Panfish Dry Flies

[bluegill576 0]

Thanks for all the help guys. I guese I'll be tying up a bunch of dries for the next year.

[hairjig 0]

I have good luck with gurgel pops size 10 .

[TheCream 0]

I was throwing a small nymph pattern for gills on my 3wt in a public pond on Saturday in Ohio. I was tearing them up pretty good, then an aggressive fish decided to eat my Thingamabobber. I immediately put on a small popper I recently finished, and caught several on the popper...on a cold, windy day, air temps in the high 30's/low 40's. :headbang:

[dayhut 0]

Oops

[dayhut 0]

One of my fave dries is the bottle brush fly.

Trout bums will know the classic Bivisibles, and the lesser Renegade. A close kin is the Griffith Gnat. Real old timers or historians might recall the Stewart Black loch fly or the Hewitt Neversink Skater.

 

The name, "bottle brush fly," is mine - it's not an 'o-fish-ial' designation. Such a fly is nothing more than a fairly stiff hackle feather tightly wound on a light wire hook. Thus the name, "bottle brush" fly. This is palmering, but each wrap of the quill is tight to the previous one.

I use #10 and #12 hooks for bluegill.

 

Tie a thin segmented foam body along the hook shank to add a bit more flotation, if you like. A little hook-gape length tail of stiff hackle fiber can also be added. I think a tag of holo-tinsel is nice, but you needn't bother with more than a hook and a feather.

Cool, huh?!

(I've included an example of a Holo-Gold Tag Black Bottle Brush at the end).

 

I wrap a thread base to the bend, first, and tie in a hackle feather. Then, I lay a light bed of cement on the thread. As the hackle feather is wound on, the quill is "set" in the cement. I end with a small varnished black thread head, just because I like em.

I like a three-fish fly, and these will last that long. Once the cement is cured, the fly is pretty tough - much more so than your average foo-foo dry fly.

 

The fly can be handled like a common dry on floating line and light mono tippets. I use 3-4#, as a rule. I'd use smaller but I can't see it!

 

Just cast and let the fly float down to the surface. When it lands, I've seen bluegill come from far off to grab the thing. This is because it settles SLOWLY and the fish can see it coming.

Dangle it a foot above a calm surface and you'll see the bluegill follow it back and forth!

 

If nothing happens straight away, gently lift your rod tip to drag the fly across the surface. Do this gently and the fly will "skate" across the film. Let it settle again and wait - - BAM! It's liable to be nailed again.

 

Finally, bottle brush flies can also be fished wet. After a bit they get sodden and will go under. Or you just snatch the fly beneath the surface and twitch it back on the retrieve

 

Brown, black and orange are good colors, and a little peacock herl can't hurt. Tying them with longish, inexpensive saddle hackle is fine, as long as there are plenty of stiff barbs on the feather.

 

Edward Ringwood Hewitt said he thought his skater resembled a fallen moth. Others have likened them to a ball of mating midges. Okay, sure, why not; either would represent a hefty meal for a bluegill.

If I was to select only one of these to tie, Id go with the Renegade, as seen here:

 

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/fotw2/032403fotw.php

 

Even simpler is just one feather wound on a hook.

Here's an example:

[jcozzz 0]

these work for me

[dayhut 0]

DSCI0001 (2).JPG these work for me

Those would be Jim Cosgrove poppers and spiders... Now, wherever did you get so many??

[Philly 0]

I had luck with these two this year. For panfish, tied on size 6 or 8 stinger hooks. For bass and the occasional chain pickerel size 1, 2 or 4 stinger hooks.

 

 

[ditz2 0]

I have been thinking about trying a Humpy to throw at the sunfish. I think I will try the Tom Thumb instead just for a change.....I normally fish a craft foam spider in yellow. E Z and fast to tie and E Z to see, durable, and effective. Size 8, 10, and sometimes 12 or 14 if they are just slapping at the bigger ones which sometimes happens. I also use Aberdeen hooks so if I snag it I can usually pull hard enough to straighten the hook and get the spider back, re-bend the hook and keep fishing. I cut my fly tying teeth on small poppers for sunfish and they work fine as well but they take more time and effort to tie up. I have found the spiders to be more effective day in and day out. If I feel the need to get fancy I will put an under body of chenille or dubbing on the hook shank but mostly I just use a red thread base on the hook shank, tie on the foam and bend the foam back toward the eye and tie it down about 2 hook eyes width back from the eye. Cut off the foam strip just in front of the eye square like a gurgler and tie a leg on each side at the tie down wrap so there will be 2 legs on each side. The sunfish love them though I seldom catch any bass one them. The small poppers do catch some bass from time to time. What fun this fly fishing is!

[dayhut 0]

Ditz,

Yes yes yes.

I do better with bluegill on foam spiders/gurglers, as well.

I added a third leg, for a total of six, and got even better results. This is unscientific, but it SEEMS like the fish went for them more.

 

I have poppers, and I tote a dozen or so, in orange, black and natural cork. Whether I use them is up for grabs.

[FlaFly 0]

actually spiders have eight legs, if you want to be rigorous. I don't think bluegills can count.

[dayhut 0]

Agreed; but "spider" is essentially a generic term.

The British have wet flies called spiders, flies used successfully for centuries - and they have NO LEGS as we are discussing them here. So the term "spider" is somewhat loosely applied.

 

However, most will agree that insects, as a whole, have six legs. And that's what were mimic'ing - insects. So while we're calling them 'spiders', we actually mean to simulate any of a gazillion different insects.

 

The usual thing is to tie a total of four legs (2/side), mostly I think because it's easier...and most people also reckon bluegill to be poor at math.

 

But, I tend to believe that the closer you can get to reality - while remaining practical - the better. So, I scratched my head for a while and got on to a way to add the third pair of legs.

 

If you look at 6x insects you'll also note the legs dont all sprout from a single point on the body, the way we usually tie them.

What I did was tie in the legs so one pair swept forward, while the other two swept back.

 

What I ended up with was a foam insect that splays it's six legs like a real bug.

Am I falsely believing these are better, because I went to all the trouble to figure them out?

Probably.

 

But I can live with that.

[ditz2 0]

I started out using 2 layers of foam and CA glued legs in an X pattern between the layers. These sometimes would float on their sides so I changed to my current method. It would however be E Z enough to tie in 2 legs in a V at the hook bend before attaching the foam. I might tie a couple that way but I have no problem with the effectiveness of the current method. I also still carry some poppers but seldom use them for sunfish. Years ago I used a lot of 1/4" poppers made of cork cylinders and thought they were the greatest. I got the cylinders from E. Hillie. I don't think they have them any more. I also still have some 3/16" cylinders but they did not float very well and I only made one batch. The 1/4" versions worked much better. Where I lived small poppers were almost impossible to find and that is what got me into fly tying. I now also make a 5/16" and 3/8" popper out of craft foam cylinders. Yellow body, red calf tail, grissly hackle. Red sharpie eyes with black pupil. Some with legs and some without tails. Spiders are much easier to tie and seem to catch more fish.

[dayhut 0]

These are the poppers I cut from foam; the ones on the bottom are natural cork.

These all have various tail dressings, mostly marabou.

 

This is the bug in question. Instead of tying the legs to the rear, I went towards the front with them.

A bit of Ice Dub at the waist is all that I've added.

 

I also had a lot of good result from this sort of 'bottle brush' fly. All size bluegill and bass eagerly took them off the surface.

When they finally sink, they make a decent stripped wet nymph and are also likely to be snapped up.

They worked for me in brown, orange, and the black you see here. It's just a variation of the classic "skater" fly.

 

2x shank length hackle

Gold tag butt on bend

 

Tie in tag, and hackle, wrap thread to front.

Wrap hackle in touching turns to front and tie off.

 

Super simple. A fancier version can be found in the famous trout dry fly, the "Crackleback."

[jcozzz 0]

 

DSCI0001 (2).JPG these work for me

Those would be Jim Cosgrove poppers and spiders... Now, wherever did you get so many??

 

hows it going mcscruff,i mean dayhut