Hareline Dyed Pheasant Tail Feathers

Posted on May 12, 2021 by Ed Mitchell

Ringneck pheasant tail is one of those material you should always have on hand. Great for nymphs and pupa. Well a few days back I went digging through my fly tying mountain of materials to find some and came up empty handed. Ugh. That send me searching the internet to remedy the situation.

While there I came across something I hadn’t seen before -Hareline Dyed Ringneck Pheasant feathers. Ummmm. Kinda nice. They were available in a 9 colors as well as natural.  Black, green, orange, to name a few. And they come two feathers to a pack.  I thought I would pick natural and green. J. Stockard Fly Fishing had a good price, so I shopped there. But natural was out of stock. So I took a chance on orange and green. 

Overall I think these dyed pheasant tail fibers are a good idea. Happy with the colors. My only concern is that the fibers on the feathers I received were shorter that I would like. It made tying on size 12# a chore even on a Tiemco 2487 which has a short  shank. I had you use two bunches of fibers to complete each fly.  As a result I do not think the flies turned out are as neat as they could have been. Well, they are still going to catch fish.

 

 

 

 

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Stripers 2021 – What can We Expect?

Posted on May 9, 2021 by Ed Mitchell

Stripers 2021 – What can We Expect?

Stripers 2021- What can We Expect

Yes, the striper season has begun. The question is – what can we expect? If last season is any measure, mainly schoolies. Sure, I know some guy, somewhere had  great fishing.  But overall, in most locations, the bass blast last year in New England was disappointing. And when you look at the stock assessment, there is no good news. None. The spawning stock biomass is down, and recruitment is poor. In fact 2016 is the only good year class coming up. You can find that data here.

Stripers 2021-What can We Expect?

Those 2016 bass should be about 25-27″ this year. So they’re sublegal until at least 2022. In fact if it was up to me, I’d raise the minimum size to 30″ next year. That would give the 2016 bass another shot on the spawning rounds. And a chance to reach 30″.  Both would be great things. So for the time being, lets enjoy what we have. A striper of 25-27″ is a fun fish on a fly rod. I’ll be leaning on my Scott Meridian  much of the time. It is a terrific performer, top shelf rod.

Please take care to release these fish unharmed. Pinch down your barbs and use heavier tippets so you can land the fish quickly. And remember that hook & release mortality is much, much higher in warm brackish water, such as you find up rivers. Limit your time there. These 2016 critters  are pretty much all we got. I mean it.

Stripers 2021 – What can We Expect?

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Loon Outdoors D-Loop Tweezer

Posted on May 5, 2021 by Ed Mitchell

Loon Outdoors D-Loop Tweezer

Got a new piece of fly tying gear – a D-Loop Tweezer. As the name implies this item is primarily intended to be a dubbing loop twister. My main use is different, however. I needed to pick up small hooks and tungsten beads.  And then assist me in joining them together. It is not always an easy deal to accomplish. But this tweezer is proving a real help, especially with hooks smaller than size 14#. It was even able to pick a size 24! Wow.

To place a bead on, I first secure the hook upside down in the vise. Next I use the tweezer to pick up a bead and bring it to the hook point. If all goes well – and it doesn’t always-  it is a fairly simple task to get the bead on the hook bend. Once the bead is on, I put the tweezer down. Now carefully reverse the hook into its proper position to tie the fly. Go slowly. Be sure to hold the hook by the bend. This will prevent the bead from escaping. You’ll get the idea pretty quickly. 

Yes, slotted tungsten beads make this whole process simpler. But I have a load of  non-slotted beads on hand. And besides I bet slotted beads weigh less, and that is obviously counterproductive. You want the weight, right? Isn’t that the whole business of buying tungsten beads in the first place? Getting down. 

In the photos, I’m using a Tiemco 2487 in size 12. My bead is a red 3.25mm (1/8″)  tungsten. Hooks in size 10,12, and 14 went smoothly. And I got down to a size 16 hook and a 2mm bead, without a ton of  trouble.

 I also tried starting with the hook tipped farther back so the hook point is more straight up. That worked well too. And may be the right way to go with small gap hooks such as size 16. See if it works for you.

Tip of the hat to Loon Outdoors. I’ve purchased a number of  their products in recent year and they have all been of good quality. By the way, this tweezer has a overall length of 7.5″, making it easy to handle. Final Thought: Loon supplies a small plastic tip guard for the tweezer. Unfortunately the guard is transparent and very easy to misplace. So I colored it with a red magic maker. See it in the package picture up top.    

 

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An Anchor Fly on a Jig Hook

Posted on May 1, 2021 by Ed Mitchell

An Anchor Fly on a Jig Hook

Euro-nymphing continues to grow in popularity and with that growth jig style fly hooks have become harder to fine. One popular hook maker sold out their entire year’s supply by early February! Why are jig hooks in demand? Riding hook point up, they snag less on the bottom.

A few post back, I tied flies on the Wapsi JHCN10 Czech Nymph Leaded Body hooks. For this post, I’m using an Umpqua Competition Series size 10 C400BL jig hook. It is a black nickel barbless hook – designed for use with beads, has heavy wire, and a wide gap. Recently I  was in Upcountry Sportfishing in New Hartford and got some Hanak Competition H400BL jig hooks.  Like the Umpqua hook, they’re also black nickel and barbless.  We’ll look at them later another time.

My bead is a Lucent red tungsten, size 3.8mm (5/32). Why red? It creates a hot spot to attract fish. My thread is plain old Danville flat wax in white. The first step is to make a mound of thread up by the eye. Just enough so you can jam the bead forward. Then reattach your thread, secure the bead in place and cover the hook shank in thread. You can put a drop of super glue behind the bead, but it is really not necessary. (The body will lock the bead forward.)

For the body I have 5″ inches of transparent, green vinyl ribbing. Lash it to the top of the hook shank back of the bead. Wind your thread over it to the rear and then wind back to the bead. Next wrap the vinyl forward to the bead, keeping each turn tight to the previous one. You can use a rotary vise or do it manually. Either way. Once you reach the bead, tie the vinyl down.

The white thread shows through the vinyl. It seems to enhance the green color. To finish the fly I formed a thorax behind the bead with some hare’s ear dubbing. Obviously this is an optional step. Totally the tier’s choice. Whip finish and head to the water.

 

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The Hendricksons are Here!

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Ed Mitchell

The Hendricksons are Here!

Yes, the Hendricksons are on the Farmington River. In fact they started showing up in the Collinsville stretch about 10 days ago.  Then two cold days last week shut the hatch down. So weather has been a factor. It always is. And timing the hatch hasn’t been easy. Sometime it came off at 1:30 pm and ended by 3pm. Other days it didn’t start until 3pm? And get this. Oddly enough, on Monday myself and many others didn’t fish because of sustained 2o mph winds. Turned out that was the day of the most intense hatch so far. Go figure.

Male Hendrickson Dun on the Farmington River

Yesterday, in the first pool we tried, no signs of the hatch? Damn. Same thing happened to me on Tuesday. So took a gamble and went much farther upstream. Farther then we thought the hatch had likely progressed. Paid off. The duns came off about 2:40 pm in the head of the pool. Bingo I got my first trout of the year on a dry. Making it even more fun, I was using my Winston Retro Rod. Gotta love it.

Winston Retro Rod in Action

Caught a couple of fish, the biggest being a brown trout of near 15″. It slammed a Hendrickson ‘Comparadun” and put up quite a scrap on the “glass” 4wt.  Had my old Hardy princess singing a tune too. Unfortunately the hatch only last about 35 minutes. After that the action tapered right off. Oh well that’s fishing folks. As Mick Jagger said ” You can’t always get what you want.”  More Hendrickson hatch here. The Klinkhammer here.   And more hatch info. 

Winston Retro Rod with Trout

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