Bass, bluegills and trout

The old trout rod has been getting a bit of a workout, with trips out to hook into some bass and trout. With the bluegills sitting on their nests the bass are getting up close to the shore and easy to spot. Even though I am really no expert at catching bass on the fly my wife and I have had some success. So far our best bass have been a 17" and a 14". The 14" was the first bass my wife got to the net but it was about the 5th bass of that size that she has hooked and lost before getting to close enough to net.

As well as getting into the bass we have been exploring south boulder creek in walker ranch and this weekend we had a lot of good water to ourselves. We ended up getting a reasonable number of decent sized brown trout to the net. The day did end with us watching a thunder storm roll in and a mad dash to get off the river and out of our waders. The storm held off for a few minutes to allow us to start the one mile climb up the hill before the rain came and then some pretty big lightening strikes before we made it to the car. I feel pretty sorry for the people that we passed on the way out, as our car was the only one in the car park so they would have had at least a 4 mile walk to the next car park.

Carp on the Berry

Looks like I have been neglecting to post how life is in Colorado, to say the least it is hot and full of smoke, but that has not stopped me from getting out and fishing.

I have been trying for ages to get a Carp on the fly rod and over the last two weekends it has finally happened; TWICE. The first time I did not have a camera so it was a bit hard to say it happened. However, on with the story. I had been fishing at a lake pretty close to my apartment all summer and noticed a mulberry tree near the waters edge, and two weeks ago I noticed that the lower branches were loaded with berries and it kept bobbing up and down. It was not due to a bird, but there were 3 carp under the branch picking berries. So I got out the biggest blackest fly I had and gentling placed it under the tree. After about 5 tries one carp looked skyward and looked at it before moving back to the real deal. By now my fly was more of a sinker instead of a floater and this turned the table. As I watched my line float under the tree it took a right angle turn and it was CARP ON!!!!. I have heard carp could either be fighters or duds, this guy was in the fighting category. He took me in and out several times, but never to the backing. The old 6/7 weight rod was like an old man at his fly tying desk tying size 26 midges, all bent over with not an inch of flex left in him. Finally after 20 mins he beached himself and I was able to let old golden go. First carp and it was a good 4 pound fish.

The next time I went out I was loaded with double mulberry rigs, one floater and one sinker. Under the same tree were the hungry carp, but this time a bird in the tree was knocking berries down to them. After losing one whole rig to the tree god and then the bottom fly to another tree I was able to convince a crap that foam did taste like a mulberry. Once hooked it was another good 15-20 min fight and another 4 pound carp in the bag. This time I was lucky enough to have my dad filming the whole thing and also finally a photo of a carp in hand.

Next time I am going to hold out for the 5 pound plus sized carp.

I got some 5/0 hooks in about a week ago and finally got some time to sit down and tie one of these giants. I have to say the wing turned out alot better than I had hoped.

Two more salmon flies

Here is my latest flies that I have been working on. I really like the look of the flies, but I still have lots of work to do to improve them.

Top fly: Need to get the throat length right, the under wing should sit along the length of the hook shaft instead of up on an angle, the mallard needs to follow the under wing properly, there is a bump between the tinsel and floss which will improve if I can reduce the number of thread turns. What I do like about the fly is the silk is really nice and a spoon is a good tool for smoothing the floss.
Bottom fly: This fly almost broke me as I made 2 pairs of married wings with 5 sections, but the turkey is just really fat at the tie in point and it kept breaking the marriage, so I went with this wing instead. The head is way to fat and that is mainly due to the turkey. I also need to work on the tinsel, but I tied this before the top fly and my tinsel work is far better now.

These flies are all on 2/0 hooks which makes them a bit squashed up, I have ordered some 4/0 blind eye hooks and goose shoulders so that I can get better dimensions and married wings in the future.

Just spent last night setting the wings on this fly. It took me two hours to set the under wings and over wing to a stage that I really liked. I ended up doing each side of the over wing separately as I could not get it right at the same time.

Recipe:

Hook: 0/2
Thread: 70 denier white
Wax: Bill Bailey's white wax
Butt: small oval tinsel, green floss, natural golden pheasant crest, and peacock herl
Lower body: Red floss and green floss rib
Upper body: Yellow dubbing, barred hen hackle, and yellow dyed guinea throat hackle
Under wing: Lady Amherst and golden pheasant
Over wing: Kori Bustard
Head: Peacock herl and then 70 denier black to cover the white thread

Almost all my supplies are from http://www.feathersmc.com/ a great site for getting exotic feathers and tools for traditional salmon flies.

Salmon Flies

I finally got around to putting all the salmon flies that I have tied into boxes.

Top - My first salmon fly "rusty rat", this was tied with what I had at the time so it was not really a rusty rat.

Middle - This was my second try at tying the "rusty rat", this time I had most of the material that I needed except the peacock was standard herl not from the a peacock sword or body or head feathers which makes it look very straight. However, I really liked the look of this fly and the body was very smooth.

Bottom - This fly was practice for tying on golden pheasant crests, as you can see I did not have any natural coloured crests (but I do now, thanks to Feathersmc.com). I should have put a throat on this fly to balance the fly, but when I remembered I had already super glued the head.


This a set of Lady Amherst feather wing flys. They are not a true Lady Amherst, but still they look nice. From the top to the bottom I was changing the body sections from 1 to 3 sections with different coloured floss so that I would improve my floss wrapping to get a smooth looking body.


I finally got my order from Feathersmc.com so I could make some Dee flies (Top) and then some mated wing flies. I have not started to make mated wings as I am still in the process of trying to get just a standard wing to sit properly.

Top - This is my attempt at a Dee fly, but I did not have any spey feathers so I just used pheasant tail, problem with the pheasant tail is it is very stiff and also mates very easily. The Mallard wing was pretty easy to tie on.

Middle, Bottom - These two flies were my practice for trying to get wings to sit properly. They are tied with Kori Bustard, which I was not expected to get but was in the package from Feathermc.com. Both flies are not perfect, but were a lot of fun to tie.

Hopefully, I will get around to trying to do mated wings this week.

Lessons learnt

This is my 6th attempt at tying a fully dressed salmon fly and there were so many lessons learnt with this one fly. Firstly to get the golden pheasant crests to the desired shape they need to be soaked in water for about 30 mins and then you can create the curve by placing the fly on a flat surface with lots of water and then let the crests dry slowly as the water evaporates. To improve my butt section smoothness the tinsel needs to be stripped before tying to reduce the bump caused by the tinsel and also it is better to snip the tinsel at the end of the butt as to not cause issues in the main body. I am using uni-tread floss which is actually two twisted threads together and it is best to untwist these treads and use only one thread to get the best smoothness. To bulk up the body waxed dental floss is the best. Not only does it allow you to bulk up the body quickly and cheaply, the wax makes a really tight body and it can be easily smoothed to get the lumps out. I am still having issues with getting the wings to sit right, but they still look good, and the head is still too big. So far this is my best attempt at getting a fully dressed Salmon fly. I have ordered feathers for making mated wings, wax for improving the grip of the thread even though I am using pre waxed tying thread.