review of 2013

[Guest rich mc]

looking back at 2013 , what material, hook or fly made an impact on your tying and fishing. mine has been the use of eyelash type

yarns and t shirt paint for the heads and eyes . rich mc

[Tom L]

Happy New Year everyone. 2013 is the year of craft fur for me. The 2 new winners are the iBait and the CF Muddler.

 

 

Both of these are deadly baitfish imitations. In stillwaters (lake & harbor), I often fished them in tandem using sink tip or full sinking line to get them down, the iBait as the lead fly and the CF Muddler as the trailer. In rivers however, I usaully fished the Foxy Crawdad and CF Muddler in tandem. The iBait has not been as effective in moving waters.

 

[Mike G]

I am awarding three prizes for 2013.

 

In lure making the prize goes to Yellowtail bottle corks. The sturdy material made an excellent body for the Airick Spintail Popper which was an outstanding surface bait for me this year.

 

 

In fly materials Distinctive Fabrics Husky Fur wins for putting the fly in the Flying Fly.

 

 

The overall winner is AFW single strand stainless wire which is the frame for the Airick and a cost effective way to make fish skeletons.

 

[Terry Dodge]

I got an idea of cutting the tentacles from the backend of tube baits I use when spin gear fishing.

(after I got the full use of the tube of course)

 

 

 

The idea was to use these tentacles for fly tying. Ended up not being the greatest idea. I was having problems

with the thread slicing through the soft plastic texture of the tentacles and watching the tentacles drop from the back

of the hook shank that was gripped in my vise and onto the top of my tying desk when I tried to tightened the thread and tentacles to the hook shank.

 

I was disappointed in the failure of being able to tie the tentacles to the hook shank. Smallies love these tubes and if

I could use these tentacles then I could tie up a bunch of tube like flies, right?

 

My wife had something for me to fix one day and as I was searching for a tool in my tool cabinet in the garage I stumbled across some plumbers tape. You know, the white tape stuff you wrap around pipe threads to prevent any leakage.

 

 

 

 

Hey! I have an idea!

 

I sat back down at the tying bench armed with my little roll of plumbers tape.

I pinched the tentacles to the shank and made a couple loose wraps to hold them in place and ran the thread back

up towards the hook eye to get the bobbin out of my way.

I used about a 4" piece of the plumbers tape and began to wrap it on the hook shank just above the tentacles and

wrapped the tape back down the shank and over the tentacles pulling tighter with every wrap.

I ran my thread and bobbin back down the shank, over the plumbers tape and secured the tentacles to the shank.

Success!!!

The plumbers tape is tough enough that the thread does not slice through it.

I have yet to test the durability of this tube bait fly but from the tugs I have given it I think the fly will stay together

and produce 22" smallies from out of the Kish.

 

Not the best pic but you get the idea....

 

 

[Tom L]

Terry, that is a good way of reusing the tubes. I thought of another way if you are willing to try:

 

1. wrap a lead wire onto the hook shank.

2. wrap thread onto the hook shank and over the wraped lead wire.

3. coat the hook shank and the wraped lead wire with glue or head cement.

4. insert an ear plug onto the hook shank.

5. coat the ear plug with glue.

6. insert the used tube over the hook and the ear plug.

 

This fly will look exactly like your regular tube lure, but can be casted with a fly rod.

[Terry Dodge]

That'll be bit heavy won't it?

[Terry Dodge]

The tube itself is pretty heavy and then the added lead wraps make it even heavier.

Not sure what the purpose of the ear plug is? Plus that is even more added weight as far as flies are concerned.

I guess the idea of the ear plug is to hold the tube in place to keep it from moving?

I'll give it a try but still think it'll be too heavy. For me to cast that is.

[Mike G]

Terry,

 

This may not be good news. Ages ago I tried casting 4" Crème worms with my 8/9 weight. No problem with the casting part. Problem was that about every 10-15 minutes the tail of the worm was sheared off by the line, leader, or whatever. I stopped the experiment there. I would be afraid that the recycled tube bait tentacles on your fly would suffer the same fate.

Only recently since we have the far tougher Elaztech and Cyberflex worms in 4" lengths salted to sink have I gotten back to fly casting worms since they are not destroyed like the softer plastisol worms. The silicon skirt material that Craig uses on the Hairy Fodder also is tough enough to take the yin-yang of fly fishing. So I am wondering, why you don't use skirt materials instead of the recycled tube tentacles?

[Guest rich mc]

similar is craigs we willie wiggler fly there is a utube video of him tying it at a conclave he uses the tenackles from squeeze toys they are fish

catchers. rich mc

[Jim Wright]

 

I didn't reuse any material for this pattern, however, looks like we are riding the same thought train. Fished it last season with limited success. It's a mutha to cast!

[Terry Dodge]

Jim - Yes, looks as if we are on the same "thought train".

Who do you pick to win the Super Bowl?

[Jim Wright]

Hmmm. If I'm betting. I'm going with Seattle. Defense wins championships and the Seahawks are tuned up.

Yet I would love to P. Manning get another one.

[Mike G]

I think Peyton will get another ring. The new Orange Chrush bottled up the Brady bunch in the end. So we have A Manning offense at its peak with a top flight defense.

[Terry Dodge]

I hear a lot of talk about Seattle's defense but I really believe that Payton is going to tear them.

Manning is playing too damn good right now. I just have to believe that as good as Payton is playing right now and as strong as his

arm still is this far into the season and as framing smart as the guy is, there's just no stopping him at this point.

Much like M. Jordan with the Bulls, we are very lucky to be able to watch a player such as Manning. He will never be topped.