Thursday, September 29, 2011

The peeking caddis tutorial and video

This is the peeking caddis pattern which I use. It extremely effective on freestone streams with good populations of caddis.  You can twist these up pretty quickly. They are simple yet very effective.

Recipe
Hook- Daiichi 2220 #14
Bead- Tungsten 3mm
Thread- Uni 8/0 tan or camel
Larva- Sparkle yarn
Legs- Partridge
Case- U.V. High Test Dub

Lets twist one up.
Hook in vise with 3mm tungsten bead

Start your thread and wrap back to the bend  

Cut yourself a piece of sparkle yarn and get your lighter
Light the end of the sparkle yarn
You want the yarn to catch fire. Let it burn for a second or two.
Blow the flame out and let it cool. It doesn't take long. Now you have a nice caddis larva head.

Tie in your larva. I like to do about a half a hooks worth of larva. Tie it in and bind it down up towards the bead. Cut the excess.


Select a partridge feather and tied it in by tip. I like to only have the ends of the barbs extend to the end of the sparkle yarn. So measure and tie it in so the once wound the tips will only go that far.
Wrap your partridge.  And then advance your thread to the rear, tying down the partridge fiber.

Make a dubbin look and apply your dubbin, twist and make a nice shaggy rope.
Wrap your dubbin rope forward and tie it off.

 Whip finish, and then i like to trim down the shag to form a  nice shape.



Enjoy the movie
Tight Ties
Johnny Utah


Tying video, Fancy Brassie

I made a video on the Fancy brassie.  Twist these up in small sizes and fish them as a dropper. There very effective in other colors also, with ultra wire you can tie them in any color of the rainbow.  Use medium wire for 16s and use small for 18s and 20s. If you want to go smaller then give the x-small wire a try.  You dont have to use peacock or any collar at all. Just a black thread head works well.  If you do use peacock  use hurls from the eye. You can get some nice short fibers from the center eye area.

 Tying a two minute fancy brassie


 Tying the Fancy Brassie (full instruction)

Sunday, September 25, 2011

A deadly stockie fly. The Infamous Pink Worm Tutorial

The infamous Pink Worm.  This fly is beyond deadly on stocked fish. especially rainbows. Tie these babies up if you like fishing for those synthetic fish. Tie them on a diesel hook for a killer steelhead pattern.

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Materials
Hook- #14 dry fly hook
Red uni-6/0
Body- Florescent pink Vernille
Body- Steel Head Orange Glo-bug yarn

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start your thread, and run it down to the hook point.

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Tie in the vernille, Use two secure wraps, one on top of the other. Then advance the thread forward, stop two hook eyes back from the eye.

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dub your thread, don't be shy and don't be ridiculous.  This right here is the exact amount to make a great body ( I have tied hundreds of these.  )

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wrap your body. Wrap back, forward, back 3/4 quarters then forward.

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Tie down, the vernille over the top, with two tight wraps, Then whip finish in front of the vernille.

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take a lighter and singe the ends of the vernille.


How to fish the fly properly

Small shot about 8" above worm, size and number to suit water conditions. You want it on or near the bottom. Fish dead drift. Takes usually are gentle as the fish just suck the worm in. If you are sight fishing, drop worm above to slightly to side of fish and try to stop it on the bottom, near the fish.
They will move to pick it up.

Tight Ties
Johnny U.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

NJ Fly fishing report. 9/23/11

Well finished up tying some orders early in the morning so I decided I would treat  myself to some fishing for wild browns on a favorite stretch of a freestone stream by me. When I arrived at the stretch, it began to rain. I expected this so I was not discouraged. I geared up quickly and headed on down to the stream. I was very interested to see how different it was from the hurricanes and tropical depressions (Irene and Nate).

The banks in areas where very eroded, what was a foot and half bank now was a small obstacle of about three and half, four feet. This particular stretch has a sandy silty bottom with areas through out the stream with rocks. Its almost like rock walk ways in the stream. I got into the water and flew my nymphs up and across to the known holding area. My first cast was awarded with a nice wild brown.


I made my way up stream to the first riffle, it was raining pretty hard and the bad weather mayflies where coming off pretty well. Of course the rain kept the fish down. But I was able to pick up a bunch of small wild browns with a size 20 Trout Bane.  The trout were obviously gorging on the emerging nymphs. Iso were emerging from the riffle very sporadically. Not many rocks out of the water on the edges for them to emerger.

The rain continued to fall and I continued to press up stream further. I got up to a deep  run that just screams trout. I made my first cast into the run. It drifted down to the tail and got slammed by a nice wild brown.
I also caught several hold over rainbows from the depths of the run. Each one was in excellent condition and put a great fight. Its nice to see that trout are able to hold over in this stream. Hold overs and wild brown means big possibilities.
Note the dark coloring of this brown and the coloring of the stream bed in back round. It marvelous how brown trout take on the colors of there habitat.




Hungry, soaked and thirsty, I made my way back to my car. With "more than four" caught I was satisfied with the excursion.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Notice to all

Sorry the Golden Oldie is NOT for sale.

The mayfly cripple tutorial

This is a DEADLY pattern if you tie it correctly.  I will tie a bwo in this one. You can change the dubbing, thread, and hackle color to match the naturals. With hackle, I have found that you can go wrong with dun. No matter what natural your imitating. This is the standard mayfly cripple. I learned of this pattern through Mike Lawson.


Materials-
Hook- any dry fly hook, one size larger than the natural.
Thread- color to match the naturals.
rear body- brown/rust marabou, and pheasant tail.
Rib- copper wire. Medium for 12-14, small for 16-20 and ex small for 20-and up.
thorax- super fine dubbing, color to match the naturals
Hackle- Neck hackle dun or a color to match the naturals. You can use saddle but I prefer neck for this because its not as stiff as saddle, allowing the fly to really nestle down in the film.
Wing- Deer hair, natural or dyed dun.

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Hook in vise, start your thread and take it back to the barb.

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Tie in your marabou by the tip, and pheasant tail, sparse is good! Make a very short tail. Tie in the marabou first and then the pheasant. You can break the marabou to adjust its length. Bring thread forwards, stop a little past half. (WET YOUR BOU, IT WILL SAVE YOU MUCH AGGRAVATION  )

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Tie in wire, bind it down on top and back just past your bou and pheasant.

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Make a loop with the wire. Bind down the wire a quarter the way up. THIS STEP IS A MUST FOR THIS PATTERN TO SIT PROPERLY IN THE WATER. IF YOU DO THIS STEP YOUR FLY WILL LAND THE ON THE WATER RIGHT EVERY TIME. ;)

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Put your bou and pheasant in the middle of the loop on top. Take you twister and from right to left go, under the wire over the bou and pheasant and hook the wire on the other side(Left). This will ensure you catch and bind the material in between the wire.

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Twist it. Be sure you twist until the wire is spun right to the tie in points. Be careful not to go to much and break the wire.  You get a very nice "buggy" dubbing brush.

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wrap it up, until the point where you tied in the wire. Tie it off on top.

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Cut off your excess. I use wire nippers, I don't recommend using your scissors on the wire. You can also bend and break the wire and then simple cut the bou and pheasant, if they didn't break away with the wire. Then tidy up. advance down to the eye and back to the tie off point.

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Dub your thread nice and tight. Wrap over the tie in and forward a mil or two.

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Tie in your deer hair, This step is very similar to tying in a caddis wing. Tips forward of the eye. Keep the tips short going in front of the eye. Hold the deer hair on top and bind down towards the eye. Don't allow it to spin. Leave yourself a hook eye worth of shank behind the eye. Take two three wraps in this area for your anchor wraps, so your deer hair wont spin. Bring the thread back to the tie in point.

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Trim your deer hair butts. Leave about two to three mil of butts, this will help balance the fly and will simulate a wing case busting open.

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Tie in your hackle. I like to have the feather good side up. advance thread forward and stop at the the butts of the tips of the deer hair. Wrap your hackle. You only need TWO wraps, NO MORE. Tie off behind the deer hair tips, then lift the tips and bring your thread onto the hook shank and tie off. Whip it Good.

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The result. a deadly mayfly cripple.

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This is how the fly will land and ride. The hackle will hold it in the film, while the lower half (the nymph) rides just under the film. You will see the deer hair wing sticking out of the water.

Tie these guys up, Fish'em, you wont be sorry.

Tight Ties everybody.
Johnny U.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Magic tool, Creativity, and some new flies.

I have owned a MP magic tool for what seems like forever. I never really used it. Its a very simple tool set that like all MP tools seems over priced. Its certainly worth the investment. I like it for making simple hackle collars.
I sat down a decided I would design some soft hackle flies. I love to use cdc for soft hackles. It is my favorite next to partridge. So with the magic tool and some cdc I got started.................

The batch

The Atomic caddis

F3

F3

F7

G4

Sealy Rocko Wormy


 Now its just a matter of testing how effective they truly are...............I'll find out.



Wednesday, September 21, 2011

9/20/11 Pa fishing report.

Well got out for a days worth of fishing yesterday. I met up with George of wild fly 365. We started the day on my favorite Pa freestone stream. The weather was good for fishing, low pressure with a light rain. We decided to hit the upper reaches of the stream.  This section has a lot of riffles with some great runs.  We nymphed of coarse. We used tandem rigs. The Golden oldie in the lead and various droppers though out the day.

Once we completed the section. I took George to a spring creek tributary.  We nymphed this tribe the same way we did the main stream.  It wasn't long before we had more wild browns on the end of our lines. We managed to catch the wild trifecta on the tribe.  Once we finished the section on the tribe we moved  to a different section of the tribe to see who was hiding under the bridge. The trout where stacked up under the bridge and we proceeded to catch fish after fish.

we then moved back to the main stream and chose a section far down stream from our first section. The section proved worth while as we got into more trout.

The Golden Oldie accounted for 95% of all trout caught. I am often wondering while fishing, Why do i even bother fishing tandem.  All in all it was an excellent day worth of fishing

Looks like this brown has some eye lashes on her.  notice George's disheveled Golden Oldie in her mouth. 

George's beautiful brook trout. Taken on the with Golden Oldie. The brooks are getting rough with one another. You can see this by the fishes tail.


A beautiful little wild brown trout. Note the Golden Oldie hanging from the trouts mouth.

Monday, September 19, 2011

How to make custom dubbing blends.

Hello fellow tiers!!!!

Making dubbin can be fun. It is a great way to make blends of your liking. If you have ever seen a real insect than you know that they are not a consistent color. It doesn't take much, just a simple electric coffee grinder will do the trick. Furs from any animal. Yarn of just about any kind. Even marabou (AWESOME DUBBING)

For furs my personal favorites are rabbit, both mask and body hair. Body under fur is one of the softest and easiest dubbin around. When treated with a water proofing agent ie floatant it will float all day. Body fur with guard hairs makes awesome nymph dubbing that is extremely easy to dub. Squirrel of any variety. Squirrel makes great spiky nymph dubbing. Australian opossum is great nymph dubbing. Seals fur is great emerger dubbing. Which really goes well in dubbing blends. Muskrat is great nymph dubbing and also dry fly dubbing. Beaver makes great dry fly dubbing as well. 

Yarn of just about any sort. Check out whats on sale at the craft store or mega stores and pic out some colors you like.Its very easy to make yarn into dubbing. You can get wools and synthetics. Synthetics in the craft world they are acrylics.

Marabou from feathers and actual marabou makes some awesome dubbing. When you pluck those hackles don't just throw away that butt or strip it away. Instead cut it away. Store them in a bag or container and when you have accumulated a bunch simple trim the marabou from the stalk. DON'T strip it or you will up with the stems skin, which will not blend or dub so well.

Flash materials can be picked up via yarn or just picking up some packets of ice dub, polar dub, sts, antron and so on. My favorites are ice dub u.v., polar dub, and sts. The bags you get will make tons of blends. So they are well worth the couple of bucks.

General materials list.
1- Electric coffee grinder. Wally world has a great one and its cheap.
2- Scissors.
3- Fur, yarn, Marabou, Flash materials.
4- dryer sheet or static guard- this is to help with static cling, not necessary but very helpful.
Tools. The coffee grinder is a wally world one, works excellently. I like the large scissors as you can get more with just a cut


Ok lets do a blend! This is one my favorites, its a great olive blend for caddis and various nymphs
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Materials-caddis green polar dubbing, an olive hare's mask, and caddis green sts

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Cut a small amount off the hares mask. If you want extra coarse dubbing cut in some ear hairs.
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load it into your grinder, and give it a few pulses of about the count of 1,2 and stop. Repeat. It will then look just like dubbing in a bag, but fluffier. This will help us add the flash materials. The grinder will chop up your fur if you let it run to long.
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Take out about 3-4 pinches of flash, about this much will do nicely. Add them to your hair that you have blended. Just dump the sts right in. Its a short cut dubbing so it will come apart and blend easily. The polar dubbing is a long cut dubbing. You will need to tease it out and put it in. Once you have them all in, give it several pulses of 1 and 2 and stop. Any time you use synthetic in your blender never blend to long or will end up with little plastic balls.

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The result. A buggy, flashy but not to flashy, easy to dub blend :D
As you can see it is quite simple. Have fun creating your own custom blends.

Tight Ties
Johnny Utah