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.