March Flies From the Vise

[Pbass 0]

18 hours ago, Bruce Derington said:

Mouse time

Those are crazy! I have never seen anything like that. Nice work!

[Bruce Derington 0]

1 hour ago, Pbass said:

Those are crazy! I have never seen anything like that. Nice work!

This pattern was developed by Chris Helm, who was a guru of 🦌 hair. thanks for your interest 

[Bruce Derington 0]

15 hours ago, johnnyquahog said:

Bruce. Love the mouse family.. Each one has their own personality.  I have one of Chris Helm's in my collection.   I was looking just yesterday to see if anyone posted any of his videos and disappointed to see just a few ~ 4 minute clips.   Good to see you (and a few others) carrying and refining the deer hair torch.

Thanks for sharing your stuff.

Absolutely, I’m a member of Michigan Fly Fishing Club and over the years we’ve brought him in. It was great to personally get to know Chris, and I still order most of my hair through Whitetail Fly Tieing, you can call them up and tell em  exactly what length you need. Great place

[Mark Knapp 0]

Yes Virginia, grass hoppers do sink, I think.

The problems are:

The fish are deep (25 to 30 feet down) and the target species does not rise to a fly. I have to get flies down to them.

I will be away from my fly tying vise so I have to be ready with every fly I will need for a month and a half of fishing before I go.

These sunfish are very unusual, they are more than four times bigger than usual and they eat strange stuff. No one has been very successful catching these fish on a fly so, lots of experimentation will be needed.

It's a long way from home and there are not many/any fly shops at that location. I need to be well prepared.

So far, we don't know of any standard fly patterns that works consistently for these fish, in this habitat.

And there's not many people doing this.

The good news is;

I like this kind of thing, it's really challenging catching three to five pound sunfish.

There are lots of real grasshoppers like this in the area, lots everywhere, like an invasion.

I have lots of time.

I have lots of materials at home.

And there's not a lot of people doing this sort of thing so I should not have to watch for people in my back cast.

One of the solutions, I think;

Imitate one of the most common bug infestations in the area. Match the hatch.

I looked on line for sinking grasshopper/locust patterns for ideas. I found two, they were fine but I wanted to develop and tie my own pattern.

Here's what I came up with.

I tied them with different colored under-wings and bellies......

I experimented with different legs...

I tied some on straight hooks, and curved hooks, for fishing horizontally , and some on jig hooks for fishing more vertically.

I tied a bunch of each variety.

These all sink, I'm not sure if real grass hoppers really sink but I'm not the first one that ever tied sinking hoppers, and I'm pretty sure some do. I know for sure that if you put a real hopper on a hook and sunk it, fish would eat it. And I know the fish I want to catch, at 25 to 30 feet down, are not coming up to meet floaters so I have to bring these down to them.

These are supposed to be cripples so I let some of the fillings show. I think the colors (hot spots) will be more attractive to sun fish too.

Hopefully, these will work, we will see.

I'm writing up an SBS for these, and will post it in the SBS section when it is done, for people that are interested.

 

 

[flytire 0]

Conway Special

Hook - Single salmon
Thread - Red
Tip - Oval gold tinsel
Tail - Crimson red and white hackle barbs mixed
Ribbing - Oval gold tinsel
Body - Dubbed with yellow lamb's wool
Hackle - Yellow and crimson red tied on as a collar mixed and tied back
Wing - White bucktail tied over the body, with an overwing of a small bunch of red bucktail

Dan Conway of Seattle, Washington, originated this pattern in 1934. At the time this extraordinary, one-armed commercial tier created this fly, it had a peacock head and white duck quill wings with a married narrow section of red duck quill.

Fish Flies: The Encyclopedia of the Fly Tier's Art - Terry Hellekson

[Poopdeck 0]

Just killing time and getting some practice in.

Hook - 14

Thread - Black 12/0 Veevus

Tail - Moose body hair

Body - Moose main, one dark one light hit with a lime green sharpie

Wing - Mallard flank

Hackle - Med ginger

[DFoster 0]

11 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

Just killing time and getting some practice in.

Hook - 14

Thread - Black 12/0 Veevus

Tail - Moose body hair

Body - Moose main, one dark one light hit with a lime green sharpie

Wing - Mallard flank

Hackle - Med ginger

 

 

Nice job on those walley wings!

[Mark Knapp 0]

15 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

Just killing time and getting some practice in.

Hook - 14

Thread - Black 12/0 Veevus

Tail - Moose body hair

Body - Moose main, one dark one light hit with a lime green sharpie

Wing - Mallard flank

Hackle - Med ginger

 

 

Those are beautiful.

[flytire 0]

Hardy's Favorite

Hook - Single salmon
Thread - Black
Tip - Red floss
Tail - Orange hackle and speckled guinea fowl barbs mixed
Ribbing - Twisted red floss
Body - Peacock herl
Hackle - Guinea fowl tied on as a collar and tied back
Wing - Ringneck pheasant tail feather barbs tied over the body

Adapted from an old English wet fly tied by J. J. Hardy of Hardy Brothers, Alnwick, England. It is believed that this adaptation took place in the 1920s.
 

Fish Flies: The Encyclopedia of the Fly Tier's Art - Terry Hellekson

[Poopdeck 0]

7 hours ago, DFoster said:

Nice job on those walley wings!

Thanks. I think it’s all the feather preening but I find them relaxing and pretty simple to do. 

4 hours ago, Mark Knapp said:

Those are beautiful.

Thanks. I really like moose mane as a body material and the look of wally wings.

I just noticed I spelled mane wrong in the original post. Oh well. 

[Poopdeck 0]

Still raining, still messing around at the vise. I decided to add a wally wing to a Hacklestacker to break the monotony. The thorax ended up a little bigger than I wanted, my order of tying the material in might have been out of sort and perhaps I should have tried on a larger hook first. Maybe I’ll cut this one off the hook and try another, maybe not.

Hook - 16

Thread - Black 12/0 Veevus

Tail - grizzly/brown hackle fibers

Body - Moose mane, one dark one light

Wing - Mallard flank

Post - Black span flex

Hackle - Grizzly

Thorax - black dubbing

,

[DFoster 0]

On 3/4/2024 at 3:50 PM, cencalfly said:

Ice Blue Spey (Bartsch, variation)

 

 

 

Really well done, nice work!

[KnottaFly 0]

Poopdeck, I’d fish it, let the trout tear it up, then cut it off and tie again! I’ve caught plenty of trout on really torn up flies, the buggier the better.

 

[cencalfly 0]

6 hours ago, DFoster said:

Really well done, nice work!

Thank you

[Poopdeck 0]

8 hours ago, KnottaFly said:

Poopdeck, I’d fish it, let the trout tear it up, then cut it off and tie again! I’ve caught plenty of trout on really torn up flies, the buggier the better.

 

I think that’s what I’m going to do except I will let the sunfish have it.