Great Lake Eggs?

[adrian191 0]

What are your guys favorite egg patterns for the great lake salmon, steelhead and brown trout run. I would love to see some pics and instructions if it's a more complicated tie. Since the season is almost here i have to start filling my boxes.

[mikechell 0]

I do not live in an area that uses egg patterns. Since I am not sure what they should look like, I designed one that I know will catch fishermen. This seems to be the main reason for new lure patterns so here is my egg pattern.

It CAN be tied with deer hair, but it is MUCH easier tied in the "Crease Fly" method using foam and glue.

 

 

I don't know if it will catch fish, but I think fishermen will like it.

[FlaFly 0]

Mike

You left the strips of bacon off. That is the traditional way to tie the egg.

[mikechell 0]

I usually have bacon on the side, but here, as per your request, is the egg pattern with a bacon tail.

 

 

Sorry to hijack the thread, Adrian ... I do hope you get some serious replies to your pattern request.

[vicrider 0]

Using a Caddis hook of decent size, 10 or 12, put a good sized glass bead on. Not so big as to hide the hooking ability. Take some Antron or similar hair and tie it behind eye facing ahead and tie off. Push the bead up to the front and start your thread behind the bead. Pull the Antron or Wool or any similar semi-transparent material up over the bead to the back and tie off. Material should cover bead but be thin enough to let bead color shine thru when wet. Antron or similar products give a nice slime look to the egg and the small tail from trimming the yarn gives the impression of bleeding off from the egg.

 

Take a straight hook with longer shank and start a thin bunch of Z-Lon or yarn and tie off in back. Start working toward front by tying little lumps (humps?) of material tying off each individual hump as you work forward on shank. With 5 or 6 nice humps on shank this gives the impression of a small group of spawn broken loose and drifting.

 

Then there's always our old standby we used for years. Using an upturned eye just snell the hook on, lift the snell behind the eye and tuck a couple of different colored pieces of yarn under the snell and trim it in an egg shape. Maybe it's cheating but hooking a small rubber egg from those strings of rubber eggs every store in run country sells can add the extra enticement that pays off at times.

[bellevue.chartreuse.trout 0]

I thought the 'egg' pattern only had two bacon tails Mike (lmao). Apologies, back to the serious side of the thread! I do not have pictures but google the 'fly tying egg pictures' and you'll be amazed (click 'more images' and you'll see more versions of egg then you thought possible).

BCT

[SilverCreek 0]

I tied up 2 dozen Gorman eggs for a friend and he said they worked "great" on the Great Lakes runs of steelhead.

 

 

[mikechell 0]

Nice fly. Fairly nice tutorial.

I know I don't have as much experience as Mr. Gorman, but ... For someone with 20 years of teaching and fly fishing, he's got a pain-in-the-ass way of doing a half hitch. If any of you newbies do a half hitch his way, be sure you don't have ANY twist in the thread. Pulling that long of a loop of thread through a half hitch like that, with twist in the thread, will result in a small knot of twisted thread that won't pull through the knot.

[Dirk II 0]

If your going to drift eggs use Beads, http://www.troutbeads.com/ . Best bead size is 8mm.

If your going to swing eggs use eggs tied with Glo Bug Yarn, rag style, http://www.hawkinsflyfishing.com/clownegg.php .

If your going to bottom bounce go with either one.

Best color is a pale yellow/cream color, color of a day or two old egg. Alternate that with a orange egg or red. I like to use a clown rag egg when swinging flies. I use cherise, orange, red and Chartruese. If you can use 2 hooks run with a different sizes and colors till you can fiqure out what works best that day/place.

I have used blue, chartruse, oranges, cream, dirty grey, glow in the dark colors and sizes from 1/4 to 1/2. Larger bright eggs in dirty water, smaller cream colored in clearer water.

[SilverCreek 0]

If your going to drift eggs use Beads, http://www.troutbeads.com/ . Best bead size is 8mm.

If your going to swing eggs use eggs tied with Glo Bug Yarn, rag style, http://www.hawkinsflyfishing.com/clownegg.php .

If your going to bottom bounce go with either one.

Best color is a pale yellow/cream color, color of a day or two old egg. Alternate that with a orange egg or red. I like to use a clown rag egg when swinging flies. I use cherise, orange, red and Chartruese. If you can use 2 hooks run with a different sizes and colors till you can fiqure out what works best that day/place.

I have used blue, chartruse, oranges, cream, dirty grey, glow in the dark colors and sizes from 1/4 to 1/2. Larger bright eggs in dirty water, smaller cream colored in clearer water.

 

 

Don't use pegged beads as eggs in Wisconsin. Reading the regulations, it seems to me that any method that hooks fish outside the mouth would be illegal.

 

http://http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/documents/regulations/FishingRegs12-13_web.pdf

 

The regulations state

 

"page 8: It is illegal -

• to fish by snagging, foul-hooking, or attempting to hook fish other than in the mouth.
• to keep foul-hooked, snagged or any fish not hooked in the mouth "

 

Other states have similar regulations so check with your DNR

 

http://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/public-input-wanted-on-illegal-fishing-method/

 

I think Alaska changed their regulations so a pegged egg would be legal. Wyoming is like several states that allow pegged beads as long as they are no more than 2" above the hook.

[jayvansickle 0]

I live in Indiana and I have to travel a distance to fish for wild trout. In a game preserve near me there is a 6 acre pond that the DNR releases trout in. Everybody fishes with corn (and a fair amount corn chumming). I tied a small egg on a #12 hook with some lead raps with a yarn colored just like the corn. Nobody was catching anything. I caught my limit plus my friends limit. When we got done everybody wanted to know what I was fishing with. I add I was the only guy using a fly rod. Best egg I ever tied.

[williamhj 0]

Check out Otter's soft milking eggs. I bought some at the Denver fly fishing show and they caught a lot of fish this past year here in Colorado. I don't know what sizes / colors would be best for Great Lakes steelhead but the look and movement is great in the water.

[SilverCreek 0]

Otter's eggs are very realistic and soft. You can insert a glass bead into them to simulate an embyo egg.

 

http://www.softmilkingegg.com/Embryo-egg.html

[Dirk II 0]

 

If your going to drift eggs use Beads, http://www.troutbeads.com/ . Best bead size is 8mm.

If your going to swing eggs use eggs tied with Glo Bug Yarn, rag style, http://www.hawkinsflyfishing.com/clownegg.php .

If your going to bottom bounce go with either one.

Best color is a pale yellow/cream color, color of a day or two old egg. Alternate that with a orange egg or red. I like to use a clown rag egg when swinging flies. I use cherise, orange, red and Chartruese. If you can use 2 hooks run with a different sizes and colors till you can fiqure out what works best that day/place.

I have used blue, chartruse, oranges, cream, dirty grey, glow in the dark colors and sizes from 1/4 to 1/2. Larger bright eggs in dirty water, smaller cream colored in clearer water.

 

 

Don't use pegged beads as eggs in Wisconsin. Reading the regulations, it seems to me that any method that hooks fish outside the mouth would be illegal.

 

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/documents/regulations/FishingRegs12-13_web.pdf

 

The regulations state

 

"page 8: It is illegal -

• to fish by snagging, foul-hooking, or attempting to hook fish other than in the mouth.
• to keep foul-hooked, snagged or any fish not hooked in the mouth "

 

Other states have similar regulations so check with your DNR

 

http://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/public-input-wanted-on-illegal-fishing-method/

 

I think Alaska changed their regulations so a pegged egg would be legal. Wyoming is like several states that allow pegged beads as long as they are no more than 2" above the hook.

 

I have used beads IN Wisconsin for years, as well as others.

when you use beads you are hooking the fish in the mouth, contrary to what some may think.

There are some "purists" for lack of better term that look down at beads for whatever reason. If anyone doesn't want to use beads thats fine with me. Alaska has been OK with beads for years.

They are an effective way to fly fish for Trout/salmon. nothing more to them than that.

[ditz2 0]

I have never fished an egg in my life but a while back I saw a video on tying an egg that was somewhat transparent with an orange or red center. As I remember the tyer used a orange thread and covered the hook. He then slid some yellow yarn over the hook shank like a tube and tied it down. He then pulled the tube of yarn back over the shank towards the front and sort of expanded the diameter of the tube and then tied the tube down at the front to create a simi-transparent ball or egg. It looked really good. I wished I had book marked the video. It was really a simple tie. Or at least it looked like it.