sniperfreak223

Gar are definitely on my bucket list...but I live in eastern PA, so oppritunities are few and far between. I'm planning a trip to Lake Erie/ Presque Isle Bay this spring, and the bay has a pretty good population of both longnose and spotted gar, so hoping I can knock them off the list there, as well as a bowfin.

once again, just personal preference. I like calf wings on Adams Humpies, it makes it easier for me to see them on the water.

oh...so they're deer hair? I'm just used to white wings, kinda missed them, they blend with the hackle a bit.

I voted five in the poll, thinking it meant the whole fly...but I use two for the belly and three for the back.

where are the wings?

primarily a warmwater/saltwater guy myself, so definitely streamers/baitfish patterns.

^oddly enough, I've been tying up a bunch of gar flies this week...but mine are more of a Clouser derivitive...

Well, I don't have any barbels here in the states, and I only put carp on the reel because I've rarely ever hooked one that didn't take me to backing on the first run.

my current carp rig is a 9'6" 7-weight Orvis Clearwater paired with an Orvis Access V reel spooled with 350 yards of 30-lb gel-spun backing and a (now discontinued) Rio Carp WF7F fly line. For leaders, I use an Orvis Mirage Big Game 9' flourocarbon leader,usually with either a 10 or 12-lb test tippet.

Smallmouth, followed by panfish, carp, pike/muskie then largemouth...but I'll fish for anything honestly, I've even managed a few catfish.

I started tying flies in the seventh grade, around 2001, so about 12 years now. Started with basic trout patterns, but quickly evolved into bass, panfish, pike, muskie, saltwater and steelhead patterns...then about two years ago, I took the plunge into classic wet flies and full-dress salmon flies. Still improving in that area, and they're far from perfect, but I prefer to fish over tying flies, so I only really get any practice in the off-season, after all my boxes are filled (no small feat when you realize that I own 50+ fly boxes thanks to my desire to fish for everything that swims)...I hope to eventually fill a pair of 18x20 shadow boxes with these, but that may be a while.

I also tie these with a white abdomen and a black thorax to imitate the females, but I fish for those "educated" PA trout....so whether ay other people here may need that will vary.

-For dries, just a generic parachute with hackle and body color to match the most likely hatch, or a Pheasant Tail Parachute for scouting. -For nymphs, usually just a size 12-16 GRHE (with a wiggle Dub thorax), or a PT in waters with heavy BWO populations, and Czech nymphs for faster water. -For wets, I rarely use anything other than a Hare's Ear soft hackle -For streamers, it's pretty much just the Clouser Deep Minnow But all in all, my most used fly is probably a size 14 bead-head olive hare's ear nymph, with a wiggle dub thorax, black bead head, mottled hen hackle barb tail, and a copper wire rib. I go through at least 100 of those a year. *disclaimer- I spend a lot more time fishing for smallmouth and panfish than trout, so that might play a role in these decisions.

I tie all of the above, but the majority of my fishing ends up being done with parachutes...or Stimulators, but I usually just use those as indicators on a dry-dropper rig when prospecting new waters.

I have rods ranging from 6' to 14' and from a 2-weight up to a 12-weight, but my main rods are: Brook trout- 7'6" 3-wt Trout (general)- 8'6" 5-wt Panfish- 9' 4-wt Smallmouth- 9'6" 6-wt Carp- 9' 7-wt Largemouth- 9' 8-wt Steelhead- 10' 8-wt. Pike- 9' -wt Muskie- 9' 10-wt

^use a lighter-wire hook, or look for a more hollow deer hair, or spin and pack the deer hair a little tighter.

I use a Griffin Odyssey Spider as my primary with a Griffin Superior 2A as a backup.

I'd like to see if anyone else here have ever experimented with bluegill/crappie imitations...I've been working on finding a good Clouser-style pattern for a few years now. I have a pattern that uses olive grizzly saddle hackles and olive bucktail for the tail, then multi-colored (olive on the back and orange and blue on the belly) calf tail for the head with rainbow Flashabou for the flash for a few years with pretty good success, now I've been experimenting with a similar pattern with the calf tail replaced with Senyo's Lazer Dub to create a flatter, wider profile. It looks very good in the test tank, now I just have to wait until spring to give them a test drive. I'll post pics and a recipe when I can get my camera and computer to cooperate. Anyone else tie bluegill imitations? would you be willing to share?

For me, the most effective colors have been olive, olive/brown back, burnt orange, tan, cream, brown, and rusty brown, but I also carry black, gray, blue, and chartreuse.

I have caught a TON of rock bass on these things, as well as largemouth and smallmouth bass, crappie, bluegill, perch, walleye, bullheads and channel cats. I use Estaz as the body, and tie these on MUstad 3366's from size 10 to size 2/0. my favorite colors are chartreuse, black, white,rootbeer, olive and red body/white tail.