While Steve and I were in Chicago for the Great Outdoor Expo, Kurt Kopala of A Tight Loop shot a video of me tying my favorite carp fly from last summer. The Tailer Teaser was designed to get down quickly for deep tailing fish and be big and attractive enough to both get their attention and then have them follow-up for the take.
flies
Apr 30
2012
alevin and fry flies
For some time the PM and other area rivers have been chuck full of baby salmon or fry as they are properly referred. I’m sure there are newly hatched steelhead alevin already in the rivers with many more to come.
These alevin and fry are greedily consumed by the steelhead, trout and anything else that might enjoy a delicious sliver of protein. If your fly box doesn’t include a few patterns that mimic small baitfish your missing the boat. I often fish these patterns as the trailer on a egg drift rig or as a small streamer worked close to the bank and around cover.
Over on the Indigo site we have three solid patterns: the Alevin Martinez, Baby Salmon and Blueburg.
Apr 17
2012
April issue of A Tight Loop is out.
Stuart Van Dorn and Kurt Kopala just released the April issue of their on-line magazine A Tight Loop. We have several friends featured in this issue: Austin’s Producer (Grab Your Fly Charters), an interview with Cam Mortenson (The Fiberglass Manifesto) and Ian Anderson’s (The Drift) article on warm water leaders. There is even a video of me tying my best carp fly from last year, the Tailer Teaser.
Mar 26
2012
Michigan’s early spring black stoneflies
The stoneflies have been out in force the last several weeks. While the water has been a bit stained for small nymphs, as soon as things clear stonelfies will be a solid choice.
The stones I see on the water range from size 12 to 20, though we almost always throw oversized patterns. The steelhead don’t seem to mind the larger sized imitations, in fact I think they prefer them.
We have four spring stonefly patterns over on the Indigo site: Steve’s Steelhead Stone, my Spring Stone, Easily Stoned and Martinez’s Psycho Stonefly.
Feb 23
2012
Kevin’s Carp Bugger Needs a Name
Kevin has a problem and needs a little help. When he started carp fishing many years, ago the advice was to throw brown or black Woolly Buggers. They worked well then and they still do now. But the standard Woolly Bugger has one critical design flaw for carp fishing in snaggy waters: it rides hook down and loves to hang up on everything.
The simple way to overcome this problem is to add lead eyes and call it good. But lead eyes cause quite a splash when they land on the water and for slow moving fish in shallow water, flies with lead eyes will often spook them. Kevin overcame this problem by using a bent shaft TMC 200R hook and placing weight in the center of the bend. This, in conjunction with tying the tail well around the bend of the hook towards the point and trimming the hackle tight on the bottom of the fly, creates a keel effect and keeps the hook properly oriented. It lands on the water very softly, has a long hang time, will dance in their face with the slightest switch, and rarely snags bottom. In Kevin’s opinion, this bent design has a better look and action and entices more carp than the standard bugger, at least where he fishes.
The pattern has evolved over the past couple seasons into a couple specific color combinations, some with and some without rubber legs. As with many things, this pattern started out as a flipped Woolly Bugger and ended up being quite different.
While this has always been a standard in Kevin’s carp box, he never thought that it was very original and simply referred to it as the Carp Bugger. This fly now needs a name and in a quick Google search it appears that there are many carp buggers. Got any ideas or opinions?
These are some names the Indigo crew has thrown in the hat: Sneaky Bugger, Carp Snack, BICB (Beaver Island Carp Bugger), Flipped Bugger, Sneaky Snack, Wake-Up Call and Bacon Cheesebugger.
Leave your suggestions over on our Facebook page. Thanks for your help.
