Thursday, June 30, 2016

Panfish Poppers

A couple of weeks ago I was tying at the White Water Flies annual open house with a few other folks.  One of them, Justin Johnson, was sitting at his vise tying the tail and hackle on a bunch of panfish poppers he had painted at home.  He does a great job on them and I can't wait to try out the ones he gave me.   Since the trout fishing is on hold right now in these parts, these are just the ticket for bass and panfish on lakes and ponds.



Here's one of Justin's poppers next to one of Brad Buzzi's striper poppers. 


The popper bodies and hooks are sold under the Wapsi Fly name and are available at fly shops every where.

Sharpen your hooks!

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Tying the Bully Bluegill Spider

With our rivers being very low and too warm for trout fishing, we've had  to turn to warm water fishing to get our fishing fix. In this tying video, Tim Flagler ties the Bully Bluegill Spider, a pattern that is easy to tie and one that will take panfish and bass during the dog days of summer.  Change the color of the chenille for unlimited variations on the theme.  


Sharpen your hooks!

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Henley Goes Fishing With His Cousin


Sunday, June 19, 2016

Tying Pat's Rubber Legs

Anyone that knows me, knows that I rarely use head cement or UV resins on my flies, and in most cases only to coat a body, preferring to let the thread bind the materials to the hook shank.  And now along comes this video where Tim uses UV resin to bind the rubber legs to the hook shank, making what until now has been a pain in the ass process, a relative piece of cake.  Seriously, he knocks this one out of the park.  If you have ever tied one of these nymphs, you know that tying in the legs can be frustrating, as the legs "have a mind of their own".   Now it should be a lot easier. I'll be giving this a try when I tie my rubber leg stone nymphs for my Montana trip next month.  Nice work, Tim!



Sharpen your hooks!

Friday, June 10, 2016

Tying the Solomon Hairwing Caddis

I recently sat down in front of Tim's camera to tie Larry Solomon's Hairwing Caddis, which I first learned about from the groundbreaking book, The Caddis and the Angler, written by Solomon and Eric Leiser and published in 1977.  This was the first caddis dry fly pattern that I tied and fished to imitate specific caddis hatches, and it hooked many trout for me in those early years on the Musconetcong River here in New Jersey.  Before that, the closest I got to fishing caddis imitations was the Henryville Special. Here I tie the fly to imitate the ginger caddis that are so abundant throughout North America, but that's only one version of many others you can tie by just changing the body color and hackle along with the hook size to imitate just about any caddis you may come across on your local waters.


RECIPE

Hook: TMC 101 or other dry fly hook, size to match natural
Thread: 6/0 Danville Pale Yellow
Body: Ginger rabbit fur mix
Wing: Light deer body hair
Hackle: Whiting straw or light ginger

Sharpen your hooks!

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Tying the Sulphur Breadline Emerger

In this video Tim ties the sulphur version of the breadline emerger.  The great thing about this pattern is that by changing the colors of the materials used and the hook size, you can imitate most mayflies. i.e. Tie it with an olive quill, dun hackle and olive thorax and you've got a low riding blue-winged olive imitation.  


Sharpen your hooks!