swivel and then 2ft of either 17# or 12# depending on the streamer. I add split shot above the swivel.

The swivel might be unnecessary but i heard that line twist can really be a problem in rivers and i fish current 90 percent of the time. 

[Fallser]

I use to make my own leaders, until I discovered furled leaders twenty or so ago.  Fortunately I knew folks that made them,  One guy made me some bass leaders out of tying thread that are heavy enough to turn over my largest bass bugs.  They're 4 to 5 feet long and I usually use a 5 to 6 foot tippet of 20# or 25# fluorocarbon for tippet.  The only reason I go that heavy is a lot of the lakes I fish are weedy and have chain pickerel in them.

 I agree with flyfisher, just a straight piece of fluorocarbon or mono would work just as well and is definitely cheaper.  You don't really need the swivel.  Your fly line should have a loop to attach the leader.  Make a loop in the leader material and just do a loop to loop connection with the fly line, and tie your fly directly to the leader.  I've never had any leader twist using streamers even in strong current.  So that really shouldn't be an issue.  If your streamers are lightly weighted, unless you are fishing deep water, you don't even need the split shot.  If you're just starting out, you don't want to deal with the extra weight of a split shot and swivel when you're casting.  

[PaulVE64]

Thanks for the advice.

 

[flyfisher]

Finally finished up mypost masters program and have some more free time so had to tie up some "jigs"

 

Pretty easy to tie but does use a lot of material

 

[Fallser]

  Nice.  Any weight added?  What's the underbody?  Did you use spinner bait skirts or skirt layers?   And what size hook? 

 I decided to do an assembly line for my crayfish patterns.  Tied in the dumbbell eyes, then the eyes, now I'm working on the claws, same pattern I've posted before.  Different weight placement.

 Do you get much action on the black/blue ones?  I tied a couple up last year in black/blue/purple.  No interest from the local bass.  They seemed to prefer the more "natural" combinations of orange, brown and olive.

[flyfisher]

8 hours ago, Fallser said:

  Nice.  Any weight added?  What's the underbody?  Did you use spinner bait skirts or skirt layers?   And what size hook? 

 I decided to do an assembly line for my crayfish patterns.  Tied in the dumbbell eyes, then the eyes, now I'm working on the claws, same pattern I've posted before.  Different weight placement.

 Do you get much action on the black/blue ones?  I tied a couple up last year in black/blue/purple.  No interest from the local bass.  They seemed to prefer the more "natural" combinations of orange, brown and olive.

yes, lots of weight.  Here is the link to the craw I emulated. 

 

The differences I did were to not include the mono eyes and I also think he does a double wrap of lead, I did a single and I used a Gamakatsu 4/ b10s hook that I bent the eye up like he does.  As far as the leg material, I used fly specific stuff but you can use whatever you wanted to really.  He calls for 24 total legs and the tabs are made with 12 strands so it is easy to grab a tab, cut off one side tie it in, hollow style, cut the other tab off and repeat for the bottom.  The design is to provide that jigging action on the retrieve and get down quickly.  

I haven't fished them yet but on conventional gear, black and blue/purple is a go to and always produces, except when it doesn't then I like the more subdued colors of green and orange etc... I need to order some more of the bodies though.  I want to make some smaller ones to go along with these larger 3.5" ones.

 

It is a really easy tie and after the first one, i think each fly took me 10 minutes max to tie.  The legs can be kind of unruly but you know how that goes.  I kind of wonder if i could buy a premade jig skirt and use that but the way these are tied, it isn't that hard.  I want to tie some up with more green and blue to match the craws I see in the susky.

[Fallser]

Good video.  I would imagine his fly weighs between an 1/8 to 1/4 oz something I would use with spinning gear not a fly rod.

The legs he was using looked like "sili legs" aka, spinner bait skirt layers.  The layers come 20 strands to each piece, but you can use as many as you like.  Spinner bait skirts usually come in 40, 60 or 80 strands.  They may be a bit much for that fly.   

  I like the idea of a rattle.  I think some of my early cray fish patterns had rattles.  I have some small rattles, I may add them to a couple of the crayfish I'm tying now and see if they make any difference.  I've fished the Susky a couple of time, but never saw any crayfish.  The ones in Ontario are a mix of Olive, Brown, Tan and a touch of orange, at least in late summer.  The ones in this area, are pretty much the same colors.   The first batch of crayfish I tied up last year I used catalog pictures of soft plastic colors as examples,  I tied, red, black, blue and purple, even white.  Only the natural colors caught fish so I'll stick with them.

  Slow night on TV and I didn't feel like watching the Sixers get their butts kicked.  So I started looking at my pictures of crayfish patterns I've tied in the past.  A brief history of my crayfish patterns.

2014

 

2018

 

2020

2022

 

For the most part I've always used spinner bait skirt layers, chenille and wrapped saddle hackle.  I did use the fake claws.  The 2020 one was the first time I used zonker strips for claws and used a full spinner bait skirt.  Last year I ditched the spinner bait skirts. 

  I've thought about tying some smaller ones, even ordered some micro zonker strips.  On average most of the crayfish I see are in the 3 inch range, occasionally I'll see one big enough it would look good boiled in Old Bay.  I don't see small ones in the inch to inch and half range or smaller, so I don't know how they fit into the food chain.  I got the materials so I'll tie a couple up. 

[flyfisher]

I have tied some of the zonker strip style before and they produce as well.  I know I used to glue a piece of mono to the back of the zonker strip which would allow it to stand more upright and they produced.  

 

As far as teh weight of these goes, the hand test, aka feeling them myself, they don't seem any heavier than a clouser but I will weigh them just to satisfy my curiosity.  I have no doubt you could cast these on a spinning rod but I don't always carry conventional gear when fly fishing.

[flyfisher]

My version of the Galloup Sex Dungeon.  Instead of basically making a wooly bugger underneath, i just use a tarantula brush which saves considerable time on the entire process.

[Fallser]

Nice..  It looks like a good night fly.  How long is it?  I'm a bit too OCD to mess with deer hair these days.  I wonder if I could use a Siliclone as the main body.  Might give it a try.   I've been finishing up some frogs and crayfish for my Ontario, I'll post some pictures when I'm done.  Also been making some 1/4 oz jigs using Faux bucktail, interesting material.

 

[flyfisher]

It is a 1/0 and a #1 hook so maybe 4" or so.  Yo ucan basically tie them as large or small as you want.  Smaller ones I usually don't put legs on.  The idea of the deer hair packed loosley is to create bubbles and provide a little flotation as you work the fly as it fights against the lead eyes.  I've made them with laser dub heads too and that works but not quite the same action.  

 

I've checked out the faux bucktail and it seemd strange to me so I never went back to it again lol

[Fallser]

Just finished tying some crayfish and top waters for my Ontario trip in late August.  Pretty sure I've posted them before at some point.

Here's what one looks like in a container of water.

Some foam sliders.

 

This is newer version of the frog I took with me last year.  I downsized them.  They're tied on size 2 Ahrex Swimbait hook and modified the head.

 

[Fallser]

Some Zonkers for Ontario.  These are a bit larger than I normally tie, roughly about 3 inches long.  Tied on a size 4 XL hook.  Trying to match some of the primary bait fish in the lake.

Perch

 

Juvenile smallmouth and rock bass

 

Minnows and juvenile whitefish.

[Fallser]

Most of my foam bugs are made 2, 3 or 6 mm craft foam.  This year I'm adding a box of "traditional" poppers and sliders.  Being lazy I use the pre-formed soft foam popper bodies.

What we call pencil poppers in fresh water.

Some "standard" poppers

 

Sneaky Pete style sliders

These are some small crease flies made from 2 mm craft foam.

[flyfisher]

@Fallser you have some amazing skills, great looking flies as always

[flyfisher]

Heading out Wednesday to do some smallie fishing and needed a few of the finesse gamechangers so I tied up a few....might do a few more tomorrow.  Smaller ones are on a #1 gamakatsu B10s and the smaller ones are on a 2/0 umpqua stinger and yeah i know it doesn't make sense but the hook shapes are so different that it does.  For whatever reason, the pink will get bit when others won't and yellow always is a winner for me and the smallies.

[flyfisher]

On a whim decided to tie something up a little larger....5/0 stinger style hook in the rear attached to a 40mm shank up front.  It is amazingly light given its synthetic materials and it is tied pretty sparse as well.