I've been fortunate to be part of some fantastic fly swaps over the last couple of months with some of my favourite fly tiers from around the world. Mike Schmidt is one of them. He hails from Dublin Ohio in the States and is someone who's tying skills I admire very much. These 6" - 8" inch double decievers can be found in his fly shop anglerschoiceflies.com where he has a wide range of Saltwater,Warmwater, Coldwater for Trout, Pike, Steelhead and Bonefish. He also runs the very popular Anglerschoiceflies.blogspot.com
With a floating line this is one hell of a popper,but I've been fishing this fly with an Intermediate line the last week and it bagged me several fish. It pushes a hell of lot of water and leaves plenty of shockwaves under the surface,which has been noticable when stripping it back. A very easy tie to do. Two 120mm rabbit zonkers tied to the back of the hook shaft.Then a large clump of Olive bucktail ,followed by a collar for natural brown deerhair finished of with a tightly packed spun deerhair head. Here's a great video from the Afton angler which better explains what I'm talking about.
Every pike fly fisherman should have two of these flies in his box at all times. A black/Purple and Red/white version. I don't fish with rabbit strips enough here on the island,I should but then again I get terribly bored using the same fly day in and day out regardless of how effective it is. I must say though that whenever I slip a bunnybug onto the business end of my set up It isn't long before I get a take. Different strokes for different blokes!
Here's something you might not have come across before, Synthetic microbarb rooster saddle hair extensions. I hadn't until a chance sighting of them on Facebook a month or so ago. Due to the sheer lack of the real ones these, days I thought I'd give these a go. They come in a multitude of colours and are around 14" - 16" inches long. You'll be seeing these on the next batch of Musky flies I tie up. Anyway Greg Becker out at "White water flies" got hold of me and said he stocks them in their shop 10 extensions for $10. Within 10mins of being told about them the order had been made and delivery was prompt from the States. He's going to keep them in stock for a while if any of you are interested. I can see some 25" inch monsters on the horizon!
The lads from "Front side fly" out in Sweden have been out snotrocket lining and have this short promo featuring their antics. Weather here has been unseasonably warm which looks like it will extend my fishing season for a few more weeks. Clients have all gone home so I'll be back to my usuall daily posts until the end of November at least.
Had a good day with this fly yesterday. A simple tie...two 12omm strips of grizzly rabbit zonkers a clump of long strand reindeer hair, several strands of pearl tinsel. an inch of grey raccoon zonker palmered round the hook then the same with chartreuse. My Dutch clients today caught & released 67 fish in some truly terrible conditions. Strong 12m/sec winds,driving rain and 9'c temps with wind chill factor 1'c.
A Banger hybrid variation tied with grey & white bucktail 3 white microbarb saddles and some peacock hurl. Its been a mixed week here weather wise but weve caught some decent fish none the less. I'll post some big pike images once my clients email me them. Again, sorry for the lack of post of late but have been away from the laptop around 14hrs a day and the last thing I feel like doing is spending time on the internet once I get back in the evenings. Normal daily posts will start towards the end of the week once I have a break from guiding.
Really looking forward to watching this film by a bunch of mad Danish lads that get more than they bargained for in Alaska. Have read a couple of articles recently about their epic trip and it makes Deliverance look like a tea party!
My good mates Pietro & Francesco were here last week fishing the the lower central part of the island and got stuck into some nice fish by all accounts. More on their trip next week.I'm out guiding again for the next month and a half so I might be a bit lax with the daily posts on here. Hopefully though I'll have some nice pike porn to showcase...fingers crossed!
I know I went a bit over the top with this ones construction and am sure its going to be a bugger to cast but for one thing its going to move a lot of water. The trailing tandm tail is actually the front end from one of the first tested musky flies I started tying which I managed to salvage and comprises of brown schlappen,tan brown bucktail, and a very large spun deerhair head.
The main body is a combination of tan brown bucktail, a couple of clumps of reindeer fur, 3 micro orange opposum zonkers, a 70mm length of gold mylar and a bottling cork dremmeled out at the front.
I've been fortunate to be part of some fantastic fly swaps over the last couple of months with some of my favourite fly tiers from around the world. Mike Schmidt is one of them. He hails from Dublin Ohio in the States and is someone who's tying skills I admire very much. These 6" - 8" inch double decievers can be found in his fly shop anglerschoiceflies.com where he has a wide range of Saltwater,Warmwater, Coldwater for Trout, Pike, Steelhead and Bonefish. He also runs the very popular Anglerschoiceflies.blogspot.com
