danthebugman

Supplies arrived today...😁

I've been dying to give it a go since I saw his video where he was slaying smallmouth with it on a 2 wt. I tied a few up several weeks ago with what I had on hand which was marabou, some odds and ends, and the hook was 2x instead of a proper streamer hook. The test run was good, but broke off a good trout and lost the other in a tree 🙄. So now I have an excuse to buy a pheasant skin and do some proper ones. I have all my bead chains cut before I tie. I find it a bit awkward to cut them while on the fly. He ties the bead chain so the fly rides point down, but I was thinking about doing them so they ride hook up. Thoughts?

👍 If you'll have me, I'd like to tie a pattern Gunnar Brammer came up with called The Bug.

Are streamers okay?

My son frequently comes with me to go fishing. Sometimes he invites friends to come along.

My son had a youth group hangout about 5 minutes from one of my favorite creeks. So after I dropped him off I swung by with my 4 wt for a few casts. Only had about 40 minutes to fish, but I wasn't disappointed!

There were several that looked to be green sunfish/bluegill/red-ear sunfish hybrids. That pool wasn't there a couple weeks ago, but looks like some flooding took down a tree on the bank. I like how creeks change from time to time as it gives a familiar place new character. It was quite fishy! We spent probably 45 minutes working through it trying to catch some of the bigger bass that were planted at the bottom by the root wad.

That's a sweet rod 😍.

My son and I headed out to a local creek here in SW Missouri yesterday morning for a few hours of fishing. The sunfish were tearing it up and we had a great day 🎣. Missed landing a couple of nice bass, but several of the green sunfish put a real nice bend in my 4 wt so I won't complain too much.

These look awesome. I just ordered a kit the other day to try tying a few up. The rubber legs pattern looks very effective also, but I haven't been able to find any tying instructions anywhere. Any ideas?

Could be! I'm going to try to hit the water tomorrow or Saturday and see how it does. There's a few things I'll tweak, but seems like it ought to catch a fish or two.

Trying my hand at something vaguely crane fly-ish...

Nice! That hopper looks simple which is right up my alley...going to have to tie some up.

I have some olive Hare's Ear Plus that I really like, but mostly I buy the plain Hare's Ear and then add to it whatever I want when the mood strikes. I mix in ice dub quite a bit for a little sparkle.

I've been playing around with different leader setups lately and have given some thought to trying out furled leaders. This post just happened to catch me at the right time! Couple of questions: 1) Most of you seem to indicate that you are using relatively thick mono to start with (20-30 lbs) and it seems to be that this would result in a very thick butt section. What weight setup are you casting these with? I was thinking of making one for my 4 wt since that's the rod I use the most, but I was thinking of starting with something like 4 or 6 lbs mono. 2) I wanted to put a tippet ring in mine like the first video shows, but on the finished leader his tippet ring looked loose in the loop that was left after twisting. I have seen other furled leaders where the tippet ring looked like it was held tighter. I imagine having the tippet ring loose like that would cause some problems with casting, but maybe it doesn't.