Back in the Saddle Again

Well, it's been over a month since my last update, and for that I apologize.  It's been an (un)interesting start to the summer, with precious little fishing (until very recently), and mostly 'box filler' tying.  Still, at this point, I've got plenty to write about over the next few months.  Here's a quick look at some of the coming attractions:

• Shenandoah River Trip Report: I spent this past weekend in Virginia with small group of friends, smallmouth fishing on the south fork of the Shenandoah river.  As with any fishing trip, there's plenty to share.
• Icelandic Sheep Dubbing (Part 2): Now that I've had the chance to fish the flies from my product testing, I need to tell you how they fish!
• Fishing for Wild Trout: Up in the Laurel Highlands, with a light line...this is probably my favorite type of fishing.  I managed to get out fishing with Sam twice since my last update.  Plenty of pics to go along with it.
• A New Vise: I picked up a second vise, to complement my Regal Medallion.  While the Regal is by no means getting replaced, this new one adds a few new key capabilities to my tying.

Unfortunately, all of the new pictures I've taken are still on my camera(s).  So I don't have any of my totally awesome pictures of fish or flies to show you here.  Lucky for you guys, Jerry is a great photographer, and not nearly as much of a slacker as me, so I'll jack one of his pictures that he's already posted.

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Sparkle Sculpin Step by Step Fly Tying Tutorial

After I posted a step-by-step for the baby sparkle sculpin, a few of my friends that follow the blog jokingly asked about an adult sparkle sculpin.  At the time, I had to sheepishly admit that I'd never done such a fly, but if I did, it would probably be for bass, not trout.

Well after several months, I've got a basic sparkle sculpin pattern worked out.  While I'm sure it will go through a few changes over the course of it's freshman year in my fly box, I think that it's got the basic elements of a winner.

Sparkle Sculpin

Recipe:

Hook: Mustad 34007 Stainless Steel Saltwater hook (not critical, use your favorite bass fly hook), #2/0

Thread: Uni 6/0 (White)

Tail: Rabbit Zonker (2-tone, hot pink w/ purple tip pictured) with silver flashabou accent

Butt: Temple Dog (white pictured)

Body: UV Polar Chenille (silver pictured)

Collar: Cross-cut Rabbit Zonker (2-tone hot pink w/ purple tip pictured)

Head: Senyo's Laser Dub (pink over purple pictured)

Instructions:

Put the hook in the vise and start the thread at the bend.  I tend to run big hooks for bass, who generally aren't shy or soft on the take.  The wide gap of these stainless salt hooks gets that point out and away from any bulk on the shank of a fly.  That said, your favorite bass fly hook will work just fine, as long as you've got enough shank to work with.

Tie in your zonker strip tail, approximately equal to the overall hook length.  I went color coordinated for these instructions, but you can use any colors you like.  I also tie this fly in olive, orange, blue, and natural...and plan to do them in white, black, and purple as well.

Add a few turns of lead wire just in front of the tail.  This is optional, but I find that even with the heavy hook, this fly has sufficient bulk that it traps enough air so that it affects its sinking and action.  A bit of lead cures this (for me), and in this location, it doesn't affect the tying process or action of the fly when fished.

I've also tied in a few strands of silver flashabou on each side of the tail as well.  This is purely optional as well, but I really like the looks of the fly with it as opposed to without.

Tie in your butt as a sort of veiling for the tail.  This is to make a smooth transition from the tail to the broader body, as well as to provide a background for the flashy body.  Usually, I use three pieces, one on top and one to either side of the tail, but in this fly, I just used the one, mostly because the pink will provide better contrast than the white anyway.

I used temple dog here, but a variety of materials could work here, including marabou, bucktail, or even a few turns of schlappen.

Tie in your UV polar chenille at the bend and wrap forward to completely cover your lead underbody (or to roughly the midpoint of the shank of you didn't use lead).  Tie it off and trim.  You can use other things here, but for my tying, this polar chenille is tough to beat.  It adds profile without bulk, movement without the soggy absorption of marabou or furs, and a lot of flash easily...all while still being mostly transparent.  

I used silver here, but white, pink, purple, or even black would have worked.  If you don't have polar chenille, get some. you can substitute by making a woolly bugger-style body of a long-barbed rooster saddle over estaz, hackle over pearl mylar braid, or whatever else you like, but it will most likely have a different overall effect.

After this, tie in a cross-cut rabbit zonker, and make one or two wraps in front of the chenille, then tie off and trim.  I forgot to stop and take a photo of this step, but it isn't rocket science.  Cross-cut.  1-2 wraps.  Trim.

After your cross-cut is applied and trimmed, the rest of the space (roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the shank) will be used to make your laser dub head.  Now I am a fan of substitutions for materials that you may not have a specific match for, but this, like the polar chenille, is one that will significantly alter the overall pattern if you change it.  Long story short, I won't suggest any subs for this as I haven't tried any.  Some might work, some might not, I don't know.

In any event, the picture above shows one clump of purple laser dub tied in over the cross-cut rabbit.  Before you get to that point, though, you have to prepare the material for this use.  

Senyo's laser dub, like most dubbings, comes in a small package, all mixed up.  For this use, you want the fibers mostly aligned in the same direction as well as having the ends approximately lined up.  To do this, the easiest way is to get a small clump of dubbing (you'll figure out what size as you tie), and pull it apart between your fingers, then put both pieces on top of each other, and pull the reformed clump apart again.  Repeat this about ten times, pulling off the loose fibers on the ends, and you'll have a small pile of laser dub, aligned and ready for tying.

When you're ready, spread the clump out, being careful not to rip it apart, as well as keeping the fibers in alignment, and pull it back over the eye of the hook, allowing the eye to poke through the center of the patch.  

Hold the dubbing at an angle and make 1-2 loops around it (with the portion above the shank leaning back over the fly and the portion below the shank extending out under the eye), then pull the bottom back tightly and make a few wraps in front of them, so that all the fibers are swept back.  Repeat this a few times, occasionally orienting your fibers horizontally, to provide a full head.  Once you've tied in 3-4 clumps, you're ready to switch colors.

Here, I've tied in my first clump of pink laser dub.  You can see how I'm trying to spread it evenly all around the head of the fly, as well as how small a single clump actually is.  You need to make sure to save space by tying your clumps very close to one another.  Again with the pink, I'll tie in two clumps vertically, then one horizontally, then back to vertical to finish up the tie.

And here's the completed fly.  I've tied in my last clump of pink laser dub, and whip finished.  The fibers haven't been primped and primed, but the fly as-is would fish.  Still there's a surprising amount of loose fibers in there, and a bit of hairstyling will really improve the look of the fly.

After some quality time with an old toothbrush, the sparkle sculpin is looking good.  This head is round in cross section, or very slightly oval, due to the vertical clumps outnumbering the horizontal clumps.  The colors blend nicely and the UV fibers in the laser dub give the head a noticeable, but subtle flash.

As an alternate, you can get away from the sculpin profile and get more of a baitfish/shad look, but training the  fibers in the head of the fly up and down, and adding some large, stick-on eyes.  The eyes will keep the fibers vertical, widening and thinning your head, as seen below:

This variant makes the purple laser dub very prominent, as you can see, as well as revealing even more of the flashy body.

Though I've only fished the first variant, I have no doubt that the shad profile will also work  For the shad profile, you could actually substitute a number of things for the laser dub, including another zonker, a pair of zonkers (as a double bunny), EP fibers, or other similar synthetics.

Other variants I'm considering, though I haven't tried yet, include an inverted, Clouser version, a 'low water' version, tied more sparsely, perhaps trading the zonkers out completely, a trout version, with a longer, smaller, light wire hook, and a 'creature' version that, rather than a baitfish, would use rubber legs and other additions to imitate a crawfish or salamander more than a fish.  This fall, I may try a steelhead version, with a trailer hook.

That's where I am with this work-in-progress so far...please leave comments and suggestions to let me know what you think of what I have so far, or to make recommendations for future ties.

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Rainy Days Are for Fly Tying

We've been getting more than out fair share of rain here in the Pittsburgh area recently, and while I'm not opposed to donning the rain gear and mucking it for a day, it's to the point now that the only fishable water (for me), are the tiny headwaters.  While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, my ultralight rod fiasco (more on that in a later post) has me in search of bigger fish.

To that end, I've been tying some flies that are about as big as I typically tie, using synthetics that only see the light of day a few times a season usually.  I'd like to catch a pike on the fly this year, and while it may not happen, I've got a few good spots to hit that might well produce.  Yesterday, I turned out this crazy looking thing, and I plan to tie up a few more in this style before I put all those synthetics back in a box.  All three shots here are the same fly, just a bit closer to the subject each time.  Also sorry about the grain, I had the D80 cranked to ISO 1600 and didn't realize it.  I promise to check from now on.

Tied with a combination of super hair, pseudo-marabou, flashabou, cashmere goat, wing-n-flash, krystal flash, and Senyo's laser dub.

I made the head by stacking short clumps of minnow blue pseudo-marabou, then stacking blue laser dub, then gray laser dub.  After that, make sure you brush out the head with an old toothbrush to remove any loose fibers and to get all of that dubbing swept back.  It looks really nice and neat by the time you're done.

I like the effect of this type of head, and while it maintains its bulk underwater, and pushes lots of water, a false cast lets it shed most of that water, and by extension, a lot of excess weight.  In fact, that's one of my favorite things about this fly.  While it'd ideally handled by a fast 6wt or a 7, I could easily lay it out to 40-50 feet with my 4wt LTX.

As long as my casting stayed disciplined, I could turn this thing over nicely with an Airflo sinking leader, but if my casts got sloppy, it was all over.  Then again, throwing an 8" fly on a 4wt at all isn't really exactly using the right tool for the task.

I also tied a few bass flies.  I guess they'd be sculpins...maybe they're what the Baby Sparkle Sculpin grows up into?  Either way, here's a look at the first few prototypes.  Though there's more field testing to be done, I like the looks of them, both in and out of water, and they're likely to become a permanent addition to my warmwater boxes.

Again, apologies for the high ISO...

Version 1.0, size 2 (I think) with weed guard (Amnesia)

Version 1.1a, longer tail, extra flash, fuller head...no weed guard.

I made these changes because the first one didn't foul on itself at all, which led me to believe I could get away with a longer tail, and the flash of the first one wasn't really apparent.  I doubled the amount of the brown polar chenille, added some copper flashabou, and stretched out the tail half again.  I also added some lead wire to this one, under the polar chenille so as to affect it the least in terms of how it swims.

Unfortunately, bad casting on my part led to a tailing loop and this fly sailed off into the ether, never to be seen again after just five minutes on the tippet.  Sparkle sculpin, we barely knew thee...

Version 1.1b, original tail length, extra flash, much fuller body and head.

I made this one to run through fast water, with a full, but mobile profile that wouldn't get man-handled by fast water.  The various tones of blue on this one don't really go together (this is a rare case where the picture actually makes the fly look better than it really is), but I think it has potential.  It hasn't gotten wet yet, but it's only a matter of time.

That's it for now.  I may explain the whole ultralight ordeal in the next day or so, but until then, give me some feedback on this sparkle sculpin.  Changes you'd make, things you like about it, things you hate about it, colors and color combinations that you'd choose over the ones shown, material substitutions, additions, eliminations...anything at all.  I'm all ears...or eyes, I guess.  Hell, if the suggestion is particularly game changing, maybe I'll tie you a few and mail em to you for field testing wherever you may be!  

Leave it in the comments!

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Icelandic Sheep Dubbing Product Testing (Part One)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm currently a product tester for Tie the Fly.  The man behind the site is considering carrying a new type of dubbing, and put out the call for tyers interested in using some samples to tie up some flies.  Just a few days after getting in touch, I received a small package with nine tiny baggies of dub inside.

As luck would have it, I didn't get to sit down and really work with it for a few days, but when I finally did, I made a commitment to rigorous and scientific research, and tried to tie a few of several different flies, representing all major categories.

When I opened the dub and handled it, it reminded me vaguely of mature seal, except less buggy, less translucent, and not sparkly at all.  Now that may sound like a complete put down, but it isn't.  The texture is very similar, though less slippery, and therefore easier to work with.  The fibers are long, but soft, meaning the dub can be as buggy or as smooth as you like.  The lack of flash makes it less eye-catching than seal or synthetics, but for day to day fishing, that might be a desirable characteristic.  In any event, the best way to see what you've got it to tie with it, so I quickly got out some hooks.

First up was dry flies.  Now with the knowledge that this was icelandic sheep dubbing, I figured this material would behave like wool and become waterlogged and sink.  Still, in the interests of objective review, I decided to at least give it a shot.  Also, the fact that I'd been tying stimulators the night before and still had all the other stuff out on my bench also helped influence my decision.

A few tense minutes later, and I snapped this picture at the vise:

In this fly, I was going for a nice tight, even dub, and while it was a bit of a challenge, it didn't disappoint.  It's bulkier than a typical dry dub like superfine, but probably about the same as the poly yarn I sometimes use for these flies.  The hackle stem also buried itself nicely into the dub, which helps with durability.

While the dubbing will probably absorb water, I'm banking on it also absorbing plenty of floatant, in order to stay up top.  Once I test these flies on the water, I'll know for sure.

Next, I decided to try tying a small nymph.  I don't typically fish nymphs, but lots of people do, so as a tester, I felt I should try it out.  I came up with a quick pattern in my head and got to tying it.  I believe this one was tied on a #16, 1x long nymph hook.

Nothing too fancy here.  I used a looser rope dubbing method than I did for the dry, and used a bit of fine wire to rib the abdomen.  It's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but those are goose biot tails, starling hackle, and a black bead.  I will probably be trying this one out over the weekend, and giving a report soon thereafter.

After that, I wanted to see how the dubbing would take color.  Since the color selection provided was severely lacking in the earth tones department, I decided to try an olive soft hackle.  After tying the body of the fly using white dubbing, I grabbed an olive prismacolor marker and went to work.  After coloring the body, I finished the fly by adding the soft hackle and tying it off.  The hackle I used here was a Coq de Leon Hen saddle.

The dubbing took the dye from the marker very well, and the color seems true.  A day in the water will determine whether or not it is color-fast, however.

After that, I was still in the mood for soft hackles, so I tied another, smaller example, using one of the colors of dub I hadn't yet opened.  Here's the starling & purple:

After this, I wanted to see how well the different colors of dubbing would blend together, so I tried tying a second, larger nymph.  I mixed the black and the burnt orange dubbing and achieved a sort of dark brown.  The dubbing took some time to mix evenly, but once mixed, it had a very nice effect.  Once I had a nice small pile of the tone I wanted, I built my larger nymph (stone?  hex?  mostly just an attractor) with a lead underbody, and a body dubbed with a dubbing loop.  Overall, I was very pleased with how this nymph turned out, and might even tie more of these to fish with, as they just look like they'd be a good pattern for larger trout in swift water.

That's the majority of what I've tied so far.  I'll have some streamers to tie over the next few weeks, and I'll be fishing these flies as well in the mean time.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments, or email Tie the Fly directly, via the site linked above.

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New Glass

Over the weekend, I jumped on a good price for a new (to me) lens online.  I'm now the proud owner of a AF Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 D!

While I've still got a lot to learn about it, I couldn't wait to share a few shots with my readers here.  So without further ado, here's the goods:

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What I've Been Up To

It's been a while since my last post, and while things are still busy, I want to fill in all my readers as to where I've been lately.

Fly Tying


I've only been doing a little bit of tying lately, mostly fishing on the reserves I tied up over the winter.  I'm tying a few patterns now as a product tester for Tie the Fly, and once I've finished them and fished them, I'll post a full report here, identical to the information I'll be sending back to Tie the Fly.

The product I'm testing isn't some new brand of knockoff hook or gimmicky tool (or those hideous pre-made bodies), but rather a less common type of dubbing: Icelandic Sheep.  I'm sure some of you, especially those to fish warmwater, will be familiar with the Icelandic sheep for its long, water-shedding hair, of use in streamers.  This is the dubbing made form the underfur.

Keep an eye on the blog here in a few weeks for a full review.

Fly Fishing


With the weather breaking in late March, freezing up again with snow in April, hail storming (and tornado-ing), then dumping tons of rain, I've still managed to get out and do a little fishing.  Mostly, I've been bluelining, hitting the little spring-fed headwaters up in the mountains, least affected by all the precipitation.  I'm still under a dozen fish on the year, but I've gotten the first few wild brookies of the year, all on dries.  The luck of the Irish was with me, as I went fishless for eight or nine trips in March, finally taking my first one on St. Patrick's Day.

A few days later, on my birthday, I caught a nice sized fish, just upstream from this one:

The bass and gills are starting to wake up, but are still pretty sluggish.  Only one bass and zero gills so far in 2011.

Teaching


Last Saturday, I went on an outing with the Boy Scout troop I used to be part of and gave a lesson on fly fishing and fly tying.  Oddly enough, more guys showed interest in the tying than the fishing, but everyone that tried it out seemed to enjoy it.

Unfortunately, no pictures, as I was busy actually teaching.  No fish caught, but I think I caught a few fishermen.  There were some really nice flies tied up as well!

Hopefully, I'll have a chance to see some of these guys again later in the summer for some warmwater fishing, which tends to be more enjoyable for the beginner.

Photography


Lately, my photography has veered away from my fly fishing somewhat.  I started taking a photography class in January, and most of my photography efforts have been devoted to progressing through the class.  The course seems to concentrate more on post-processing using Photoshop, but it's been enjoyable, and I'm learning a lot.  Just yesterday, I spent a few hours in the studio, learning to use the lighting systems.  Once I'm done, I'll be sure to share some of my favorite work here.

The teacher seemed to like that I was a fly tyer, and even included one of my shots for display:

Trout Season


Tomorrow marks the season opener for trout in PA (or, at least, non-southeast-PA), and to celebrate, I won't be getting within sight of the mad house that the main streams become for a day.  I'll either be trying for pike or fishing for wild trout.  Good luck to any fellow Yinzers going out to do battle with the hatchery fish and the first day zombies.  Wear a helmet.

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6 Key Features of a Small Stream Dry Fly

Fishing small streams for wild trout presents a different set of challenges than most typical fly fishing: the casts are short and the drifts are shorter, the conditions are crowded, stealth becomes a huge factor, and often a decent cast will involve throwing line across three or four separate stream features and currents, to deliver a fly within a few inches of a rock, under branches hanging just a foot or two over the water.

This type of fishing places many additional demands on an angler, but also affords him the opportunity to meet those challenges by giving him freedom in other areas.  Fly selection shows this better than many other aspects of fly fishing, and a blueliner's fly box, while it may look fairly standard, is carefully tailored to this kind of fishing.

In simplest terms, there are six essential elements that make any dry fly great (or not so great) on a small stream.

6. Buoyancy

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it's an extremely important feature.  By saying that a small stream dry must be buoyant, I'm saying it needs to float on the water, not in it.  You want your fly's body to be totally up, out of the water, seemingly bouncing across the surface.

Compared to a standard catskill tie, this Adams has an extra helping of hackle.

There are a few ways to accomplish this, using foam or other buoyant synthetics, using a hollow hair like deer or elk, using a heavily greased fly, or, the most common method: tying your normal standard dry patterns with extra heavy hackling.  Much like 'western-style' dries, a small stream dry benefits from a few extra turns of hackle.  Flies like the Bivisible, which incorporate a lot of hackle just from the pattern are also great choices for small streams.

Also incorporated with buoyancy is making sure that the materials will accept a healthy dose of paste floatant as well.  Hackle will soak up it's fair share, as will most dubbings and hair.  Things like foam, quill/biot bodies, and most synthetics don't accept much floatant.

5. Water Resistancy

With all the currents and obstacles in a small stream, any dry fly is going to get dunked from time to time, regardless of how high it rides.  Its resistance to the water is what will set a great fly apart from one that is more trouble than it's worth to keep it floating properly.

This property depends on two things: the way the bodies are tied and the material used.  For materials, you want things that won't wick moisture into the core of the body.  Things like foam, antron, or naturally water-resistant fur like muskrat or beaver.  As far as method, you want a body that is wrapped or dubbed as tightly and evenly as possible.  Bushy, buggy dubbing will allow the fly to soak up water through capillary action, which will eventually sink it.

4. Quick Drying

No matter how high your fly rides, or how waterproof it is, at some point (probably sooner than you think), that fly will be completely waterlogged.  At this point, you'll have to dry it out again before it'll float correctly.  Of course, a few good crisp false casts will wring a good deal of that water out of your fly, but after that, you've got a few options.

First, you can try any number of fly-drying products: amadou pads can squeeze a fly and absorb the moisture that comes out, powdered desiccants (like Frog's Fanny) are brush on powders that do a great job of really pulling every drop of moisture out of your fly, and recently, I've started seeing a few 'spray-on' drying agents, that come in a pump bottle.

All of these products work, to an extent (I carry powdered desiccant and have been trying a few spray-ons as well).  Try the false cast until it doesn't work, as its the fastest method, then after that, I usually dust it with Frog's Fanny, false cast it again to knock excess powder off, then spray a shot or two of a liquid dryer/waterproofer on, and false cast again a few times, then reapply my paste floatant.

Eventually, however, the water will work its way down to the thread and the insides of your fly, and no amount of false casting or chemical will revive it.  At this point, clip it off, hang it on your fly patch, and let it air dry, while you tie on a fresh one.  Naturally, it's a good idea to have several copies of each of your best patterns.

3. Durability

Another great reason to have multiples of your best flies is because if you're on a small stream, you're bound to surrender a few flies (or a lot of flies) to trees, rocks, bushes, fallen logs, and whatever else happens to be close at hand.  The ones you do manage to recover often are a little worse for the experience, with messed up wings, twisted hackle, and crinkled hair.

On a good day of fishing, the fish themselves will shred a fly to bits, too, and a well-chewed fly is a thing of beauty.

The best way to delay the inevitable is to concentrate on tight ties at the bench.  Practice technique, use minimal thread, use a drop of head cement if necessary (but if your technique is good enough, you shouldn't need it).  In short: you want bulletproof flies when you start out.  There's nothing you can do to increase the durability of a fly once you're on the water.

2. Bugginess

I know I said up above that a buggy-dubbed fly would absorb water.  That's true, it will, but there's other ways to get that look that won't turn your fly into a sponge.  Hair wings, heavy palmered hackle, and materials  like peacock herl that will break up the outline of your fly are all safe bets.

The reason for this is because you want to be able to minimalize your fly selection while making sure you're covered for most situations.  In this way, you can tie an elk hair caddis in light tan, olive, medium brown, and black...all in a size #14, and be covered for tan caddis, early stoneflies, mosquitoes, BWOs, and olive caddis.

When you're on a small stream, it's usually good to dumb down your entomology skills, and instead of thinking in terms of 'isonychia', 'october caddis', and 'baetis', start thinking in terms of 'little', 'big', 'light', and 'dark'.

1. Visibility

The most important aspect of a small stream dry fly is that it is visible.  To you, not the fish.  The fish will be able to see any fly, no problem, but in the twisting, tumbling currents of a mountain stream, it's easy to lose track of your fly.  You want to make sure that you're looking at the fly when that brookie rises to it.

In this vise, this means light colors and bright colors.  For any hair wings, I use bleached elk or deer.  In other flies, you can use antron yarn in fluorescent green, pink, and orange, as well as brightly colored foam.  For parachutes, both bright and bleached white turkey flats and calf body hair are used with great results as well.

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