Recent Ties 8.26.12

Sulphur Emergers In The Style of Caddis Chronicles

Pheasant Tail, Wire Rib, Rabbit Dubbing, Either: CDL Hen, India Hen Back, or Chukar Patridge Covert

Some Ties 8/10/12

What Is a Flymph?

What Is a Fymph

A flymph is a fly that represents the stage of life that is in between a nymph and a fully emerged adult (and no, I'm not getting technical distinguishing between duns and spinners).  In other words it is an emerger.  A flymph is very versatile in the hands of a skilled or not so skilled fly fisher because it can be fished as a dry or as a wet.

Why Makes a Flymph Different from a Soft Hackle

First and foremost, a flymph is not just hackle.  A flymph has a loosely dubbed body that allows the tying thread to show through, a tail consisting of hackle fibers, and a hackle that is wound 3-4 times from the eye of the hook back towards the bend.  Genetic hen is the hackle of choice.

In contrast, a soft hackle generally has a simple thread only body followed by a hackle wound sparsely just behind the eye of the hook.

Generic Flymph

The flymphs below are generic tied with hare's ear dubbing and furnace hen hackle.

Step 1 - Tie in the hackle just behind the eye of the hook by the stem.  The hackle should stick out beyond the eye with the dull side facing toward you.  This will allow you to wrap the hackle back towards the bend later.

Step 2 - Wrap the thread back to the bend of the hook and tie in the tail.  The tail consists of a few hackle fibers from the same hackle that you just tied in.

Step 3 - Use a needle to split your thread and insert dubbing into the opening.  Spin the thread to lock in the fibers.

Step 4 - Wrap the dubbing up to the eye of the hook and then back 1/3 of the way to the bend.

Step 5 - With hackle pliers, wrap the hackle back through the dubbing to the thread.  Then, wrap the thread up through the hackle to the eye.  This locks down the hackle.

Step 6 - Whip finish and cut away the remaining hackle tip.

A Great Day Bass Fishing

These fish all came from my favorite smallie stretch of my home river.
Flies:
Shenk's White Minnow
Osthoff Wooly Bugger
Gartside Gurgler (Big Fish of the Day)

I Promised These Bass That I Would Make Them Famous

These are some leftover pictures from June that I never got around to posting.

As you can tell from these shots, I am not a purist.  In fact, I would probably spin fish more often if the damn line didn't tangle so much.  Yeah I know, use a small barrel swivel.  But that only works for so long.  Honestly though, spinning rods are extremely versatile.  You can cover a lot of water with one, they get into tight spots (no casting room) better than fly rods, and a lot of the time you can throw streamers (flies) better with them.  I find that you can put some wicked action on Shenk's Minnows and Sculpins with a spinning rod.

One of the Reasons I Haven't Posted Much Recently

Even a Blind Squirrel...

This guy or maybe it was a girl was a rare occurence.  It took a Mixed Media blind.

Generally you don't catch carp on the fly unless you are sight fishing, and even then, they are sometimes difficult to come by.

Up to this point, the day had been slow with fish hard to come by.  I had been stripping a Shenk's Minnow along with some other mid-level flies through some nice pools and runs with only some tiny smallmouths to show for my efforts.

This is the Mixed Media that did the trick.  Slowly dragging this baby through a nice deep pool rewarded me with a nice strong pull on the other end of my line.  This fly was also responsible for the following bass later in the outing.

You can see the Mixed Media sticking out of the side of this guy's face.

This little piggy nailed my fly shortly after it broke the surface of the water!  She went about 15".

A Long Weekend w/ My Dad and Brother

What a contrast in the types of fishing I experienced.  As you can see from the picture to the right, my brother and I fished a large notable smallmouth river over the course of three days.

Although the river we fished is highly acclaimed for its bass, my brother and I caught a ton of fallfish and only a few bass.  It wasn't that the bass weren't there, but these smallies get hammered with fishing pressure, and live bait is about the only way you are really going to get into them.



We also fished a small mountain tributary to the river.  This stream held a decent population of wild browns and native brookies.

Here is an example of one of the stream's resident browns.

There is nothing like crawling around on your hands and knees in search of trout smaller than your index finger.  I know the bright white shirt didn't help in the stealth department.

But, catching a 9-10" native brookie makes it worth the effort.

It was just my dad and me on the second visit to the small stream.

And, despite our best efforts, including some bow and arrow casting, not many trout were brought to hand.

This brookie did succomb to the Usual, and in the process he really jacked up my leader.  Yeah, what was I thinking fishing dry-dropper in such a small stream.





All pictures except for the first one were taken by this guy.





He couldn't help but take a few strange closeups of himself!