Archive for January, 2010
31
Jan
10
Derek DeYoung’s Amazing Art
Ribbit, Ribbit
Dear Lord there is something as bizarre as Frogs in your greens: it is the craziness and adoration of Fred & Shane Dawson. These animated little guys foster pure adoration or hatred. I just find it all miraculous that the power of this medium has never transferred one infinitesimal bit to my efforts. So, I lack the theatrical, the absurd (pretty much), the imagination (Fred The Movie) and boyish charm. So, I will sit in obscurity like the frog in the greens. Hopefully getting more air.
31
Jan
10
Polski’s San River…Brown Trout
A simple and, I believe a neglected pattern, is the Ant. Afternoon winds on a lake, the big firs or pines waving in the wind, needles landing along the edges of the lake, and ants. Nice ‘n juicy (I don’t know if they are juicy or crunchy like a corn nuts) ants along the shoreline of streams. Alex Wild likes insects, in general, and Ants too.Very good images of a gazillion ants.
Florida Carpenter Ant (Alex Wild)
Damn lens! Really shows the flim & flam of the tying. Doubt the fish cares re an ant pattern, but I feel pretty good until the macro hones in on the dubbing, hackling and snips etc. So it is… The ants are what I have tied along the way. I fish them all with no thought of any differences between the patterns. Dumbbell-hourglass shape…a little hackling between the balls of dubbing. The matched small wings (hackle tips matched for length) can be black or white or ?. The balls of dubbing could be replaced with thread wraps to build up a body. Use 3/0 or 6/0 thread to match color you want. You could add a little lacquer to the thread wraps. The dubbing balls add some buoyancy in my estimation. The fly really does not have to float, but should best be in the top strata of water as if dropping from shoreline grass or blown in from tree tops. I tie most ant patterns on a size 12-14 hooks (14′s in pics), based upon shore side observations. I am sure others see ants bigger or smaller (red ant is size 16).
30
Jan
10
Snowmobile Fun! Eek!
These pics have been sent to me three times from various friends highlighting the ingenuity of the pilot. Thought I would share to show the need for a roll(s) of duct tape in your rig, boat or plane, it appears. 
Bayou Renaissance Man
Recently wrote about this and none to clearly either. Leave it to the always educational OFFB to explain a clear way to do this. I recall the scissor technique but never saw it clearly ’til now. The spot also deals with winding hackle front to rear and rear to front and the affect it creates. Thank you OFFB!
Steelhead Pattern by Jack Hagan (NWFFO)
LaFontaine's Emergent Sparkle Pupa (SwittersB)
The Sparkle Pupa has a few variations, such as this one. I used cactus chenille for the body and the surrounding shroud of green Antron was formed around the fly (the hardest part). Coastal deer hair is the wing and I used a dubbing of brown rabbit fur with some chopped up sparkly stuff (although it doesn’t show). The underbody is usually sparser and shows through the shroud as a darker, contrasting body. Below is an early effort from quite a few years ago, while I was experimenting with beads. Also, notice below the heavier thread (probably 6/0). I had learned with 3/0 but soon learned to move to 6/0. I advocate maybe learning with 6/0 or 8/0. Then progress smaller, fine tune the pull and tie better flies. Of course, if you are working with courser materials you may need to revert to 6/0, but generally go as light as you can for less bulk (to reduce that ugly thread head). Some of this is not obvious until the macro lens does its job.
I suspect the better pattern lays somewhere between the puffer fish pattern and the older sparse pattern. Both were tied on a size 14 hook.
Had fun tying these wet flies (sizes 14 to 20). I continue to appreciate thread bodied flies with the wire ribbing, a bit a of dubbed thorax with strands teased out to the rear and the starling or partridge wing. Simple and very effective.
Tied Down Caddis (TDC) SwittersB
Tied Down Caddis (TDC) SwittersB
I tied these with a yellow and a olive body. Originally, I only fished with an orange bodied TDC. I need to tie some of those orange bodies. This pattern doubles as a scud pattern too, for some. By the eye, I thought the hackle to be just fine, but in looking at the pic, the lens shows the hackle to be a bit overdressed and too long for my tastes. This is a lesson in fly tying, a pattern that you have never tied before or haven’t visited in a while, often requires a good half dozen efforts to fine tune the look and materials to maintain that look.
Size 14 nymph hook, 8/0 tan thread, deer hair tail and top pulled up over single strand of wool yarn (3 ply), tied in at back, which is wrapped up the shank and tied off. A brown hackle was tied in at same tie in point as single strand of yarn. Hackle was wrapped forward over body. The deer hair is then pulled over the body/hackle and tied down. The hard part (for me) is to then trim the deer hair close, then cover the deer hair to form a thread head, without too much build up. The body could be dubbed, but I would go with a dry fly type fine dubbing. Of course, the options abound.
