Yesterday: This season's last day of sunfishing

I am sure I will catch another sunfish or two before winter, but yesterday was the last day of the season for fishing the private farm pond that I float tube many times every year.

You can definitely tell that Autumn is on its way

I have been fishing this productive resource for over 20 years and don't think I have ever caught fewer than 50 sunfish during my 2-4 hour excursions around the pond's circumference.  I still remember fondly the day I fished here with my then 8 or 9 year old son in the front of the canoe with a fly rod he bought with his own money (thank you Cabelas for reasonably priced gear) and a woolly worm he tied himself, and proudly counted"1" through "100" each time he pulled another one to his hand.

Yesterday was a better than usual day.  Mixed in with well over 50 sunfish (of which perhaps 3-4 were 10") was a half dozen small bass (10-13").

What was interesting to me is that all of these fish were caught on the same gray "double hackle" I wrote about in my prior post.  It was the same actual fly.  I think I'm going to retire it.

This thing simply will not quit.  And it still looks great.  I am thinking it is the most durable pattern I have ever used.  Now, partly that might be because I didn't lose it on submerged structures of tree branches.  And the 4x tippet helped when the tippet got wrapped a couple of times around lily pads by really pissed off sunfish.  Or, maybe it's the fact that the long shank meant fly-damaging forceps were rarely needed to get a hook out.

By the way, my friend Jim, who tied the original batch of these flies I have now fully consumed, read my prior post, and I think he might be sending me some more!  Seriously though, if he doesn't have time for that, these are certainly easy enough to tie.  Or, maybe it's because when forceps were used I could grip onto the middle of the shank without breaking any fly materials.

This is my final photo of the day.  This one fly 
has caught over 100 sunfish and about a dozen bass, during the two
days I used it.  I think I will nominate it for my "hall of fame".

My very last "double hackle"

I was fishing from my Hobie Float Cat on Saturday for bluegills and bass.  There had been some big shifts in the weather conditions last week and this usually puts the fish down.  It did this time as well.

Poppers didn't bring the fish up, so I went deep.  Using my usual patterns; specifically, a weighted small peacock herl bugger and a "fluffy" grey beadhead nymph I was only picking up a fish every 5 minutes or so.  For this particular fishery this is very slow fishing.

So, I pulled out my big Bugger Barn box and looked over the other choices.  In the corner was a single grey chenille "double hackle" fly.  This type of fly is also called a "fore-and-aft" fly.  I've never tied one of these. Instead, quite a few years ago, I received a dozen or so of them from Jim LaFevers, a friend in Texas. There's an article about this pattern on my Web site, here.

This fly stood up nicely.  This is how it photographed
after catching some 40 bluegill and several bass.

I had forgotten how productive this simple pattern could be. After all, its only chenille and hackle. I love and prefer simple patterns. It is always a joy for me to catch fish on something simple.  (Maybe it makes me feel like I am a better fisherman for it.)

In many ways the "double hackle" seems to be a rather primitive pattern, coming from the day when we were less sophisticated about fly patterns.  "Back then" patterns were fewer as materials were harder to come by, pattern books were less available (with small and sometimes only black and white pictures), and there was no Internet to share ideas, techniques, fly photos and patterns.  I'm thinking back to the 1960s when I first started fly fishing. The only flies I had were those bought at the local hobby shop. Although I didn't tie flies back then, all one needed to tie this pattern was chenille from a fabric or craft store and hackle of just about any quality.

On Saturday this fly turned out to be a winner.  On the first three casts I picked up three fish, and I was off to the races.  I really believe the pattern's attractiveness was mostly about the presentation.  Not so much my presentation of the fly, but how the fly by its nature presented itself.

This is what I am thinking....

The fly casts beautifully on my 9 foot 5 weight Sage DS2, a moderate or moderate-fast rod.  The fly holds water easily which adds weight when being cast, but wind resistance is far less than, say, a fully hackled woolly bugger.  At any rate, the fly turns over nicely on 4x or 5x tippet.  When it lands, it splats.  Maybe this is a trigger, though it had to sink a bit before I would pick up strikes.  And when it comes to sinking, perhaps the rate of sink was the trigger.  Unlike other flies I fish below the surface, this had no extra weight on it.  The size 8 3x long hook was weight enough.

In terms of matching something found in nature, what I saw mostly on the farm pond I was fishing was dragonflies.  My guess is that the size of this "double hackle" matched closely the size of a dragonfly nymph.  But who knows...

I don't need to know why this pattern works.  I just know that I need to tie some more. (Or, send an appeal to Jim!)

A Monday flyfishing trip to New Hampshire

Sustenance... The Poor Boys Diner

This is the first river we fished, along rt. 16 in the Pinkham notch area.

Me.  Taken by friend Steve P.

The Elk Hair Caddis - parachute style, pictured below, worked great for me.... once I found it in my fly box.

I usually fish a parachute with a simple tail of a few strands of feather fibers or a few strands of hair from a ground hog. This would be more of a mayfly parachute. And I started the day that way.  But it simply did not produce for me on Monday. 

However, the longer and fuller profile of this caddis tied by my friend Paul DiNolo worked wonders.  After finding it in a corner of my flybox, and after catching a few trout on it, I remembered earlier hearing Bill at North Country Angler in North Conway talking about this being the time to fish terrestrials and hoppers. To the extent that grasshoppers were working, this caddis perhaps imitated the profile of a struggling grasshopper.  I have always felt that the parachute hackle can connote action and motion.  And a downwing of elk or deer hair has long been used to imitate grasshoppers, the most famous pattern perhaps being the Latort Hopper.  Add a pink post parachute and now I can see it among white foam and bubbles!

My friend Paul will be the first to tell you that these flies were tied to be fished and not photographed.  I think he is right; I caught a mess of trout on this sample, and it held up well.  I find that if you can use your fingers to get the hook out of the fish, the fly will last longer than if you must use forceps to remove the hook.  One more reason to pinch down the barb!

Below are a few pictures.  It looks like the elk hair (or perhaps coastal deer hair, from the looks of it) is tied in about 2/3 from the eye and the poly post is tied in about 1/3 from the eye.

This is a lot of material tied onto a size 12 hook.  It takes a little practice to get this pattern clean and neat.

Beautiful weather along the Millers River (Mass.)

Just before the extended heat wave we just finished here in New England, I got a chance for some mid-day fishing on the Millers River (July 12).  It had taken weeks for the river to get down to a reasonable flow because of heavy rains in June which had made it impossible to fish.  As you can see, on July 12 it was pretty awesome.

The smallies were abundant (and small).  I found fishing a foam popper behind the larger exposed rocks to be productive.  Swinging a peacock body nymph in a size 12 worked nicely too.

I'm looking forward to getting back on the river now that we can expect daily high temps to be in the 80's.  I expect the fish to be somewhat sluggish... like me.  Maybe after a day or two of this cooler weather they'll be active.  I hope some of the stocked trout made it through the warm weather.

Ausable River Trip [Awesome Final Breakfast]

Final Report: Part 11 of 11

Driving back to Massachusetts is a long drive from the Lake Placid area.  Something like 5 1/2 hours. But it is not so long that we couldn't stop for a nice breakfast.  Our stop at the Noon Mark Diner in Keene Valley, New York was completely arbitrary.  However, when we saw folks filing out with homemade pies and coffee buns, we knew we'd hit pay dirt.

[It will probably come to you as no surprise that my wife

recently bought me a book on food photography! See the final
four images below!!]

Those are blueberry pancakes sitting alongside the hash

We got to meet the woman who makes the homemade strawberry jelly

I don't plan to eat like this again ... well, at least until I go fishing with these guys again.  Oh, I hope it will be soon.

THE END

Ausable River Trip [A Few More Photos I Like]

Part 10 of 11

Some of these may seem to be a bit off-topic.  But I can tell you that all of these images were taken along the river's edge and while I was wearing waders and carrying a fly rod!

Next and Final Post: Awesome Final Breakfast

Ausable River Trip [Best "Big Print" Photo]

Part 9 of 11

Lake Everest on the Ausable River

While scouting out the flow downriver of the Wilmington Dam I was attracted to the view upriver from the Route 86 bridge next to where we parked.  

The dam has created a very slow moving and peaceful stretch of river called Lake Everest. It looks like it provides some relaxing fishing from a canoe.  And in fact there is a single fisherman in a blue canoe way in the distance. For us this was no more than a pretty view, because we had come to the Ausable to fish fast water for strong trout. 

I am looking forward to printing this really big!

If you like this image and want to learn more about it, I wrote a long "behind the scene" post featuring this image and some to the technical details on my photography blog here.

Additional Images around Wilmington Dam

and the Route 86 bridge.

Same Day. Same Time.

Admiring the view upriver from the bridge

Downstream from the dam there is much too much
water for wading.  We fished elsewhere that evening.

Next Post: A Few More Photos I Like

Ausable River Trip [Weighted Flies that Worked]

Part 8 of 11

When I was photographing this set of flies I noticed that all of them, except one, are beadheads. Hmmm. Interesting.

This first set includes flies that were fished like, well, woolly buggers.  This means upstream a bit, across stream, or downstream.  They can be twitched, nearly dead-drifted, or stripped like a streamer.  Lead wire would have worked for weight too, but all of these had beadheads to help get them down.  They were successful during the day and in the evening.  In fact, even when there were rising fish in the evening (to which John delivered his CDC caddis), these big fluffy high-impact flies outperformed a dry fly.

In both the olive woolly bugger above and the black one below,
a little bit of flash seemed to help attract fish.  Fly tied by Paul DiNolo

Fly tied by Paul DiNolo

Marabou Beadhead Muddler tied by Paul DiNolo

The two flies below are two versions of the One Feather Fly. I love to tie and fish this simple fly, and previously posted step-by-step directions.

Each is made from one feather from the rump area of a pheasant, quail, or partridge.  Colors vary considerably, and each fly seems to come out slightly different because each feather is slightly different.

Tied by Peter Frailey

Tied by Peter Frailey

This next set of weighted flies found their was to the bottom fly on a hopper-dropper combination.  Or, they were used as a nymph under a strike indicator.

"Hare and Herl Bugger" tied by Peter Frailey

Jim used the Hare and Herl Bugger with great success, often presenting deep and on the swing.  He had one successful night where he caught a trout on nearly every cast, or so it seemed to the rest of us, who were not as successful.

"Wonder Bug" tied by Peter Frailey

The Wonder Bug was my most used fly.  I fished it mostly about 6 feet below a  foam strike indicator.  And after I decided to give hopper-dropper fishing a try, this was my dropper.  Tying instructions are very simple.  Basically a clipped hackle woolly worm with biots for a tail.  Under the herl is 10 wraps of lead.  I posted step-by-step instructions last year on my Web site.

20-incher.  Tied by John Morrison.

These were the first samples of the 20-Incher tied by John.  They were tied on our "rainy day Tuesday".  The 20-Incher had been used on Sunday and Monday by Rob as a dropper.  But since Rob does not tie flies, it was up to John to figure out how to tie this pattern.  Thankfully, our Internet connection was good and he was able to check out a little video.  

Some king of little nymph.  Commercially tied.

This is an example of one of the many tiny nymphs Rob used, and which filled his fly boxes.  I have no idea what this one is called, but it measures only 11mm (eye to bend) and has so many ingredients tied to it that I can only imagine how difficult it is  to tie.