The Dark Side

A few days ago I posted the question "why do you tie flies"
....several people made interesting answers (including me).

But I don't only tie flies. I make lures now too.
This can be a taboo subject if fly fishing circles.
Does this belong here? We'll see how it goes.

======
Years ago a buddy of mine (who was an active West Yellowstone guide
then) told me a story about drifting through the Yankee Jim Canyon on
the Yellowstone with a friend of his who was a west coast steelhead
guide.
After one lackluster trip through the canyon, fishing with hoppers
nymphs
and woolley buggers, they went back up to the Joe Brown access again
(to run through the canyon a second time) but this time they rigged up
with steelhead rods--with level-wind reels--and pulled hot shot plugs,
which dive wiggle and plane down into much deeper water than you
can ever reach with a fly rod outfit.

Doug (my buddy) said they caught a class of fish he'd never seen
befo
big 3-6 pound rainbows and browns, fish you occasionally encounter with
fly fishing gear, but fish you seldom zero in on, one after another
like that.

I make a lot of lightweight flyrod wigglers. I've been doing that for
years.
But they only work well (with fly rods) as itty-bitty wigglers, 1" long
or less,
flures you mostly fish across and downst, into tight log jam spots and
weed pockets.
But the most powerful way to catch big fish (short of bait) is to fish
big heavy
wigglers in deeper water. And you just can't do that with a flyrod.

Almost no one, anywhere that I can see, is making homemade crankbaits
with foam and feathers and glue, using traditional fly tying
techniques.
Most steelhead trollers and bass fishermen either buy soft molded baits
that have no action,
or they buy expensive factory-made hard-bodied wigglers.

Punchline:
I guess I'll have to buy a small steelhead rod now, so I can start to
fish with
all of these big heavy lures I've been making. I guess this is the
punchline.
I've been making sophisticated lures for almost two years now, because
I find
it to be a lot of fun to make them. But I don't even own
a rod I can fish them with yet. Lure making, for me, is more fun, and
more
challenging, than fly tying. It's almost like the difference between
a chair and a boat: one is static and motionless, the other is dynamic
and moving.

It remains to be seen if I like lure fishing as much as fly fishing.
But for right now, I seem to like lure making better than fly tying.

wrote

This can be a taboo subject if fly fishing circles.
Does this belong here?


Sandy, you may already have seen these

but

I thought of you when I ran across this page yesterday

http://www.petitjean.ch/eng/MagicHead/default.asp

Larry L wrote:
wrote


This can be a taboo subject if fly fishing circles.
Does this belong here?



Sandy, you may already have seen these

but

I thought of you when I ran across this page yesterday

http://www.petitjean.ch/eng/MagicHead/default.asp

http://www.petitjean.ch/eng/MagicHead/default.asp

Yes, I've seen those but haven't tried them (yet).
I will. I have a hunch they will make a streamer wobble,
as adveritzed, but with no tendancy to dive, the
way a lipped-lure does. For bass, surface wobblers
seem to be important lures. But for trout, my experience
tells me you need depth as well as wobble.

I bought his spring loaded dubbing clip kit. I don't use
it a lot, but it's worth having. It does work well
when I do what it does (when I do it?).

wrote


I bought his spring loaded dubbing clip kit. I don't use
it a lot, but it's worth having. It does work well
when I do what it does (when I do it?).


It just so happens that the clip kit is why I visited the site yesterday.
I went to visit my buddy at his fly shop to stock up on some hooks, saw the
kit and asked about it ... he offered me 40% off as he'd had it on the shelf
a while, has too much money tied up in inventory, and things are slow right
now for him ...so I bought it along with the other stuff.

Be damned if I can figure how to use it ! I've always wanted to create a
'hackle' mix of dun hackle and sparkle organza for spinner ties and hoped to
pursue that end. I'm downloading some video footage I found showing the
clips in use, as I type this ... maybe that will help ... the tiny pictures
that came with the tool didn't.

In addition to that - in the Netherlands flies like
http://www.pikefly.com/roof/wobbler.htm these are very popular and
succesful for asp (Aspius aspius) fishing. The plastic wobble thingies
(by lack of a better word) at the bottom of the page are available in
the shops and easy to work with.
The text in the page I linked to is in Dutch, but the patterns are
fairly easy. The body material is foam.

--
Herman

Herman Nijland wrote:

http://www.pikefly.com/roof/wobbler.htm

....that's a good link. Good website too.

I'm not sure but it looks like the flys on that site only use 1 or 2
different colors of foam. Did they use a black marker for the other color?

Can someone look at the close up pics and let me know?

I thought it was 3 pieces of foam for a minute and couldn't figure out how
they did that.

Jixter


"Sandy Pittendrigh" wrote in message
...
Herman Nijland wrote:

http://www.pikefly.com/roof/wobbler.htm

...that's a good link. Good website too.

Jixter wrote:
I'm not sure but it looks like the flys on that site only use 1 or 2
different colors of foam. Did they use a black marker for the other color?

Can someone look at the close up pics and let me know?

I thought it was 3 pieces of foam for a minute and couldn't figure out how
they did that.

Jixter

Two colors of foam are normally used for the lure (can't call it a fly
any more), the side line is made by tying in a piece of antron, flash or
whatever you've got handy at the back of the fly, and tied along the
body after the segment is formed.
Nice, but not necessary - lures like these are fished on the big rivers
over here, in more than decent sizes. The fish don't seem to care :-).

Hope this helps,
Herman

wrote:
A few days ago I posted the question "why do you tie flies"
...several people made interesting answers (including me).

But I don't only tie flies. I make lures now too.
This can be a taboo subject if fly fishing circles.
Does this belong here? We'll see how it goes.

======
Years ago a buddy of mine (who was an active West Yellowstone guide
then) told me a story about drifting through the Yankee Jim Canyon on
the Yellowstone with a friend of his who was a west coast steelhead
guide.
After one lackluster trip through the canyon, fishing with hoppers
nymphs
and woolley buggers, they went back up to the Joe Brown access again
(to run through the canyon a second time) but this time they rigged up
with steelhead rods--with level-wind reels--and pulled hot shot plugs,
which dive wiggle and plane down into much deeper water than you
can ever reach with a fly rod outfit.

Doug (my buddy) said they caught a class of fish he'd never seen
befo
big 3-6 pound rainbows and browns, fish you occasionally encounter with
fly fishing gear, but fish you seldom zero in on, one after another
like that.

I make a lot of lightweight flyrod wigglers. I've been doing that for
years.
But they only work well (with fly rods) as itty-bitty wigglers, 1" long
or less,
flures you mostly fish across and downst, into tight log jam spots and
weed pockets.
But the most powerful way to catch big fish (short of bait) is to fish
big heavy
wigglers in deeper water. And you just can't do that with a flyrod.

Not so sure I accept the above justification.
Then why exclude bait??? IMO, the best way to catch the biggest fish?




Almost no one, anywhere that I can see, is making homemade crankbaits
with foam and feathers and glue, using traditional fly tying
techniques.
Most steelhead trollers and bass fishermen either buy soft molded baits
that have no action,
or they buy expensive factory-made hard-bodied wigglers.

Punchline:
I guess I'll have to buy a small steelhead rod now, so I can start to
fish with
all of these big heavy lures I've been making. I guess this is the
punchline.
I've been making sophisticated lures for almost two years now, because
I find
it to be a lot of fun to make them. But I don't even own
a rod I can fish them with yet. Lure making, for me, is more fun, and
more
challenging, than fly tying. It's almost like the difference between
a chair and a boat: one is static and motionless, the other is dynamic
and moving.

It remains to be seen if I like lure fishing as much as fly fishing.
But for right now, I seem to like lure making better than fly tying.



That's a much better "justification" - IMO, that's what it's about,
having fun.

I made lures before I tied flies. Made spinners, spoons, jigs and lures.

I know you're a "foam guy" but I used to really enjoy making lures out
of balsa wood. (Thinking about it, I may get some to make some poppers
for Silver Salmon) It was easy to shape and was versatile. The problem
was that you couldn't attached a harness to hold a hook in it. I used to
use the little jig I had for bending wire for spinner shafts to make
harnesses to hold the hooks. Then I made the balsa body to go around it.

Willi