Some New Flies

[mkwerx]

I'm not out beating the lakes to a froth after bass, I'm using haunting a creek in the coast range chasing cutthroat. Soft hackles, classic wets, and smaller streamers get a lot of action, and I'm usually fishing dead drifts or swings, as opposed to jerk strips or crazy active retrieves.















Lot of days I'm happy as @No_Regerts in a Krispy Kreme with a 3 weight and a box of wet flies crawling up some trickle as I am wearing out my casting arm throwing big stuff at bass.

I don't do a lot of steelheading anymore - I've never been super successful at it, and now that more NW streams are open year round, I have even less impetus to drop another $30 on a tag. I didn't buy a tag last year, and IIRC, I didn't buy one the year before. I might've, I don't remember. Still undecided if I'll buy one this year.

 

[No_Regerts]

I'm not out beating the lakes to a froth after bass, I'm using haunting a creek in the coast range chasing cutthroat. Soft hackles, classic wets, and smaller streamers get a lot of action, and I'm usually fishing dead drifts or swings, as opposed to jerk strips or crazy active retrieves.

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Lot of days I'm happy as @No_Regerts in a Krispy Kreme with a 3 weight and a box of wet flies crawling up some trickle as I am wearing out my casting arm throwing big stuff at bass.

I don't do a lot of steelheading anymore - I've never been super successful at it, and now that more NW streams are open year round, I have even less impetus to drop another $30 on a tag. I didn't buy a tag last year, and IIRC, I didn't buy one the year before. I might've, I don't remember. Still undecided if I'll buy one this year.

Spring trout fishing in the lowland lakes around here can be fantastic before the water warms. While others troll or use bait, I'm usually using an ultralight with a jig or a 5 wt and a woollybugger.

 

[mkwerx]

Spring trout fishing in the lowland lakes around here can be fantastic before the water warms. While others troll or use bait, I'm usually using an ultralight with a jig or a 5 wt and a woollybugger.

Both great ways to get it done. My go-to trout tactic with the spinning rod anymore is a fixed float and a jig with soft plastic body, either a tiny plastic worm ala Berkley Power Worm, a Trout Magnet, or a simple 1.5" curly tail grub. Early last year while out fishing with my son and mom, I was absolutely slaying fish on that setup, while my mum and her powerbait soaking friends were getting jack. Some folk just don't get it - when the temps are right and the fish are up near the surface, bottom soaking bait in 40' deep water won't get you squat. I was fishing my jig suspended about 3-4 feet down. Literally a fish on every cast. After about the 12th or 13th fish, I asked my mum if she'd like to reel one in, just to remember how it felt. I can't repeat what she said on this forum.

Even my kid got bored of reeling fish in. I was actually getting kind of bored with it so after the 15th fish or so, I reeled in just sat watching the scenery for a while.

 

[Flymph]

That's exactly what i'm fond of doing, chasing small trout in plunge pools. Sometimes I get lucky and pull out a 5lb trout, but i'm content with 12" fish on my 4wt. I don't know where all of my soft hackles are.
I have to get tags, just to make sure I cover my bases. LoL I know where you're coming from tho.

I'm only familiar with spinning buck tails in a dubbing loop. I have tried making muddlers but always goof up on the trimming and packing it tight. Something to work on this year I suppose.

You've convinced me, I need to dig out all of my fly gear and get a new vice.

Nice tenkara flys, by the way. Those would be perfect for my GF as she is obsessed with set line rod fishing and all things Japanese. Just want to say, i'm impressed by the selection now days. Just a few years ago you had only one option.

PS: good advice on tying muddled heads for various purposes!

 

[mkwerx]

The "tenkara flies" actually aren't kebari - they're just reverse hackle wet flies typically fished for sea run cutts - I guess great minds thought alike (in Japan, and here on the wet coast) since both regions created flies with the reverse tied hackles. The way a reverse hackle pulses in the water is just cool, and the trout seem to dig it.

I bought my boy a Tenkara rod a couple years ago - he still struggles with line management (he's only 6) but he sure works that fixed line rod well. We either do indicator nymphing or dry fly fishing with it right now, but this year I'm going to get him swinging soft hackles with it. I didn't go with the expensive Tenkara USA rod - I got him a max catch rod from eBay. $50, so if he breaks it, it's not as big a deal. We only fish 5X tippet on that rod, to help prevent breakage. I did discover last summer that AirFlo poly leaders make one heck of a line for a Tenkara rod though - I set the boy up with 10' floating and intermediate sink polyleaders when I couldn't find my flourocarbon level line - and they cast reeeally well for him.

If you're going to try making muddlers - don't worry about packing the heads tight. If you look at the original way muddlers were tied, they had about 1/3 of the hair of a modern day factory muddler. They weren't meant to float like a cork - although I will say a modern muddler with packed heads make a great grass hopper imitation. But for streamers meant to be fished in the water, not on the water, a looser head that lets water flow through it can be beneficial, especially if you're not weighting the shank with lead or a cone or something. Those muddlers I pictured above were tied with deer body hair spun in a dubbing loop and wound on, vs being stacked or spun on traditionally. For trimming the heads on a muddler, I use toenail scissors picked up at Fred Meyer. Toenail scissors have curved blades, vs flat ones. The curvature is perfect for trimming muddler heads. Honestly - for scissors and bodkin needles - Fred Meyer and Michaels are cheaper than the fly shop for the same things. Just gotta look in the health and beauty section at Freddies.

I used to tie a lot of bead head streamers, lead eye streamers and heavily weighted stuff but I'm getting away from that in favor of unweighted flies fished on short leaders and sinking lines. Fish just are not that line/leader shy, not the meat eaters anyway. I've caught some nice trout on my 8 weight, fishing 15lb flouro leaders only maybe 3 feet long. My cousin Tyler is hell on a tapered leader and he often winds up fishing a 5 or 6 foot leader with big fat tippet and still catches fish. If he can fit the leader through the hook eye, he'll catch a fish on it. Makes me not buy into the gossamer tippet mentality anymore in general, except to get the right suppleness and drag free drift.

 

[Flymph]

If those were created by Hughes, i'm pretty sure his wife is Japanese... and an avid fly angler.

I'm into the effect, but I think I can suade the fiancé away from live bait with the Japanese cool factor. She said we could move to Vernonia if I take her to Japan... My condition is that we go fly fishing in Japan. LoL
With all of the options out there I might just have to get the Iwana from Tenkara USA for the gal and me. Seems that they have a good warranty on them. I'm going to look into it more.

I'll keep that in mind as I tie them. I always felt disappointed that my attempts were not as pretty as the store bought muddlers, so I have always given up and gone back to classic bucktails. If anything I would use a cone or bead instead and use a dubbing loop of hare's ear as a collar over a deer hair skirt... it's kind of cheating and doesn't seem to make a better fly.
Trust me, I find stuff all over the place, but NWFFO has really good prices too, so don't avoid them if you can. I even have a bag full of cigarette plastic I intend to make into spinner wings one day... idk why I saved them as I still smoke... HAHA

The whole point of the fly is that weightless motion, it's killer! Sometimes a longer finer leader helps with that motion. However I'm trying to get away from my long leaders as well, but it's difficult as I usually fish ultra clear water and that psychs me out. For streamers, I usually try about 4'-7' of leader and that seems to be a good length to me, but somehow it always ends up being more like 9'-12'. All of my leaders should really be 5'-10' for nearly every situation, but i'll probably keep tying on 12'-15' leaders...

 

[mkwerx]

Ultra clear water fish can be spooky for sure, but I think it's more the movement we make that spooks them, or maybe the shadow caused by the leader. When you look at things from the fish' perspective, ANY line floating on the surface, even thin tippet, is going to cast a shadow because of the water depression and light refraction. Flourocarbon reduces this, as the light refraction of it is almost identical to that of water. BUT it still creates a depression on the water's surface, and thus will throw some shadow. Since most streams have sticks, leaves, blades of grass etc floating down them with some regularity - I don't think this is as big a deal as it's made out to be.

I used to do the long leader thing - read it in a book so it had to be true that the longer the leader the better. Like Dave Hughes, I came to find out that some things just aren't so. like Hughes, I found that leaders no longer than the rod typically work best. Even on the gin clear streams of summer, angler position and line control are far more important in my experience than leader length and tippet size. Especially on small streams, because the fish in those streams just can't afford to be as picky.

Over in Eastern Oregon & Washington, as well as throughout the prairie states where the water is far more nutrient rich, those fish grow big and fat on bugs. Our streams west of the cascades are far more sterile, so there's fewer fish, and fewer big fish. That's got to be why salmon and trout became anadramous in the first place - lack of sufficient food sources in their home streams forced them to become nomadic. Those that stick around scratch out a life by pretty much eating anything and everything that comes along that triggers the "FOOD" response in their brain.

That's not to say our trout are easy to catch all the time - a sloppy or splashy cast, a bad drift, a shadow cast across the stream, too much noise - they'll spook all right. But I think the right fly, lure or bait presented in a fairly natural manner will draw a strike almost every time from a west-side stream trout. If they want to live and get bigger, they have to take what comes. That's why they attack pine needles, spit, and cigarette butts that drift along. Maybe in the slowest pools where they have time to examine the "food" will they get picky, but I don't usually find a lot of trout hanging out in the slow pools. They're usually in the riffley water or boulder fields or plunge pools where they are less exposed to predators, and get a steady stream of food coming right to them.

 

[Flymph]

You're right on the money! I've also found that short stout leaders are easier to cast and turn over with large flies. I can add the area where a rapid meets a pool to that list, they almost always hold a few fish. Actually there is a decent streamer method for steelhead in these areas, as written by Ray Bergman in Trout. I've only used it fishing for searuns and resident trout to good effect. I would call them tail outs but that name is also the area above the rapid, so i'm at a loss for a more refined term.
I've definitely got to get better at stocking fish, but that's part of the sport.
I've heard guys preach that 7' leaders and 2' of line is how they slay trout, all on the Big D tho. I can't imagine they're doing anything but dropping their line over tall grass or Czech nymphing.
I know a Spey guy who exclusively fishes the Wilson and the Trask and uses a March brown flymph on a 2'6" leader of maxim brown in 15lb test (occasionally the Deschutes). He assures me that the fish don't care and it is stiffer so has better turn over. He also hasn't caught a fish in 20 years on the Wilson, which I blame as much on the river and his willingness to venture from easy wades. He does okay on the Trask, but the Wilson is his main game. LoL

 

[mkwerx]

The Wilson was/is my primary steelhead river as well - and probably the reason I don't buy tags anymore. The fishery on the Wilson just sucks compared to it's hay day. I've seen scattered fish here and there and occasionally run into guys who get fish or claim to (rarely do you see a guy walking back to his truck or car with a dead fish in hand as proof)

In the last 7 years I've had maybe half a dozen hook ups and one landed steelhead on that stream. And that steelhead came while I was trout fishing in the middle of summer, with a 4 weight and a size 12 black woolly bugger I was throwing for sea run cutthroat.

As for the D - they are probably just short line nymphing. That has been my most successful way to get fish over there except when the fish are really on top, like in case of the salmon fly hatch. No point in casting 30 or 40 feet out, when the fish are at your feet. Although, I've been told that the Deschutes fish won't eat meat - ie, they don't eat streamers, but that's wrong. I've done pretty good on trout and whitefish swinging a streamer.

I caught one of my two best fish of the year czech nymping a coast range stream back in November. The fish hit about 10' away from me, maybe 3 feet off the bank, right as the line was under the rod tip. The more I practice this technique the more I realize that for the last 20 years, I've probably been stepping on (not literally, well, usually) some of the best fish, while casting to empty water or casting to smaller fish, or spooking the good ones as I thunder my way toward the water. Anymore I like to stalk as quietly as I can toward the water I fish - much like a bow hunter trying to get close to a nice buck.

And where a rapid meets a pool - I call that the plunge or just the head of the pool. Tail outs are the lower section of a pool where it heads back into the next riffle, run, or rapid. On small or steep boulder strewn areas these mini pools are called pocket water. Pocket water is great gun to fish, because almost any pocket big enough to hold a trout will have one or three. Usually the biggest fish in the pocket is the first to hit.

Have you ever read Bergman's book on ultra light fly fishing?

 

[Flymph]

Yeah, i'm much more partial to the smaller waters around there than I am to the Wilson, but I also have more history with those waters as well. Nobody set me up for a specific place, I was the one who instigated where to go. I'm really into the nehalem, which is funny because I might be moving to Vernonia soon, we'll see. It would be nice to be so close to so many trout streams I know have good sized trout in them. Only fished RC once and quick released a 16" Cutty/Bow, on a muddler no less! LoL
They call the D fish that eat streamers sharks. From what I gather, they like to hang out in the pools and near riffraff, according to Scott Richmond. I started fishing that river as if it were the little Spokane, only 20' across at it's widest.

Czech nymphing is a lot of fun? But I can never get into any white fish except on the crooked. I've tried everywhere and only come out with trout, which surprises everyone that I actually complain about it. LoL Czech or tight line nymphing is one of three methods I use on a regular basis. Swinging wetflies is really my favorite, and why I'm likely to get a Spey rod as soon as I can afford it after I get a shotgun. The third is casting big dries during a hatch. I actually have a way to fish large dries May through November just by hitting various rivers and species. One year it's all I did, and I did it well. LoL what is peculiar is that I like tying streamers, but never really use them. The biggest streamer I use are those flymphs on #8 2xl 2xs hooks, mostly for tricoptera on coastal streams. I like them because sometimes what gets the fish to strike is slamming them against the water. I started doing this on certain stretches after observing the naturals dive down 30' to break through the surface to lay eggs.

I'm so used to fishing small water that a plunge pool to me is actually often plural and it's a series of pools in which the water plunges a few feet into, each pool holds some fish and has good stalking opportunities. I would call the back of the pool a tail out tho.

I have not! I thought that book was more like a catalogue so I skipped it. It would be useful if I ever was able to do historic recreations of fly rods and fly lines tho. Still applicable today?

 

[DirectDrive]

Not a fly guy, but I have seen this one work several (many) times on Mr. Big :



After Dinner Mint
Mark Noble


Uses
This pattern is not generally available in fly shops, but it has a good reputation among Northwest steelheaders.

How to Fish
Standard wet-fly swing.

HOOK: Teimco 7999, sizes 2-6

THREAD: Black

BODY: Green poly flash

WING: From bottom to top: a few strands of pearl Krystal Flash, then a bit of purple squirrel tail, then a lot of black marabou.

HEAD: Black deer hair spun Muddler style and trimmed flat on the bottom.

 

[Flymph]

That's a good pattern from the looks of it. Essentially a black muddler with a green tinsel body and a bit of flash. Freight trains and purple peril are also known to work well on the D. I think there is a fly named after a canyon near Maupin, it's like a Mack's drab or something like that. Anyway, all of those patterns work well and are good colors whether you're fly angling or not.

 

[DirectDrive]

That's a good pattern from the looks of it. Essentially a black muddler with a green tinsel body and a bit of flash. Freight trains and purple peril are also known to work well on the D. I think there is a fly named after a canyon near Maupin, it's like a Mack's drab or something like that. Anyway, all of those patterns work well and are good colors whether you're fly angling or not.

It is Mark Noble's take on the Black Muddler.
Mark preferred elk hair and he cut a beautiful "sculpin head" with a very flat bottom.
The best muddler head I've ever seen.
One of Mark's favorite steelhead "searching patterns".

 

[Flymph]

I would swing that fly!

 

[DirectDrive]

I would swing that fly!

Yes, designed to swing.
I took a fly friend of mine up to the D one day in August.
2 casts, 2 fish with ADM.....big thrill for this trout guy.

 

[Flymph]

I'll tie up a few, I have a box of similar bucktails somewhere from when I went buck wild! LoL
I doubt i'll ever be seen on that river in August again tho... is it any cooler up from heritage?

 

[DirectDrive]

I'll tie up a few, I have a box of similar bucktails somewhere from when I went buck wild! LoL
I doubt i'll ever be seen on that river in August again tho... is it any cooler up from heritage?

July through October
September is my favorite time up there

 

[mkwerx]

That After Dinner Mint will hunt. Muddlers in general are fish magnets - I fished a lot of them this year both as a dry fly, and on the swing sub surface.

If you move to Vernonia, you can fish every day. Vernonia Lake is one of the alternate places I take the fam if they're not up for hiking the sometimes steep, muddy banks of Hagg. Easy to walk, with the two floating fishing docks.

I caught this guy a bit over a year ago out there, throwing bass streamers in November



He ate one of these, but in all yellow:



I threw the streamer tight to the reeds and was twitching it back toward open water then BAM - I thought I'd hooked into a good bass. Was only a bit surprised to see a nice trout with my 2/0 EWG hook in his face.

The old fart who lives in the RV out there as the park host told me last summer that there's a bass the locals have been trying to fish out, because it upsets folks. It upsets folks by eating baby ducks in front of people. That's the bass I want to catch. I'll snap a pic, tell him to be smarter next time, and put 'im back in to go eat more ducks. I wish we had pike in places like that. I've seen pike try to eat adult ducks

 

[Flymph]

I used to fish the pond there a few times a year as a kid and spend the 4th with family friends there. I never caught anything but gills tho. I suppose i'll have a good challenge there. Let's see who can catch him first! I'll release him for you to get later as well. LoL

Glad to see the trout there look healthy with an appetite to match!

 

[mkwerx]

There's some decent bass to be had, crappie, supposedly bullhead, and of course the trout. All the crappie seem to hang out in the middle of the lake, so take your float tube or canoe and fish the pilings out in the middle. I spooked some big ol' bass this year while trying to walk out onto the old raceway of the mill - they were bedding in the chute. I was walking out to the end so I could get a cast out to the pads. I never checked that little chute before - figuring it would be shallow. It's not. I would NOT want to fall down into it - it's pretty deep.

If you move out that way we'll certainly have to hook up and give 'em a run for their money. I'm going to tie up some deer hair ducklings before spring. I'm thinking packed, spun deer body on a 3/0 hook, with a couple articulations - one for the head, one for the tail. I'll add some real duck mojo by making the wings out of mallard flank feathers We'll see if that piggie can resist a struggling baby duck packing a concealed weapon.