Day Fifty Three to Fity Seven

Day Fifty Two: Glo Bug

 

Glo Bugs:

Extremely popular for fresh run Rainbows, on rivers like the infamous Tongariro. Commonly fished with heavy nymph, to get it down deep.

This is one winter fly you shouldn’t go without, and funnily enough I have heard that Snapper love them too.

Day Fifty One: Black and Peacock

Black and Peacock:

A simple but effective still water fly. Most commonly used as a snail pattern, but can be useful as a beetle, either sunk or gunked up to float.

Day Fifty: Synthetic Hare and Copper

Synthetic Hare and Copper:

One fault I have found with my fly choices is weight. If I go through my nymph boxes 99% are all tungsten bead heads.

One fish I have a constant battle with lies with its dorsal cutting through the river. Tungsten is too heavy for his lie; this fly un-weighted did the business.

Day Forty Nine: Foam Emerger

Foam Emerger:

Ugly the way emergers are meant to be, and I really hate tying neatly.
Have a good week end.

Day Forty Eight: Glister Nymph

Glister Nymph:

Glister is an amazing product, 1 or 2 strands is enough to give any nymph the ‘Bling’ factor. Which has either a, I’ll eat that or, a fleeing reaction.

I tend to use a more subtle patterns, but have had pretty good results with glister, particularly in lower light conditions.

Day Forty Seven: Caddis

Another Caddis:

Please forgive me if you see a lot of very similar fly patterns. They all play a part in the greater scheme of fooling fish.

Subtle differences to us can be the difference between a hit or not from the fish. No matter how similar two days can be, sometimes a pattern won’t fool twice.

Day Forty Six: Garth's Nymph

Garth’s Nymph: Generalisation

Last season this was an absolute winner for me. I was convinced it was the pattern. To be honest, I now realise the beauty of this pattern is its weight.  Getting the fly down to our fish is most important.

These two beauties were caught one cast apart. The fly was so worn it was only the copper and bead left. They didn’t seem to mind.

Day Forty Five: Green Trude

Green Trude:

I must admit, this pattern I saw while on Google images as I had no idea what to tie tonight. Lazy huh? I will however back myself and fish this come the new season.

I do not doubt that this will fool its fair share of fish.

Day Forty Four: Foam Terrestrials

Summer Terrestrials:

Cicada time needs no introductions, However, I found this season a few fish that had obviously seen too many Cicada patterns.

Swapping patterns, especially one that does not really imitate the Cicada, can and usually does result in an exciting take.  

Day Forty Three: Pheasant Tail Cray

Pheasant Tail Cray:

Having a play with some pheasant, and really liked the look of these. I tried making nylon eyes but really didn’t like them, so reverted back to the damsel eyes.

These would be deadly at night, a slow jerky retrieve through a deep pool.

Day Forty Two: Prince Nymph

Prince Nymph:

What a killer week. I am in no mood to tie today, and have no real desire to carry this on. However I never said I was a tier, just someone stupid enough to take on a yearly challenge!

The prince nymph needs no introduction, it will catch trout, in my experience or lack of, Rainbow’s tend to like it more than Browns. Have a good week end.

Day Forty One: Simple Mayfly

Simple Mayfly:

I very rarely kill a fish. I believe the last one was a few season’s back now, and even then I didn’t really want too. He was sipping flies in a long run. He rose to this fly but it hooked him in the eye. Poor fella.

Day Forty: Purple Prince

Purple Prince:

This one’s for the Bows, especially late season fish. The purple is nicely visible in the shallow or down deep. I must admit I haven’t given this fly to much attention but in fast pocket water it does come into its own.

Day Thirty Nine: Foam Cicada

Green Cicada:

This was a copy of a pattern introduced to me by one Garth Stevenson. It rides wonderfully high in fast water and easy to spot by the fish and angler alike.

Last season on the last day of a four day tramp, I found a fish. It only took one cast and he was mine, I had never caught a fish on the first and only cast of the day.

Thanks to Jordan Moss for the photo.

Day Thirty Eight: Another Caddis

Caddis (a cheap copy of Norm Marsh’s):

This fly is still as good as it was when it was created. The biggest problem is the black magic hooks used to tie it are not as strong as the old mustards.

I have lost one good fish on this ‘F’ series hook, one too many, so this fly isn’t used as often as it really should.

Day Thirty Seven: My Current Favourite

Current Favourite:

I had posted its variant a while ago, with an orange tungsten bead. This has been a very successful fish taker this autumn/winter.

I was pleasantly surprised when recently I flicked this in front of a very sleepy looking fish. He had ignored every other offer, but didn’t hesitate to take this pattern.

Day Thirty Six: Palmered Dry

Palmered Dry:

This is a very simple fly, hence why I had planned to tie it while I was away.

I used this pattern on a bow; He was sitting in a back eddy with no room for a back cast. Long story short I floated this pattern downstream to him, while sitting on a submerged log. He came up and took it, then ran straight under the log I was perched on. Only some very fancy netting skills saved the tippet.

The Tying Bench:

The "Back eddy" Fish: Excuse the hideous photo.

Day Thirty Five: Caddis Dry

Caddis Dry:

Tied with a wing case of foam, this fly is close to unsinkable.  Larger than I usually like for a caddis, I am unsure if this fly is not mistaken for some other terrestrial.

On a side note if you are wondering why 3 days of this blog were missing, I was away and outside of net coverage, but had taken the vice with me as Day Thirty Six will show.