Handy fly fishing accessory

[Mike West 0]

In my youth I use to put ant eggs on a tiny little hook and lob them with a fly rod in small streams.

Caught a ton fish doing that and I dont know about Crickets but you can back cast a Grasshopper.

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

After what I posted about chumming for bonefish.. I got to thinking a bit (uh oh....). If I were far away from saltwater and only had carp to toss a fly at.... I'll bet that chum tube (with the kinds of things that draw carp...) might just be worth a shot. In less than clear waters I'd add a popping bug head or something similar with enough line to allow it to act as a marker for the exact location of that chum tube... then set up so that I could toss a fly at what was drawn to the tube...

 

Many years ago one of the folks that taught me the basics used to say -if you get caught doing something bizarre on the water... it's easily explained.. Tell them it's an experiment... This from a guy who set up a fishing kite out of a canoe years and years ago (back when they were just starting to use them for sailfish down in the Keys). He'd allow the wind and the kite to drift his canoe over flats that held just a few really big speckled trout ('gator sized - nearing 10lbs when no one else in the Miami area even knew they were still a possibility...) Suspended from light line under that kite with a separate rod small pinfish would struggle right at the surface without even a hook in the water with them.... worked like a charm... and with a partner along you could raise the bait away from a really fired up fish - then toss a fly at them...

 

As you can guess -I'm not exactly a purist in my approach to fly fishing (or anything else..). Where I am, I was taught that fly fishing was just one more way of going about things (and for many here it was learned after becoming skilled at every other way of fishing - then you took up the fly rod to become a beginner all over again...).

[j8000 0]

That would be nice to have. Very rarely, but I have gotten desperate before and having no such luck with any flies I was using, I caught some grasshoppers and stuck them on a bare hook I had and kind of flung them out there the best I could.