Carping

A nice long weekend means getting out and fishing for carp. I found a nice load of them all rooting in the grass, but they all seemed to busy to notice my offerings. However, after two days I finally fooled one by running a green crayfish out of the grass out in front of it as it was moving pass. After several long runs I finally got the carp to the net for a quick photo and then back into the water.

I also tied up some files for gar fishing for a friend and hope to see what happens when he takes them out for a spin.

A box full of flies

It is already almost a month into the new fishing season. Yesterday was the first day I have fished and I have to say the season looks very promising. It got pretty windy in the morning, but we ended up catching quite a few rainbows and one that was big enough to smoke for lunch. Once the wind died down the bite went off and we decided to head home.

Aside from wanting to fish, I have tied up several classic patterns (green highlander, black doctor, silver doctor, blue doctor, blue ranger, durham ranger, and  jock scott) for salmon on mainly size 2 hooks. I did also tie up a size 4/0 silver doctor. These will be used on land locked salmon that I live close to. I was going to make a fly wallet for these, but ended up buying a wheatley fly box.

Fully dressed salmon flies

#1 - This is the first time that I have tied the Durham Ranger, but I have been wanting to do along time. This is most probably the first fully dressed salmon fly I had seen and then Davie McPhail posted a video of him tying it so I had a good idea on how to go about tying this fly. I would have liked a nicer jungle cock cape for this fly but it still looks pretty good to me.

 #2 - I have tied several lady Amherst, but this is the first one on a small hook (2/0). One thing that really effects the look of this fly is the topping, I might have to go back and redo the topping to give it a more of an open look.

 #3 - First time I have tied the black doctor and most probably not the last time. I would have really liked to have a smaller head, but I still like the look of it.

 #4 - A MOM to end of the set, this will be a fishing fly so I was not overall concerned with the look of it.