Mike Anderson
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Zach those ponds are awesome and even small ones have some HUGE Bass. Finding them and getting permission isn’t always easy but worth trying. I remember one time I was walking up to this big house down in Putnam county GA to ask an old friend of mine for permission to visit his pond. I’m about half way to the house when I hear my buddy who was sitting in the truck, laughing his head off. I turned to see what was so funny only to find the biggest Rottweiler I’ve ever seen walking right behind me. You can’t even imagine how that feels! All I could do was pretend I wasn’t scared and keep walking to the door. I didn’t even go up on the porch but instead turned and walked back to the truck. We didn’t fish the pond that day, man I hate those dogs!
There are only a few places in the world where I’d consider Bass fishing again and those GA ponds are one of them. Until I found Striper and Trout here in TN
Carter I like Angel hair mixed in and combed into Syn or natural hair too. It makes flies that look good enough to eat.
I just started using BearsDen and I do like them so far. They have a huge selection of the kinds of materials I love to use.
Glad you liked it. That has been a great fly for just about anything. I’ve caught Gar, Trout, Bass, Stripe, Crappie, Skipjack, and Bream on it.
Hook: big un or little un.
Bead head and lead wrap the hook, or not.
Tail: Polar Ice Angel Hair
Body: Opal White Estaz or pearl chenile.
Thorax: Red Angel Hair dubbed on the thread and wrapped.Hackle can be used to slow the fall of the fly down but I find it to slow for the way I like to fish.
Angel Hair http://www.bearsden.com/product360.html
Try it and you’ll see it won’t slip. Take a piece of 20# mono or fluro tie a perfection loop in it and then run you fly line in the pattern of the blue line on the illustration. If it slips you tied it wrong…
Here is a quote from the guy who did the illustration. He’s been using it since 1945.
I learned this knot in 1945, I was ten then and with ‘grass-mowing-money,’ bought a used bamboo fly rod. It came with a reel, line, leader container and some flies. Over the years the flies have disappeared, the leader can is gone and a friend borrowed and broke the Granger fly rod into several pieces.
All I have left are fond memories and this knot. It was to tie the very fine end of a SILK fly line to a loop in a gut leader. Since a silk fly line is very small in diameter the resulting connection was hardly noticeable. It would not readily collect stream-born grass and would pass easily through the very small tip-tops and guides used on bamboo rods of that era.
So far, I have not been able to find an original name for it; so after half a century of looking and not finding one, I will put a name on it. The Castwell. I am positive it has another name, but it needs to be named now. In the many years of fly fishing I have shown it to a whole lot of people and none have ever seen it, or anything like it.
It is so devilishly simple it is actually hard to learn and remember. Be very careful to get it exactly right. In my lifetime of fly fishing it has NEVER FAILED. I have, over the years, used other knots for the ‘line-to-leader,’ connection. This remains my personal choice for all size leaders and fly lines. The tippet and leader have always failed and this knot has held. Will this work for the ‘blue-water’ big game stuff? I have no idea. That is a different ball-game.
The ‘Castwell’ uses a very small amount of fly line and can actually be backed off if needed. I cut it off to change a leader. If you change leaders often, you may use it to tie the short leader-loop butt section to your fly line. ~ J. Castwell
I’m not a knot historian so I don’t know who invented it nor do I care, but the castwell .gif is one of the best illustrations of it on the web so far… 😕
Steve that was the factory nail knot on your shooting head that broke. The first thing I do is cut them off my new lines. Glue is not needed for the castwell or whatever you want to call it knot but I guess it won’t hurt anything.
Hands down the best line to leader knot I’ve ever used. It has a small head and will ease through the guides. I use this on all my rods including the 10wt and I haven’t had one fail yet unless it was a level leader and the perfection loop broke. Nail knots will cut into the line and eventually fail under HEAVY use. By heavy use I mean breaking 20 pound test when it gets hung up deep. Learn this knot and you’ll never again waste a bunch of time messing with some fancy leader to line connection. It looks too good to be true but I’ve tested it many many times and this one passes with flying colors.
The Albright would be my second choice. I use an Albright for baking to line connections and heavy leader to light leader connections
Here is a large one I tied for Muskie fishing. The one I’m using now for Striper and such is about 3.5 to 4″ and grey and white with lots-o-Angel hair mixed in.
Yes it does foul some but I’m mostly using it for 3.5 to 4″ flies so that helps. Like you, I found that a pinch of bucktail in the middle helps prevent tangles. Something else that helps big time is de barbing the hook.
I watched it spank a deer hair Clouser the other day. I think the material just sinks better and was getting deeper maybe?
Nice flies Ian.
Have you ever tried any Icelandic Sheep Hair AKA Streamer Hair? I’ve started using it on clousers and the stuff works great. No wonder its sometimes called secret streamer hair. I do a Shad pattern with white bottom with pearl Angel hair mixed in. A big clump of pearl krystal flash in the middle. Grey with Polar Ice Angel Hair mixed in on top. The result is a very translucent looking fly that looks as much like a Shad in the water as anything I’ve seen. The fish love it too. You can tie it small or up to 6″. Great material!
When and where are you gonna be down there?
Those are some nice boats, I’d really like to have a Maverick or Hewes though.
Here’s the Stratos doing a little flats fishing freshwater style. Yea the water was really muddy but it isn’t usually like that. That’s BD fighting a Carp that I had just untangled from some Cypress trees.
Great podcast Zach and Dan, my favorite one yet. Two thumbs up!
“you don’t need fluorocarbon leader”
Other then price isn’t fluro much superior in several ways to mono for a leader. Why would you not use it?
All the rods are covered. I think Dan charges $30 if you break it or free if it’s a defect. I always tell him when I’ve done a stupid. Sage will hopefully just send me the sections for the Xi’s and let me chance a good fit, I think the replacement is $30 for them to. I’ve got three others I’ve needed to fix so looks like I’ll be building for a week or so. Good thing is the second section is the easiest to build….
I was inspecting the Xi2 last night and man that blank is thick on the inside. Looks like a carbon scrim with graphite built around it. Pretty impressive blank to be as light as it is. I doubt any rod could have withstood the abuse that did them in. Striper Hybrid trips, are hard on gear. A few years ago I had a Striper take on a bait rod. The hit was so hard it broke the rod holder off at the base and a Shimano Calcutta 400 and an innerflow rod flew over the side. The holder that broke was new from Cabelas and Cabelas replaced the holder, the rod, the reel, and the line on the reel, about $350 worth. Of course I had bought it all from them anyway.
Carter that’s my Stratos Center Console. The lake was full of folks who think a boat has to be 25’ long and have 300 million horse power to have a good time plus the 20 to25 mph wind. My trout skiff wouldn’t have had a chance out there in the open water. We were jumping wake going 39 mph all the way to and from our spot. Its fun every once and a while but it gets old pretty fast.
Zach at one time we were out catching the bait guys… You need to look around your area I think Lanier is a hell of a Hybrid Striper lake.
