NohackleHS

Charlie Craven wrote an article in FlyFisherman magazine a couple of years ago about the Mole Fly, a CDC pattern. He suggests applying a light coat of Tiemco Dry Magic to the CDC before using it. After catching a fish, he puts the fly into some forceps, forcibly swishes the fly back and forth in the water, and then dries the fly with a Wonder Cloth DryFly Patch (Umpqua Magic Patch). He says that buffing the wing back and forth with the Wonder Cloth restores its fluff and buoyancy. (I haven't tried his technique myself, but I thought I'd pass it on)

Unfortunately, I injured my back when I was in my mid-30's and I'm now 69. Here are some short term tips: - When you are wading a stream, try not to stay in one standing position too long. - If there's a boulder near by on the stream bottom, try propping up one leg on it. Then after a while, switch legs and prop the other leg on it. Propping your leg up will remove some strain off of your back. - If you know where the back pain will develop or you start to feel pain in a specific area, you can apply a Capsaicin hot patch (Salonpas) onto the area. These patches are easy to find at your local drug store. - Don't be afraid to take a break and do some back stretching and back exercises; they only take a few minutes. There are lots of web sites that will provide you with some exercises you can do even with waders on. In the long term, probably the best thing to do is to start a back exercise program. I do them every day and they take only about 10 minutes.

If you use a dubbed body and tie the fly on a small midge hook (TMC 100, size 20 or 22), it becomes an effective downwing midge pattern. I started using this fly 30+ years ago on some of the Montana spring creeks and it was really productive. However, as time went on, people started using similar flies and its effectiveness diminished a little bit.

According to "The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing", John Barr designed the fly so that it was sure to sink. By his own admission, this fly was "meant to be an anchor that looked like an insect...sort of". So at least we can say that Barr's emphasis was getting the fly to sink quickly. I've fished the CJ extensively at my local stream. In fact, at one time, it was clearly my "go to" fly. However, in more recent years, its effectiveness has dropped off significantly. Maybe it's because other angler use it or similar flies. All I know for sure is that it's not as productive as it once was on my home water.

If you go to the Search feature of this forum and put in a search for "Danvise jaws", you'll bring up a discussion from Feb, 2014 of your exact same problem.

One of the handiest gadgets I have is a "fly trap" which is used to dry your flies. It's an aluminum box with a door that attaches to your vest. Inside the box is some ripple foam to hold your wet flies. The box is ventilated so that air can pass through the box and dry the flies. The door ensures that you don't lose any flies. Before I had the "fly trap", I used to lose a lot of flies off of my fleece patch. Thus, my "fly trap" has paid for itself many times over. Unfortunately, I don't believe they sell them anymore.

All of the tips above are great. One other thing to try. After you've dubbed the hares ear onto your thread, move the hares ear up the thread until it is close to the hook. Make one turn of the hares ear onto the hook. Trapping the hares ear under the thread will help anchor the dubbing against the hook. Then spin the dubbing with your fingers as had done to get it onto the hook. The fact that the dubbing is anchored to the hook will make it easier for you to tighten the dubbing on the thread The tightened dubbing will be easier to wind onto the hook. Note: the effectiveness of this technique is dependent upon how coarse your hares ear is. If is very coarse, the technique will be harder to use. If its fairly soft and fine, this techniques will work quite well.

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I'm unusual in that I expect a size 6 hook to be as sharp as a size 16 hook and I am willing to take out my file to make it so. I would hope that hook manufacturers would feel the same way, but it's been my experience that this is not the case.

Four years ago I took a trip to Pyramid Lake (Nevada) for large cutthroat trout. On this trip I lost about half of the fish I hooked. When I got home, I checked the sharpness of all of the unused flies in my box (mostly TMC #10 2457 and TMC #12 3761) that I had fished during the trip. They were not as sharp as I expected them to be. Before the next trip I sharpened all of the flies I expected to use. On this next trip my percentage of lost fish dropped significantly. From then on I have always checked and sharpened my hooks before tying. When I spoke to a local fly shop employee about the lack of sharpness of these Tiemco hooks, he thought he knew the reason. According to him, when they dip the hooks into the solution for chemical sharpening, both big hooks and small hooks are immersed for the same amount of time since they are in the same batch. Thus, the smaller hooks get sharpened to a keener point, but the larger hooks don't. Since both the 2457 and 3761 hooks are 2X heavy, his explanation would explain why these hooks don't get that sharp. Since I'd rather spend my time tying flies rather than sharpening hooks, I've been a little miffed that I have to take this extra step. Does anyone else have a problem with hooks not being as sharp as they should be? (Since I have a lot of remaining TMC hooks to be used, I'm going to have to live with this annoyance for a long time.)

JSzymczyk, Thanks. I think I will give them a try. Pyramid flies tend to be quite large (e.g. #10 TMC 2457 hook) and getting the dropper fly tangled with the main leader is a fairly common occurrence. Usually the tag end is 2X so it may be stiff enough to keep the dropper fly from getting tangled. At least it's worth a try.

At Pyramid lake most nymph fishermen use a two-fly rig. The dropper fly is attached to the tag end of a blood knot which is left intentionally long (8-10"). Can tippet rings be used to attach a dropper fly? Piker20 implied that that was what he was using a tippet ring for, but maybe I just misunderstood him.

Denny Rickards Seal Bugger and a brown marabou leech (Hal Jansen). The seal bugger is basically a wooly bugger with seal substitute dubbing for a body instead of chenille. When I do fish streamers, it's mostly lake fishing for trout.

In my experience most of the problems I encountered with the old Mustad hooks were with the small dry fly hooks. In fact, out of curiosity, I found some old Mustad hooks that I had stored away and checked them out for sharpness. I also de-barbed 7 or 8 of them. One of the smaller dry fly hooks snapped off when I tried to de-barb it. So if your hooks are nymph hooks, I think you'll probably be okay. I'll leave it to you what you want to do with your small dry fly hooks if you have any. Also, I would also sharpened the hooks before I used them. Old Mustad hooks are not as sharp as the chemically sharpened hooks you buy today.

Attached are photos of a CDC thorax that I have been using for several years. It's a combination of the Borger yarn wing dun and the Rene Harrop CDC nohackle. I like the fly because the trimmed hackle creates the impression of legs and the CDC wing cast a soft shadow on the water. Also, when viewed from the front, the wings create a narrow silhouette just like the natural. I have used both the nohackle callibaetis and the CDC thorax callibaetis at Manzanita lake for many years and both have been equally productive. I love the nohackle (as my name would suggest). However, over the years I have tended to use the CDC thorax while my brother has preferred the nohackle. Manzanita used to be an excellent dry fly lake (the hatches have been much leaner the past half dozen years) but the clarity of the water made the fish extremely selective. The main drawback of the CDC thorax is the CDC wing. After catching a fish, the CDC gets water-logged and needs to be dried. I've found it easier to put the wet fly on my drying patch and tie on a new fly. It's an inconvenience, but if I'm catching good, selective fish, I'm willing to put up with the inconvenience. I've tried tying up the same fly with different wing materials, but have not yet given them a significant test.

I'm in agreement with most everyone here. I don't think the exact color of the hackle is that important. I tie my callibaetis duns with both grizzly and medium dun hackle and they both seem to work well. Who knows what triggers a trout's feeding response? One other factor is the type of water you are fishing. If you are fishing a fast moving stream where the fish have to make a split second decision about eating your fly, I would seriously doubt if hackle color would make any difference. However, if you are fishing a crystal clear lake where fish get a good look at your fly, it's conceivable (although I still have my doubts) that hackle color could make some difference. Of course, I'm assuming that the hackle you use is somewhat close to what the recipe calls for.

I believe there are two reasons for trimming the hackle on the bottom half of the fly. First, as others have stated, the fly rides lower on the water. The second reason is that the trimmed hackle creates the impression of the natural's legs resting on or partially breaking the surface tension of the water.

I was crossing Manzanita lake in my Tote-n-Flote (similar to a raft) with my rod in the back. When I got to my destination, I looked for my rod, but it was gone. It had dropped into the water. I tried to retrace the route I had taken and, unbelievably, about 50 feet away I saw the tip of my rod sticking 6 inches out of the water. I quickly rowed over to it and retrieved it. It was all intact. How lucky is that! If the rod had fallen into water only 6 inches deeper there's no way I could have found it.

Teach a man to fly fish and he'll take your favorite spot!

I'm new to the forum, but not to fly tying. I've had the good fortune to not only fish California, but have done a lot of spring creek fishing in Idaho and Montana (in my younger days). The last few years I've fished more lakes (Pyramid, Manzanita and Davis) while my home water is Putah Creek (one hour from home). P.S. I'm not Nohackle72. I've used the name "Nohackle" for several years on a couple of other online forums so I thought I'd stick with it.