Its noon on Super Bowl Sunday. With no plans other than quietly watching the game with my wife, there is no prep to be done. Instead I was able to actually sit down and do a little tying this morning. While I wasn’t as productive as I would like, I was able to crank out a few flies, including two new patterns I’m experimenting with. I stopped to eat lunch and plan my afternoon, leaving me with the question: do I try to fish this afternoon? A quick look at the tides down in Providence and I see they are not optimal and the wind at my house is bad enough already, nevermind on the water. No holdover hunting for me today. There’s always some trout up at Whitings pond though…Anyways, here’s this morning’s ties:
I picked up some heavily discounted materials on http://www.MudHole.com a few months back, one of which being these gold dumbells with green eyes. While not really my first choice in colors, I couldn’t pass up the price. I thought I’d give them a try this morning. I have seriously slacked off on tying for months now so starting off with some easy (and always productive) chartreuse and white clousers also seemed like a good idea. I must admit, I liked the final product:
I fish clousers more than anything else in the salt. It’s almost annoying, I like trying new patterns, and sometimes I have success. More often than not though, even when attempting to “match the hatch” of whatever bait fish is currently around, I end up switching back to the clouser and catching. Its also a great searching fly, when nothing seems to be around its deep run will often pull up a fish. Again though, they can get a little boring, especially to tie. Warm up over.
I have some leftover zonker strips from the leaches I tied for the salmon river so I thought a zonker streamer would be a nice change of pace.
I’m confident this will catch fish and I like the black color. Unfortunately I used the last of my black crosscut rabbit zonker so I couldn’t tie another one. I think one or two more and I will have them looking very nice. I wasn’t pleased with how my anti-fouling strip came out. I might also look for some varied material. I’m now sure if it is available, but I would like to find some larger zonker material. It is a fun and simple material to work with, and its movement in the water is unreal. It breaths like no other material I’ve used, even better than maribou. I’m thinking that a slim version, with a red tail, small black head and no eyes could make for a deadly cinder worm imitation.
Along with the dumbell eyes, I also order some synthetic fiber that was on super clearance at Mudhole. It seems to be essentially the same as the infamous EP fiber so I thought I’d give a bait fish pattern a try. I experimented a bit last season with some bait fish patterns using some other synthetics I had. I was never overly pleased with the results I was getting and I never had any luck with them in the water.
While the packages are huge, and must last a long time, they are not the cheapest of materials so my collection was very limited. My previous failures did not encourage me to invest in more, until I saw the sale. This latest order added a new white, and two shades of green to the collection. With these new options, I attempted one more. I still need more practice working with the fiber, I don’t find it as easy as many tutorials claim it to be. Still, I am reasonably pleased with the end result. I used a short-shank Gamakatsu circle hook. These are another experiment since I found them for dirt cheap in the Wal-Mart fishing aisle. They seem to work well for these bait fish. It is a big fly, but I’m thinking it could pass as an early season herring and a may excel as a mid season mackerel over in Cape Cod Bay.
The above picture is when I first finished it. I need some bigger eyes, I’m thinking the 3D version rather than the flat holographic ones I have now. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the shape while it was still on the vise. I’d given it a small haircut, but couldn’t tell if it needed more. After running it under the faucet, it really came to life. Like I said before, it is a big fly. Not necessarily in terms of length (its maybe 3.75″) but it is a chunky beast. It has a good silhouette that I think will encourage some bass to come up from the deep to slam it. Running it under the water gave me a good idea of what it will look like in the water, with a nice tear-drop shape I would expect from a bait fish. Here it is below, though it doesn’t look as nice as it did while in the water):
Tying these flies gave me a great opportunity to start filling my new boat box. So far it has done nothing but begin to collect stickers.
I love this box. It’s a beast. I actually wish a bought a second to keep as general fly storage since it keeps them in better order than throwing them in a normal divided plastic box. I can’t wait to have this out in the kayak. I can’t wait to be back out in my kayak in general.
I’ll let my new flies call this home. I need to go through my box from last year and see what is salvagable. The salt is brutal on equipment and as much as I rinse everything off, it still has its way of destroying my flies over the season. I may move some of my favorites, and the bigger flies, over to this new box. Stay tuned.
Tight Lines
Hook & Spoke 