Shooting flies: Fishing with the Pocket Shot

I just got used to Tenkara and fishing with drones. Now I just discovered a new way to cast lures (or flies & streamers?) with a new sling shot like bushcraft tool: The Pocket Shot.

What is this for a balloon thing? Have a look at:

For fishing with the Pocket shot ,have a look at this:

 

A nice review is found on the site of Sackis Outdoor-Gear:

Flyfisherman skins chicken

How does a fly fisherman get lost in a too big toy store? Well being there (out of my comfort zone), I could not find the presents for my son for our annual Sinterklaas feast on 5 December. Just as sometimes happens with trout, I blanked, now in tracking some Airfix Spitfire and Messerschmitt models. This time leaving my waders at home.

I swiftly went disappointed for the exit door to freedom & fresh air. Then in the corner of my eye I noticed some squirmy worms....Before you think that Dutch toy stores sell fly tying materials: these worms were still attached to a toy: a cheap fluffy puffer ball. Wait a minute! I bought the green ball for 3 euro's and went home, sharpening my carving axe.

After some slashing and skinning of this "chicken" I had four very soft hackle squirmy skins. Giving "soft hackle" a new implication! Its the same stretchy stuff as our squirmy worms (only in a few colours). I soon share with you some new fly experiments, like the squirminator of Tightline productions.....more later!

Leadhead Spider

I love the concept of the leadhead caddis by mastermind Hans van Klinken. I transformed and re designed it to a partridge spider pattern. I tried different colours: white (below right corner) caught the most fish (Ide & some Perch). I think because of the best visibility. The lead shot tied UNDER the shank (just as the original) brings the best movement in the fly. The sedge hooks with a small hook gap and offset point is ideal for the characteristic upward nymph tail.

More information about the original Lead head from the inventor Hans van Klinken: http://www.flyfishinggazette.com/.../flytying_nymphs.htm

[This page is based on a message on my MMF facebook archive].

Moulting alert!! Save fly tie money now!

The autumn is forthcoming. This week I noticed the first mushrooms. In this case a big Giant Puffball. Besides mushrooms, autumn stands for falling leaves AND more important to a fly tyer: the moulting period of birds! Beside the white of the puffball, the banks showed a lot of white from the feathers of swanns.

This triggered my annual raid to the local childrens farm! Its autumn heaven for the budget fly tyer. You can find our most wanted living fly feather producers like chickens, partridges, peacock, guinea fowl. I was a bit early and only found a lot of my favourite guinea fowl feathers.

There fluff is excellent for shucks because its ultra agile under water. It gives live to flies and can trigger strikes!. Extra bonus is that these feathers are highly UV reflective (The New Scientific Angling, Trout and Ultraviolet Vision by Reed F. Curry).

So plan a budget trip with a bin bag to a childrens farm. And be early before the keepers have cleared all the feathers!

7 Best fly fishing books you must read

Listed here are my top 7 fly fishing books to keep you hooked on fly fishing, while being not at the water. Summer holiday time is family time. This means that - keeping my wife & kids happy - I can't or won't fish all the time. But fly fishing books for personal use are tolerated. They fill the gap. They are my paper prozac.

So bring on the books:

Fly fisher's Chronicle, Neil Patterson (2015)

Tying Small Flies, Ed Engle (2003)

Fishing Small Flies, Ed Engle (2004)

Chalkstream Chronicle, Neil Patterson (1995)

Wondervliegen 2, Leon Janssen (2010)

Fly fishing for coarse fish, Dominic Garnett (2010)

Fly fisher's Handbook, Malcolm Greenhalgh (2004)

To be honest, I just got Neil Patterson's latest book Fly fisher's Chronicle. I have not finished it yet, but love this book instantaneously from the first line in the preface: "When Michelangelo carved a horse out of a block of marble, someone asked him how he managed to create such a beautiful object from such a massive, shapeless lump. It's simple he said. I cut away everything that isn't a horse."

Neil likes simple flies. His book contains 373 pages in 22 chapters. Each about a country & a fly. Some flies are new, some old (Russia and a Funneldun, France and an Andelle or England and a White sock. All range from a hook size 24 "Simple Smut" to a hook size 2 "Ted's Improved Nothing".  I celebrate this new book! A partial foretaste can be found at google books.

Squirmy Sedge & Squirmy Klinkhammer

Its pouring rain on this fathers day. Jimi Hendrix inspires me to tie some new thoughts with his lyric:

"Rainy day, dream away
Ah let the sun take a holiday
Flowers bathe an' ah see the children play
Lay back and groove on a rainy day".

Groovin on this fathers day resulted in this Squirmy Coot Sedge & Squirmy Klinkhammer. These two patterns are the first dry flies I tried tying with Squirmy worm as body material. I read earlier that this stuff floats.
So the first thing I did after opening the Squirmy legs from Flybox, was dumping it in our fish tank.....it does float!

The first experiment was a sedge wonderwing pattern. This is because fly tyer Ad Hoogenboezem pointed me recently enthusiastic on this pattern. So I used this as a base for the experiment. Before enjoying my fathers day beer present, this was the first sober sample:

With a green marker pen I simulated the eggsack at the end of the body.

I almost allways check my flies in our fish tank. This one too: the subsurface profile seems satisfactory, juicy & translucy. I expected the translucency of the squirmy legs: it worked out well.
 

To keep the slippery legs in place, I put some super glue on the hook and then wrapped the squirmy legs to the hook eye.

The next try was the Squirmy Klinkhammer...
This resulted in this sample:

Overall conclusion: the Squirmy legs/worm is a good body material for dry flies. Its floatability and translucent properties gives our dry flies something extras. I like it!

Now let the fish decide.....and let them groove on this fly on another rainy day!

Super Awesome Squirmy?

Do I miss something while not having a Squirmy worm in my fly box? Since a few years, innovative Yank fly fishermen post on blogs and forums about the squirmy worm and its effectiveness. Since last year this hype hit Europe.

To be honest: I am not in to hard core plastics. But I began hesitating about making some, after reading this North Country Anglers blog. Dave Southall's alluring article (page 53) about Squirmies in Fly Fishing & Fly Tying (issue july 2015) made my indecisiveness disappear. Now I need to try it! I just ordered some at Flybox.

There are some slick materials for fly tie connoisseurs to be found. There are now also Jumbo Squirmy Wormies and Wonder Wigglies. And what about colours? There are at least nine squirmy colours at manufacturer Spirit River USA Original.

But you can make your own out of toys! Have a look at this post of Gink & Gasoline.

But the squirmy evolution continues:
This material is not just for wormies, have a look at:
* Tightline Productions: Squirminator nymph pattern (also from a toy); 
* Lucias Vasies: Squirmy nymph;
* Jim Misiura: Cat gut Pupa (body from squirmy);
* Fly Master: juicy squirmy wormy;

More squirmy evolution: perhaps a Walkers mayfly nymph made out of Squirmy wormy.

And why not a dry fly squirmy? This stuff floats!
Have a go at using this floating quirmy stuff for the body/abdomen on a Klinkhammer? A "Klink-squirmer"....

...I can't wait using the stuff for more than worms. More later.

Semois Spirlin

I love the Semois river in the Ardennes on the Belgium France border. In May and early June the river is at its best, wearing her white wedding dress of water crow foot flowers. I than love canoeing through these sweet lime wood blossom smelling plants.

Between the folds of this wedding dress you can find (a lot) the Spirlin.
The Spirlin is a little (13 cm) bleak like coarse fish which inhabits fast flowing waters in the most southern part of Holland, Belgium, France, Germany & east wards.

The small black spots on each side of each lateral line are a good determination mark.

This one is caught this weekend in de Semois river. The Spirlin swim with shoals of chub and often get to your dry fly before the trout or grayling do....

Because this was my first Semois fly caught fish species, it has a special place.
This weekend I fooled them constantly with a #21 shuttlecock plume tip on a lovely Tiemco Euflex Infante #1.

Roadkill peacock

Teasing rudds, asp or bleaks keeps my fly fish skills sharpened for when I go out for trout in Germany of Ardennes. The facebook page of Flyfishing for coarse fish proved to be another grind stone for this sharpening. A recent post there about the Black & Peacock (with red holo tag) proved very useful yesterday.

After catching a few Rudd on a #24 caenis I changed to the B&P-like fly. It was a #14 hook (off set hook point!), with a roadkill starling hackle, peacock body & a SLF red tag... 

...Nothing happened the first cast, while deeper fish could be seen. So I added some weight on the line (Loon Deep Soft Weight) and stripped the fly a bit quicker....and immediately hooked this nice rudd & a few more.

Hot tub perch!

Some Dutch lowland streams turn into real hot tubs this month (may). That's because of the explosive hatches of mayflies & caenis. Rudd, dace and perch act over here as trout and feed on emergers & shucks.
 
I seduced this perch (and some rudd) with this lead head style mayfly nymph. It is made on a scud hook with a chenille body, CDC, bead & wonder wing. No plant snags with this fly, just fish! I love the true "lead head" design because it keeps the nymph (more) horizontal like a natural.

The only trouble with extending bodies is that you don't hook the quick-thinking and tail nibbling fish! But bigger ones usually do a full contact hook up.

You can find this post also on: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=469964669821915&set=gm.762822490506048&type=1&theater 

Superb whit Monday

Had a great time fly fishing for Dace in a stream in east of The Netherlands. The deadly pattern this day was obviously the #21 dry fly pattern from Ed Engles "Tying Small flies" called the "Roger Hill's Stillborn Midge" (page 71). This USA recipe worked well for the Dutch dace because of the shuck.

The fly is a Griffith's gnat with a shuck (mine from fly rite). This pattern worked well (better than without a shuck). I caught also many Rudd's this day.....feeding on mayfly shucks!