Ready for Battle

Lately I have been getting ready for my Spring / Summer season, and man I am getting excited. When the days start to get longer near the end of winter, I start turning my eyes towards summer flies and long lines.

In this post I will let you in on some of my plans for this up coming season. Since I started spey fishing and tying flies I was instantly drawn to the classic and traditional style of fly tying. My summer box hints quite heavily on this fact.

I have added some mixed wings to my box for this summer, its a shame that this style of salmon fly has faded out of our fly boxes and into books of a past generation of anglers. I am not sure why this is, maybe because the materials are expensive? Well so is Jungle Cock, Rhea, Amherst, Temple Dog, and lots of other materials that are still used quite extensively in modern fly tying. Maybe its because they are to hard to tie? I think at first they may seem daunting and hard, but I remember when I tied my first woolly bugger I thought the same thing, and now I can whip out a bugger in less than a minute.

I will say that I have nothing against Intruders and all those fancy new Steelhead and Salmon patterns out there. I guess in time every thing gets buried in history books, and who knows maybe in a hundred years someone will be saying the same thing about Intruders, but for now I will keep some history out of the books and in my box.

This is a set of mixed wings I have in mind for some fresh Steelhead and Atlantics, the two on the far right have already been in a Steelhead's jaw, but sadly I wasn't able to land them.

Muddlers are extremely productive here in the St. Marys River. Iif your planning of coming up for some Atlantics this summer, make sure you take lots of muddlers, they get chomped up pretty fast. 

I am also going to use some skaters for this season, I am going to spend alot of time looking for that one special fish that will commit to a skated fly. There is a very good chance that I won't connect with one of these fish, but there is also a tiny chance I will, and for me, that makes it a worthwhile pursuit.

Fish eye view of some Skaters.

This Ringneck Heron is fast becoming one of my favourite and most productive flies, It has proved it self with and without the Heron hackle. The above version is tied with out the Heron.

Fish eye view of the Ringneck Heron.

Here is a simple spey pattern that was the predecessor to the Ringneck Heron, this fly has always held a place in my box as a confidence fly for me. 

This is a simple, sleek strip wing, I intend on using this fly in gin clear water when other patterns don't seem to be producing.

Here is my mixed wing army ready for battle, A couple flies in here were tied in hand with out a vise, I chose to tie some in hand to pay tribute to the salmon fly dressers of the past who never used a vise. 

Fish eye view of the mixed wings

Feel free to comment with your opinions on why traditional salmon flies are falling out of popularity. 

I hope you enjoyed this post, looking forward to showing you all some pictures of these flies in the jaws of some beautiful fish!

Chris

D.I.Y Rabbit Strips

Hey everyone, 

Its been a little while since I have posted, I've been busy working and tying flies.

I have started tying a fly called the "Laker Leech" for a few people who fish for trophy Lake Trout and Pike on Lake Athabasca.

This fly consists mostly of rabbit fur, specifically cross cut rabbit strips. Since I am using mass amounts of rabbit, it doesn't really make sense for me to be buying twenty small packages of cross cut rabbit. So to make things more efficient and practical for me I decided to buy full died rabbit hides and cut them myself. This will be a brief tutorial on how to cut your own rabbit hides, with this method you can cut cross cut strips and zonker style strips.

You will need to purchase a couple things first:

Carpet blades

Two bolts that fit snugly in the the slot on the blade

Two nuts that screw onto the bolts (these act as spacers)

Small piece of carpet strip (two feet will do it)

This is a carpet blade, there are several types of razor blades but this style works best in my experience.

This is what the cutter looks like when it is all assembled, the blades are put on the bolt and after each blade added a 1/8 wide nut for spacing. The second bolt does not need nuts for spacing, I just inserted it for support. 

Mean looking tool for sure, be very careful.

This is the carpet strip I used to hold the hide, I temporarily nailed it to my desk to make things easier.

The next step is to position the hide on the carpet strip according to what style strips you want to cut. Then start by working all the blades into the hide till you start cutting through it. It is very important that you hold the hide in the air so that when the blades cut through the hide, they don't cut the fur. If you were to cut the hide on a solid surface the blades would slice the fur. After you have started cutting the hide, just continue to work the blades through the length of the hide.

End product, four nicely cut hides ready to be tied onto some tubes!

The yellow hide was enormous, I got 59 strips all over one foot long!

Nice purple hide all ready to go.

I cut up two black hides because I use more black than any other colour combined

There will be some leftovers from your hides, I will turn some of these in to zonker strips and the rest into dubbing.

Hope this tutorial helps, if you have any questions please feel free to send me a message!

Chris

The Wonders and Joys of Winter Steelheading in Northern Ontario

Went out for a last Sunday morning fish, was greeted by an empty and bitterly cold river. Sometimes all I can do is scratch my head and wonder why the heck I am on the river.......

The ice build up kind of makes casting difficult..........

Someone needs to design a heated spey rod........

Then a week later......

A late night idea came to me at the vise........ Ringneck Phesant and Heron? Every once in a while I think up a fly design and I just can't "shake" it. This fly was one of those patterns, it just begged to be tied. I swear the materials just floated onto my desk........okay.... it didn't come together that easily....

With the warmer temperatures that we have gotten in the last few days here, I have put away my Skagit lines and Sinktips and switched to a Full Floating line. This weekend I was rewarded for my efforts and got two nice Steelhead. 

The first fish took a little convincing to get it to commit, I missed this fish three times in one swing! I then shortened my cast about two feet and threw it back at him and BAM.. he had committed. 

Beautiful day on the water, Life is good

Nice Winter colours on this fish

I'm no photographer at all, I got lucky with this picture, I love seeing how much movement that Heron has in the water!

Thanks and have a good one!

Chris

Fat Back Tubes

Fat Backs

I have always liked the look of Fat Back tubes, something about that wide long sweeping wing just makes me want to throw it in a nice fast tailout for Atlantic here on my home waters. Sat down this week with a good friend to tie up some flies, he wanted to try tying some tubes up so I showed him how to tie his first tube.

I tied this first one with early Atlantics in mind, I think it will be just the ticket when the fish first enter the rapids. Remember to taper you wings!

This fly will surely move a lot of water with that profile! If I were to go back in time and retie this fly, I think I would add more angel hair to the wing to give it a little more flash.

Here is Bretts first tube fly, a nice minnow pattern that will surely produce on some Steelhead and Atlantics. I like how he added the Grizzly Hackle sides, it gives the look of some barring that you would see on a parr. I really like the fishability of this fly, Great work Brett!

Thanks!

Laker Leech

I was approached a while back about creating a fly for trophy Lake Trout and Pike for a guide with Lakers Unlimited

The idea was to create a fly that was big and easy to cast, originally we had decided on the "Moal Leech". The Moal Leech is a large fly that consists of a rabbit strip super glued around a dacron braid trailing loop tied on a cut off salmon hook. The advantage of wrapping the rabbit around the dacron is that it gives the fly a lot of movement, where as if it were wrapped around a long hook shank, the fly would be fairly stiff.

I have never really been a fan of the Moal Leech, the reasons being :

• Pain in the but to tie.
• The trailer hook cannot be swapped out once dull.
• If a toothy fish cuts the rabbit strip the fly will fall apart relatively fast.
• Size and Colour cannot be changed

So to fix the issues I was having with the original Moal Leech I designed the "Laker Leech"

The Laker Leech is more a less a "Leech Kit" where you build your own leech pattern depending on the size, colour and weight that you want. The leech is made up of several different one inch sections of tubes that you just slide onto your tippet material. 

The Pros: 

• Easy to tie.
• Trailer hook can be swapped out easily.
• If a toothy fish cuts the rabbit strip, you only loose one small segment and not the whole fly.
• Easily change colour, size and weight of the fly on the water.

So I will do a picture step by step to show you how I rig up this fly. 

• Start with your tubes, here I have five, 1 inch segments and a 1 inch head segment with a cone on it for weight. You will also need your tippet material and a hook

• Each tube has a defined front and back. the front has a visible section of thread.

• The rear end of the tube is exposed simply by stroking the rabbit fur back.

• Segments are approximately one inch in length. 

• I use a single Gamakatsu hook because I really like the shape of it, but hook choice is completely up to you 

• I am going to start rigging this tube up by sliding on an olive colour tube onto the tippet.

• Slide on as many tubes as you like ( just make sure you can cast it haha )

• I like to add colour segments to give the fly more of a pattern, this fly will be olive and red.

• The head of this fly is another section of tube with rabbit fur tied on, I have also tied in a collar of marabou to give the fly more colour and finished it off by adding a weighted turbo cone.

•  The head tube slides on just like the other segments.

• The completed fly, all that is needed is to tie the tippet onto your leader and your good to start fishing.

• The tubes still allow the fly to move and bend, which was extremely important in the design of this fly. 

Thanks, Hope you enjoyed the post.

Chris

Simple and Elagant

There is something to be said about small, simple flies. Often, especially with Atlantics, they will out produce any other type of fly.

Tied these up last night while showing a friend how to "set" these wings, it was definitely a learning process for both him and I.

As Albert Einstein said " If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"

Well sorry Brett, my explanation wasn't simple at all haha.

Its good to challenge yourself when it comes to tying flies, otherwise how can you progress and learn? I remember when I started tying flies I was instantly drawn to classic salmon flies, I knew those were the flies I wanted to be able to tie. I went through alot, and I mean alot of material practising and learning how to tie those flies and slowly but surely I have been making progress, I kept my very first married wind salmon fly ( a Jock Scott, with a bunch of subs) and I use it as a reminder to mark progress.

Hope you enjoyed the post

and try to tie something you never have never tied before, you will inevitably learn something

Thanks

Chris

Gators on my mind

Hey everyone

I've been busy tying lately and haven't been able to write much. I have managed to find some time during my morning coffee to let you know what I have been up to lately.

As the winter temps continue to drop, I have been thinking of warmer weather. I have been experimenting with some patterns for Pike. Its not often that I wonder from my passion of Salmon and Steelhead flies, but it is a good thing to branch out and broaden your skills.

I will admit that deer hair is by far my least favourite material to work with, I like feathers more haha. 

Here is the fly I tied last night, pretty simple pattern, Rabbit Zonker strip, Bucktail, and Deer hair for the head.

I like to take a permanent marker to the under side of the rabbit hide and give it a barred look.

Over all I like it, I still need to glue eyes on it, hopefully my nest one will go a little smother, and soon I will be tying these with different colour hair.

Thanks

Chris