The Dark Edson Tiger. Reinforcements have arrived.

Yes, reinforcements have arrived to fill the breach! After my tying and fishing friend Paul heard that I'd lost my one and only Dark Edson Tiger (which he had given me at a recent trout stream sorté), he tied up a fresh batch in several sizes and variations and mailed them to me.

A couple of posts ago (here and here) I reported on how much fun I'd had with this fly, and that I was disappointed to lose it at a time on a warm-water river when it was proving itself to also be a smallmouth bass streamer of substantial prowess.

Paul has also volunteered to send me some text for a follow up posting.  It will provide additional information about the history of this old fly and how he likes to fish it.  He's been fishing this pattern for over 35 years so I, for one, will listen to what he has to say!

Another day at the Millers River. Trying to think like a stonefly.

It was a hot and humid day on Sunday so I chose a section of the Millers with a straight section running northeast to southwest.  This meant that the prevailing southwesterly breeze could provide me with some natural cooling as I fished for a couple of hours.

I started here and walked downstream

The water was lower than it had been on Friday and along the exposed rocks (not in view here) I could see the dried shucks left by emerged stoneflies.  I figured if I chose a dark fly about the same size at the shucks, that I would be into fish.

Stonefly shuck

One of my favorite flies is from a batch sent to me by Jim LaFevers of Texas.  He calls then Double Hackles.  I wrote about this pattern here and here and here.

"Double Hackle"

I did catch quite a number of smallies deep in the pool created by the back eddie seen in the near side of the first image above.  But most of the fish were up along the rocks of the near side, and for a hundred yards downstream.

Were they there waiting for stoneflies nymphs to migrate to the edge of the river?  Regardless, the olive double hackle did very well for me. It's a sturdy fly, too.  I caught perhaps two dozen smallies of the usual Millers River size (9-10") and the fly still looks as good as new.

This is a dark river, and the fish tend to be dark, too.

I also managed to snap a few photos of colorful flowers or interesting vegetation along the edge of the river, as I walked downstream.

Argh. I lost my only sample of the Dark Edson Tiger

In my last post I wrote about enjoying a bit of streamer fishing for trout on a couple of small NH streams, using a Dark Edson Tiger tied by my friend Paul. So, this past Friday I thought it might be nice to skip the office and head off to the Millers River for smallmouth bass fishing, again with the D/E/T tied to the end of my leader.

The Dark Edson Tiger was terrific.  I've always felt that yellow is a good color for bass, and on this day the D/E/T proved me right.

The smallies (that I catch anyway) on the Millers are not large.  Most are around 9-10"; but, they are strong fighters and good jumpers.  I enjoyed myself immensely.

But...

After perhaps a dozen bass I managed to lose not just my only Dark Edson Tiger, but my tippet and the first section of my leader, all on an underwater tangle of logs and branches.

Thankfully, reinforcements are on the way!  Paul has tied up a half dozen or so and mailed them to me.  They should be sitting on my desk at the office tomorrow.

The Millers River.  This is darker than normal,
due to heavy rain a couple of days prior.

The typical Millers' smallie is 9-10". There are buckets of them.

My best guess is that the smallies like the yellow color and the painted eyes of this Edson Tiger.
About 1 out of 3 smallies on the Millers are nearly black, like this 10-incher.

My introduction to fishing the Dark Edson Tiger

This past Saturday I fished a couple of cold water mountain streams in northern New Hampshire with two good fishing buddies, Paul and Jim.   It's a long day-trip, and we get home late at night; but despite the "windshield time", I enjoy taking these all-day excursions several times each fishing season.

The long drive goes fast because of the conversation and the anticipation of a day filled with wild trout. However, before the actual fishing part of the day begins, we always buoy ourselves with a big decadent breakfast of eggs, meat, and pancakes.  Though I was pretty conservative on this day (see image below), the typical menu item I pick (as did Paul on this day) is something like "Lumberjack Special" or "Hungry Farmer Platter". Even with all the driving, talking and eating, we had our boots in the water a little after 10a.

Peg's Restaurant in Woodstock NH.  A good start to the day:
hash and eggs and a short stack of blueberry pancakes,
with a serving of real maple syrup on the side.

We split up at car.  I gave Jim a spare key, and he went upstream armed with a dry fly, and Paul and I headed downstream.  In most cases while moving downstream I will fish a beadhead or peacock body woolly bugger.  (And then a dry fly on the way back upstream.) Paul on the other hand relies on a 35-year favorite, a dark Edson tiger. That's right. He's been loyal to this streamer for 35 years. It looks the part, as it is an old-fashioned design from a time when flies were simpler and tying materials less varied and certainly less exotic. If I believe my google search, the original Dark Edson Tiger formula was designed by Bill Edson in 1928 or 1929.

Compared with Paul's version below, the original lacked the eyes, had jungle cock cheeks, yellow hackle tips for a tail, a gold tinsel tag, and red squirrel wing, though I have seen variations to this as well.

Not quite the original recipe, but it works.

Below are images from the trip, included a couple of the brookies who fell to the charms of the Dark Edson Tiger.

I did fish a dry fly coming back upstream.
But all I caught was this tree hanging over an alluring pool.

Bonus

Jim's wife, Susan, packed us some of these bad boys.
I hope she'll share the recipe with me!

Mearns Quail beadhead nymph

A couple of posts ago I reported on staying home from work to tie a few flies. I had tied a dozen beadhead nymphs days before with a Hungarian Partridge skin, and wrote about that here. The morning I played hooky, I wanted to tie a dozen smaller nymphs.

I chose a Mearns Quail skin.  It is smaller than a Hungarian Partridge, or at least this sample of a hen skin is. Both are called "upland birds", and have a similar feather structure. All I needed was one or two of these smaller feathers to tie a nice fly on a size 12 2xl hook.  The results varied somewhat depending on the size of each feather, and depending on whether I tied with or without a tail. The hook used was a size 12 Mustad 72R.

Use the same tying technique as described in the Partridge beadhead nymph step-by-step procedure here.

The Mearns quail rump feathers are perfect for a size 12 2xl hook,
like the Mustad 72R.  I used one feather for the one on the left.
I used two feathers (tip 1/2 only) to make the one on the right.

Hungarian Partridge Beadhead Nymph: Two variations

The Hungarian Partridge nymph post from the other day represents a tried-and-true recipe I have been using for perhaps four or five years.  However, after about a dozen flies, my mind begins to wander and I start substituting materials "just for fun".  After tying a bunch with the original instructions, I tied up a bunch that looked like these two:

Two Beads

The two beads go onto the hook first.
The first feather creates the tail and abdomen.
I then pull the glass bead up tight against the abdomen and tie off the thread.
Then tie in the thread between the two beads and do the
dubbing loop thing with the second feather to create the thorax and legs.

Less the Tail 

A tailess variation. Tied the same as the original instructions except that the first
feather is tied with the tip pointing toward the bead

I have not tried either one of the variations in the water.  But I have no doubt that they will work nicely.

I am thinking of tying a batch with a glass beadhead only.  They might be nice when I don't want the fly to sink as far as it would with a metal beadhead.

I just had to go to work late today

I had fully intended to put in a full day at work today.  But when I got up this morning, it was just too nice a day.  We'd had a couple of hot and humid days (for May, not if it were August) and I really get bummed out by heat and humidity.  But last night thunder boomers came through plus a little rain.  Some towns got 2" balls of hail.  That, of course, is really nothing to complain about when you see the flood devastation going on in Texas.

As the storm front passed through last night, cool air followed.  The AC was turned off and all the windows were opened.  The result: glorious 70F air this morning and a dew point below 60.  We live near wetlands, and everything smelled so nice and damp.  I could even smell the earth.  The irises popped open.  Our screen porch was delightful.  The birds were churping.  The coffee tasted great.  And I didn't have to be at work until 11a!

Ah, what a morning.

After I finished my coffee on the screen porch, I just couldn't find the gumption to get ready for work.  I decided another cup of strong coffee was in order and I sat down at my tying desk and tied up a few nymphs,while slurping on a cup of bold joe.  Then I tied a few more....  Then a few more.  I used the pattern I posted the other day here.  But today I went with a smaller hook (size 12 Mustad 72R 2xl), smaller bead and a smaller upland bird pelt.  I used a beautiful "Mearns quail hen" skin.

Mearns quail hen

The rump feathers are a pinkish tan color.  When tying in the feather tip ever so slightly, which I did in the sample shown in the vise below, there is generally enough feather "rope" to cover the shank with just one feather, finishing off with the fluffy stuff behind the beadhead.

Size 12 Mustad 72R hook.
Tied with one twisted feather and one glass bead.

A nice way to spend Friday morning.
And I still got to the office in time for my 11a meeting!
(No I'm not at Starbucks in Banff. The mug is a souvenir from a trip three years ago.)

Hungarian Partridge Nymph

During recent years many of my nymphs and buggers have been made entirely from one or two soft hackle feathers, usually marabou type feathers from Turkey, Quail and Partridge. They are made with a conehead or beadhead, and the fish gobble them up.

Here are a couple of links to other flies I have constructed with these feathers and for which I have previously provided step by step instructions:

Conehead Combo

One-feather Fly

The Hungarian Partridge Nymph

The Hungarian Partridge Nymph is made along the lines of the one-feather fly, except that I am using two feathers.  Partridge feathers are nicely sized for the hook I am tying with in the step by step pictures below, a Tiemco #5263 size 10.

The first feather serves as a tail and abdomen.  The second feather serves as a thorax and a bunch of legs, and is applied with a dubbing loop.

The best feathers for the tail and abdomen are the ones with long fibers that point toward the tip of feather.  When you tie the tip onto the shank, you capture a good percentage of the barbs. If you have an entire partridge skin, the best feathers for this will be flank feathers, and not feathers from the neck, saddle, or back.

Below are the two feathers that I used in constructing the fly below. See how the barbs are angled toward the tip?

Here are the tying steps I use:

Prepare the hook shank in the usual way.
Used here: Size 10 TMC 5263 
Beadhead dimension is 5/32 inch

Tie in one partridge feather.

Twist the feather to make a rope.
Wrap the rope about 2/3 up the shank to create an abdomen.
Tie down and snip off excess

You may wish to trim off some of the barbs.
However, it may fish even better if left long.

Create a dubbing loop

Insert second feather into dubbing loop.
Trim off the stem and right side of the feather with scissors.
Notice that the feather is positioned so the "fluffy" fibers
will be applied to the shank last, and will appear behind the bead.

This is what the trimmed off piece looks like.

Spin the dubbing loop. A few more spins and the fibers
positioned at the top will split away from each other.

After the dubbing loop has been wrapped around the shank
you'll have this nice mix of soft hackles and fluff.
Also, this will be a very durable fly.

A nice day on the Miller's River

We need some rain in New England.  That's really hard for me to say, since we had so much snow this winter.  But water levels in the rivers are falling fast.  The section of the Miller's that I fished yesterday was ideal for wading, but any lower than it's current 200 cfs and many of my favorite spots will no longer be holding fish.

In a normal year, the level would be nicely down from many thousands of cfs to a manageable 600-650.  In a normal year, my fishing on the Miller's would just be beginning.  As it is, the river has been fishable for about three weeks.

The flies I used were weighted, and I fished deep.  Things were shallow enough that I used a floating line.

As I walked upstream with the same beadhead I reported on in my last post, and fished it under a foam indicator, I picked up several rainbows in fast water and a handful of smallmouth bass.  I was very happy, even before I turned around and fished downstream back to the car.

For something different than the typical early season black and olive woolly bugger (or similar weighted big fluffy fly), I put on a weighted yellow streamer.

I fabricated this a few years ago and don't have a name for it... yet.
10 wraps of thin lead under silver tinsel and copper rib.
Underwing: long calf tail material. Overwing: mallard
Collar:  I have no idea...  Well, maybe hen neck hackle.

I am not much of a streamer fisherman.  To be honest, I fished it the way I would fish a bugger.  Sometimes I would strip and sometimes I would let it swing.

I caught my two biggest fish this way.  The first was a 14 inch "chub".  Technically, I think it is a Fallfish.  To tell you the truth, they are pretty ugly.  But they are indigenous (I think), wild, stream-born fish, and they consequently have my respect.  I've seen fisherman on some smaller streams throw them up on the bank to die, as they represent competition for food these fishermen would rather have the stocked trout eat.  I'm not a fan of this. But I don't get bent out of shape about it, either.

The chub hit the streamer when it finished its swing below me and just in front of a boulder.  A very likely spot for a fish to hang out!

Note the bait hook stuck in the chub's jaw.  It was easily removed.

The second largest fish was a 12-13" rainbow.  In this case the water was deep, so I placed the streamer "up and across" and gave it slack until it was "down and across", to give it time to sink. I kept the line mended.  Then I began to tighten the line causing the streamer to rise and swing up.  That's when the trout hit it.

Thank you yellow streamer for a job well-done. BTW, I think that is 3x tippet.

First day out was a bust

Last Thursday seemed like the perfect day to start my 2015 trout fishing season. The water levels were perfect and the afternoon forecast was for gorgeous weather. It was definitely worth skipping out of the office early.

Path through a fine forest to access the Nissitissit River

No big deal, but I got skunked.  (The funny thing is that I mentioned this to a non-fishing colleague at work the next day and he seriously wondered how I was able to get rid of the smell so quickly. I forgot that "getting skunked" is a fisherman's figure of speech. Haha.)

Mayflies were all over the place but I caught no fish. Nor did I even see a fish. The water was still cold, at about 48F. Maybe that was the reason there was no (apparent) fish activity. Certainly, there was no surface activity other than mayflies coming off the water.

My never-fail riffle disappointed me on this occasion.

Perhaps (but I doubt it) my problem is that I fished the wrong flies.  I actually only fished a bunch of beadheads.  As I walked downstream I swung in the current what I thought would be irresistible beadheads.  I experimenting with sizes 12,10, and 8.  Walking back to my car upstream, I fished the same beadheads up-stream, nymphing-style, with a foam float indicator. I fished all the good looking spots and all the spots where I'd caught fish in the past... but with no results. Coming from one of my friends, "that's why they call it 'fishing' and not 'catching'!"

The above two images are the same fly.  Though I got skunked today,
I use a ton of these fuzzy beadheads.  This is a size 12 2xl, made from a single
quail rump feather.

Though I did not catch any fish, I did enjoy my new fly rod.  It's a 9 foot 4 weight built for me by one of my fishing buddies, Paul DiNolo.  If you've been a reader of my web site you'll recognize him as the author of several articles in the "Flies With a Story" section.   He started with a Shu Fly brand rod blank and added parts purchased from Jann's Netcraft. I've never had a 9 foot 4 weight before. In the past I've used a 9'5W for rivers and float tubing, and a 8'4W for streams. I now have a new option.