Justin Witt
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Most of my thoughts and experience with this question are relevant more to streamers than to other types of flies, and wouldn’t apply at all to selective fish feeding on top during a hatch, but that probably reflects what most of my experience over the last several years down here has been, which mostly consists of trying to stimulate already well-fed fish to eat large imitations of other fish.
But on that note, and under those circumstances – I think difference is more important than similarity. A large predatory fish under normal conditions sees bait all the time. Thousands of presentations of basically healthy prey that represent an imbalanced equation for the predator as he calculates energy expended vs. energy potentially gained. They are looking for difference; for prey that is acting or presenting itself differently from the rest, indicating injury, weakness, or poor judgement in terms of action. And so when we bounce a clouser or swim a sex-dungeon through its area that looks in no real way anything much like the similarly sized bait in that environment, the predator turns its attention to that difference, not the similarity we’ve perhaps tried to create between the fly and its normal prey, and the instincts provoke an attack.
My dad taught me this lesson first when I was a little kid fishing muskies and smallmouth up in Hayward Wisconsin where i grew up. I was already tying flies by then, and trying very hard all the time to create more and more imitative representations of the baitfish in our area, while my dad consistently outfished me with rapalas, daredevil spoons, and Mepps spinners that to me looked absolutely nothing like the creatures the fish we were after normally ate. Then one day after we saw a northern pike attack a bluegill in the lily pads just off the bow of the boat and then spook off to deeper water my dad fished the wounded six inch fish out with a net. It was turning orange! He showed it to me and then put it back. Bluegills up there always have a little orange on them, especially when they get big, but this thing had been hammered so hard it was bruised over its entire body, and its color was changing completely as it swam in goofy little circles trying to get its equilibrium back in shape. Suddenly his blaze-orange and yellow rapalas made more sense. And a few minutes later another northern shot out of the darkness and inhaled it. That’s when I quit trying to make my flies look and swim like healthy specimens.
And some of the stuff I fish down here these days looks like it came from outer space.
And Neal – we still want to see the electric chicken…
Neal, How much does one have to drink to muster the cajones to fish something called an ‘electric chicken’?!
Only a person who’s fished one knows.
JCI find it ironic that Patagonia doesn’t give a pro deal to a professional Patagonian fishing guide.
Yeah, the guide program is a bit tight for my tastes, but overall I have to say that I have a lot of respect for the way Patagonia runs their manufacturing and for their general business practices and above and beyond commitment to conservation.
I had been using an old Arc Teryx from my climbing days for many years, but could eventually see through it, and went through this same process at the end of last season.
Ha! I just laughed when I saw it on the Chum. For me it comes down to the fact that inflatable boats are inflatable boats, and driftboats are driftboats – never the two shall meet. I mean, I guess they did here, sort of, but I can’t possibly see this thing rowing worth a damn or doing me any good. And 4’x4’x4′ when it’s packed???
I run Aire rafts with NRS frames down here, and the raft itself goes in the back of the truck in a bag much smaller than that, then the frame fits perfectly over it with the foot-bar locking the whole thing in against the tailgate. Two-piece oars and anchor right alongside the raft bag, the same four straps that secure the frame to the boat when it is in use hold it in the truck just fine, and there’s enough room left over for all the gear and supplies needed even to take four clients even all the way down to Strobel for a week all at once.
So – I love NRS as a company, and I guess I’ll have to see one and row it to make a final judgement, but for now and from here this isn’t exactly super-peaking my interest.
Just one fly “for enjoyment” = Jack Cabe Hopper (dry fly)
Just one fly “to catch fish” = White baitfish anything (e.g. the Zuddler mentioned above)
Just one fly “to look like a bad ass” = Tube Fly
Just one fly “for flats fishing” = Deer head bait fish pattern
Just one fly “for panfish” = worm
Just one fly “If I’ve been drinking” = Electric Chicken
Just one fly “To show off” = Sex Dungeon
Just one fly “In the winter” = Zebra Midge
Just one fly . . . LMAO 😉
Alright, I want pictures of your tube fly, and your electric chicken…
This tied using pine squirrel strips in a variety of colors. The cone needs a little room to wiggle near the eye so the fly rattles a little bit. The local guys here call them a pine cone fly. It is just a slumpbuster variant. Drives trout and bass crazy. Catches crappie and bluegill too (if the bluegill are large enough to get the thing in their mouth).I’m starting to see a bit of a rabbit-strip theme develop here….
In exchange for the shot of the carp scales, which is awesome by the way, I will tell you how I got around spinning tons of deer hair all winter to tie my sex-dungeons.
For what its worth, Joel Thompson (Moosedog) was nice enough to bring me down a brand new Dry Creek Day Pack when he came back in March. The whole shoulder strap lower attachment ripped out of it the first day I used it, rendering it not only no longer waterproof, but unable to be carried on my back. Joel was also nice enough though to take it back with him to hand off to his rep up there, and left me with his own personal non-waterproof Simms day pack, a model I don’t think they actually make anymore, which has been serving me well daily ever since. I also have one of the Headwaters Tackle Bags, made of the same materials as the backpack Joel left me, and it seems indestructible; still going strong now after several seasons of hard use. Both of these come with rain covers, which work pretty well.
Glad to hear your eye cleared up. I remember back when Bill Campbell was mayor the city received some ridiculously huge amount of money from the fed, with which it was to solve the problem of the municipal sewer system overflow, which dumps right into the river (and your eye) every time there is a big rain. Campbell used it to print some questionnaires, held two meetings, and the rest of the money disappeared. Unfortunately when he was tried later for an indictment by a federal grand jury on racketeering, bribery and wire fraud charges after a five-year federal investigation into corruption during his years as mayor of Atlanta, he was acquitted of all of it except some tax evasion. And the river still runs full of sewage every time it rains.
I do this all the time down here; anytime, in fact, there is a sinking line available that no longer serves its purpose.
Here’s my setup in Trevelin – snow outside now (fell the day after I snapped this picture) and occupying the space for a few months more to come.
Have you thought about tying it as a tube fly. It has some similarity to some shark flies I tie with the trailing hook. I like tube flies in this setup because I can snell the hook directly to the bite tippet rather than tying an internal knot to a hook shank. I think you get a more secure connection and better feel. Here is a picture of one of my shark flies. The hook is pulled out slightly so you can see the snell on the hook.
Yeah, I know. For the most part it makes more sense to tie these as tubes in the first place. I’ve actually been fishing tubes probably half the time down here for a couple of years now. For some reason, I guess I just go through phases; I attracted to these flies at the moment. I don’t usually end up tying an internal knot to the hook shank though, but snell through the eye of both hooks and then just wrap the tag ends to the cut off shank. Seems to work fine and I’ve not had any pull loose on me. We did a five day float on the Limay last month and got plenty of monster browns on them with no issues.
