Cricket Pattern??

Squirrel sez:

Several other thoughts:

(1) Try attaching a second fly, either on a dropper or by tying tippet to
the bend of the hook of the first fly. The gang effect often seems to
inspire strikes when a single fly wouldn't.

Yep it works plus sometimes it's good for two at a time.

balance snipped for brevity

Mustad makes a special cricket hook. As I recall they are 8X longs about
size 8 or 10.

If you thread the hook through a live cricket or grass hopper the insect
passes lots of body fluids into the water which excites bluegill and bass.

If instead you tie the live cricket or grasshopper onto the cricket hook
with fly tying thread the insect will pass fluids into the water from their
mouths and abdomen which also excites the fish

If instead you tie a cricket pattern onto the cricket hook and using your
fingers crush a cricket rubbing its bodily fluids into the cricket fly and
see if it excites the fish.

If instead you tie a cricket pattern on a cricket hook and fish it without
any cricket body fluids and see how it works.

You will have conducted a meaningful fly fishing test and I personally would
really appreciate hearing about your results.

Good luck!
John

wrote...
Is there pattern for a brown
cricket that anyone has had success with??? Thanks Mike


Terry and Roxanne Wilson wrote a book a few years ago on fly fishing for
bluegill and the pattern he came up with is called Bully's Bluegill Spider. It
does not look anything like a cricket, but is intended to sink the way a
cricket does. It is weighted with most of the weight on the rear of the hook
and a chenille body and some round rubber legs stacked on the front of the body
so that the fly sinks with the butt sinking first. I find that it is sometimes
very effective for bluegills if you fish it where you should. I find it works
best around drop-offs. terry ties them in several colors, but the last time I
watched him tying at a conclave he was tying them in a hot pink color. At that
time that color had beek just slaying them for some unknown reason. I don't
pretend to understand some of this **** sometimes. I tie them most often with
variegated (sp) chenille. I tie them on size 10 dry fly hooks and they are easy
to tie once you get used to the strange way of weighting the hook and it still
feels a little odd trying to stack those round ruber legs.

Big Dale

Hi, I do all that you suggest. I always use flourocarbon tippet. But I
didn't think of trying the tandem rig. Thanks!! MIKE
"Flying Squirrel" wrote in message
...
wrote in message ...
I was fishing this past weekend for bluegill. My wife was useing her
Ultralight set up and live brown crickets. She was catching them with
almost everycast. Me...fishing a few feet from her with my flyrod was
catching just a few. I tried every pattern I had that resembled a
cricket
or something similiar. The fish would always go to the live cricket. I
tried different presentation techniques. Different methods of
retrievals....etc..etc.... To no avail. Is there pattern for a brown
cricket that anyone has had success with??? Thanks Mike

Several other thoughts:

(1) Try attaching a second fly, either on a dropper or by tying tippet to
the bend of the hook of the first fly. The gang effect often seems to
inspire strikes when a single fly wouldn't.

(2) Try a fluorocarbon tippet instead of mono. I'm not entirely sure this
improves the strike rate (it certainly doesn't dramatically), but I
haven't
tried it that often.

(3) Try varying your retrieve instead of the fly. (I'm sure you've already
thought of that.)

Lastly, I always crimp down the barbs of my hooks when fishing for
sunfish.
Their jaws are much more delicate than trout mouths. I've done some
serious
damage trying to free even tiny fly hooks. Not that bluegills are
endangered
or anything, but it's a bit depressing to catch fish with crippled parts.

Yep it was me that tied the "Jitterbee". {:O) I never thought about using
live bait on my flyrod....I guess I think it may be a sacrilege and me
being hardheaded!! {:O)But I know people do it all the time. I did get a few
fish with a sinking fly that had black foam on it and rubber legs. MIKE
net.invalid wrote in message
news
wrote...
Is there pattern for a brown
cricket that anyone has had success with??? Thanks Mike

"TimJ wrote:
If you *really* want to catch bluegill on just about every cast, Here's
the
bluegill swap Stan hosted last year: http://tinyurl.com/24zqp
I can honestly say I've tried all of these and caught bluegill with
each.

Note that Mike Bernardoni (mikeb) tied a Jitterbee for that swap.

Mike: did you think to try casting live crickets with your fly gear? I
would think any dark rectangular foam block with rubber legs would work,

I have tied the "Bully Spider" but didn't have any to try. thanks for the
suggestion! MIKE
"Big Dale" wrote in message
...
wrote...
Is there pattern for a brown
cricket that anyone has had success with??? Thanks Mike


Terry and Roxanne Wilson wrote a book a few years ago on fly fishing for
bluegill and the pattern he came up with is called Bully's Bluegill
Spider. It
does not look anything like a cricket, but is intended to sink the way a
cricket does. It is weighted with most of the weight on the rear of the
hook
and a chenille body and some round rubber legs stacked on the front of the
body
so that the fly sinks with the butt sinking first. I find that it is
sometimes
very effective for bluegills if you fish it where you should. I find it
works
best around drop-offs. terry ties them in several colors, but the last
time I
watched him tying at a conclave he was tying them in a hot pink color. At
that
time that color had beek just slaying them for some unknown reason. I
don't
pretend to understand some of this **** sometimes. I tie them most often
with
variegated (sp) chenille. I tie them on size 10 dry fly hooks and they are
easy
to tie once you get used to the strange way of weighting the hook and it
still
feels a little odd trying to stack those round ruber legs.

Big Dale

Will try. MIKE
"bassrecord" wrote in message
...
Squirrel sez:

Several other thoughts:

(1) Try attaching a second fly, either on a dropper or by tying tippet
to
the bend of the hook of the first fly. The gang effect often seems to
inspire strikes when a single fly wouldn't.

Yep it works plus sometimes it's good for two at a time.

balance snipped for brevity

Mustad makes a special cricket hook. As I recall they are 8X longs about
size 8 or 10.

If you thread the hook through a live cricket or grass hopper the insect
passes lots of body fluids into the water which excites bluegill and bass.

If instead you tie the live cricket or grasshopper onto the cricket hook
with fly tying thread the insect will pass fluids into the water from
their
mouths and abdomen which also excites the fish

If instead you tie a cricket pattern onto the cricket hook and using your
fingers crush a cricket rubbing its bodily fluids into the cricket fly and
see if it excites the fish.

If instead you tie a cricket pattern on a cricket hook and fish it without
any cricket body fluids and see how it works.

You will have conducted a meaningful fly fishing test and I personally
would
really appreciate hearing about your results.

Good luck!
John

"bassrecord" wrote in message ...
Squirrel sez:

Several other thoughts:

(1) Try attaching a second fly, either on a dropper or by tying tippet to
the bend of the hook of the first fly. The gang effect often seems to
inspire strikes when a single fly wouldn't.

Yep it works plus sometimes it's good for two at a time.

balance snipped for brevity

Mustad makes a special cricket hook. As I recall they are 8X longs about
size 8 or 10.

If you thread the hook through a live cricket or grass hopper the insect
passes lots of body fluids into the water which excites bluegill and bass.

If instead you tie the live cricket or grasshopper onto the cricket hook
with fly tying thread the insect will pass fluids into the water from their
mouths and abdomen which also excites the fish

If instead you tie a cricket pattern onto the cricket hook and using your
fingers crush a cricket rubbing its bodily fluids into the cricket fly and
see if it excites the fish.

If instead you tie a cricket pattern on a cricket hook and fish it without
any cricket body fluids and see how it works.

You will have conducted a meaningful fly fishing test and I personally would
really appreciate hearing about your results.

Good luck!
John

We use to fish in some very clear water and I have done something
similar. The river we fished in had bluegill ( the bluegill were in
sloughs and still water connected to the river), catfish, bass, carp
adn who knows what else ( steelhead and salmon in season). We usually
took worms, chicken livers, grasshoppers or whatever bugs we could
catch.
The bluegill were hard to catch on worms as they robbed hooks with
ease. The way I caugth them was to use a # 8 or 10 McGinty with worm
"juice" on it. The chenelle body held a lot of "juice" and a juiced
fly outfished a plane one by at least 5 to 1. It outfished plain
worms by at least the same. They hit the fly and didn't let go.
I haven't tried this for 25 years but I'm sure it would still work. I
have seen flavoring sprays in the tackle shops for spraying on lures
but am not inclined to try them.
I have not found any real good bluegill fishing in Oregon but I would
like to. Bluegill and Crappie are IMO the best tasting warm water
fish.

wrote in :

If instead you tie a cricket pattern onto the cricket hook and using
your fingers crush a cricket rubbing its bodily fluids into the
cricket fly and see if it excites the fish.


Tuna oil (or perhaps aniseed) would probably work just as well.

Steve

"Stephen Welsh" wrote in message
. 1.4...
wrote in :

If instead you tie a cricket pattern onto the cricket hook and using
your fingers crush a cricket rubbing its bodily fluids into the
cricket fly and see if it excites the fish.


Tuna oil (or perhaps aniseed) would probably work just as well.

Steve
Indian Joe smiles--dammm guys if you have to do all that to catch a bluegill
why don't you try dinamite--or ask Big Dale to send you a physlicic spider

"Joe McIntosh" wrote in
:

Indian Joe smiles--dammm guys if you have to do all that to catch a
bluegill why don't you try dinamite--

Which is pretty much the point I was making.

:-)

Steve