Rob G

I agree Terry, rather the white bass be running rather than me.

Well a linear progression of question marks will get you nowhere, but a geometric progression......well, now we're talkin' (Did this post show up in a timely fashion)

You my friend have not typed in enough "question marks" to truly deserve that answer.

Very big shoes to fill but you're just the man to do it.

OK, the Drum win, I'm waving the white flag. Spent a couple hours at these two pools which contained numerous drum, showed them small bright minnows, instead caught dink smallies, showed them Clouser swimmng nymph, instead caught dink smallies, and this one kills me to admit because I hate these things but I showed them a San Juan worm, you guessed it, caught a dink smallie. Small crayfish, again nope. I have better luck with carp.

Oh, I hate you.....Ha I'm telling you, I have seen some really healthy sized drum this year, and hopefully I'll get a chance to post a photo. btw, I see that artistic thread wrap, very nice !

I was reading on another board that many use a small 1-1.5" bright minnow pattern made mostly out of flashabou, similar to your grass carp fly. Going to try that and Josh's idea of a Clouser swimming nymph since I'm pretty sure I have a few of those somewhere, used in the past for carp.

Drum........3 Rob G......0

Yea, the Drum are winning. Drum....... 2 Rob G.......0 They have to eat something. Ever tried pulling a fairly large nymph in front of those ugly mugs? We used to always catch them on crawlers when I was a kid, maybe time to break out Rich's Worm fly?

Very observant Johnny G, I had to go back and look at the other photo to be sure but it appears to have been just a leaf beneath the fish. Btw, ran into a school of Drum and so tied on your small crayfish and hopped it right in front of their noses. The line went taut and I thought, "All right", fish on and it's a good one, but when it grabbed some air, I realized it wasn't a drum but rather a real nice smallie. Unfortunately he came off but would have made for a nice story.

Hit a favorite stream a couple days ago and of course the water is very low and very clear. I had found a couple decent fish when I finally came upon a pool which you could see held a lot of smaller fish. Since I hadn't yet connected with anything larger, thought maybe I could entertain myself with catching a bunch of smaller smallies. It was obvious that I was going to be forced to make long casts with my long leader. So as I'm looking in my flybox for a fly that I could cast a mile and thought wouldn't be too large for what I expected to be 8-10" smallies, I spotted Colin's fly that we had tied this year at one of our winter fly tying gatherings. The classic deer hair or bucktail streamer. I'm guessing this has to be one of the very first streamers that was ever tied hundreds of years ago because of its simplicity and widely available materials (minus the tinsel wrap of course). Well anyway, on it went and cast after cast yielded an aggresive smaller fish. After about a dozen caught I noticed a couple bigger boys were swimming thru the pool and with no time to cut and retie a larger fly, I made a cast and started stripping hard. One of the two turned and gave chase and as I'm stripping fast in order to make it appear as though that small baitfish is trying to flee, he nailed it. He came in at just over 18". I continued to fish that fly much of the day where I didn't need to get down too deep and it provided a few more decent fish. It's neat to see a fly that is hundreds of years old still catching fish today, so thank you Colin for reminding us of that classic bucktail streamer. . Tied on a Mustad 3xl size 4 streamer hook, lower wing of white bucktail fibers and top wing from the natural brown bucktail fibers on the top of the tail. . by robow 77

Thanks Eric, it did have numerous filamentous legs and seemed adept at crawly slowly on the bottom yet would be easy prey for most fish. I do not see them often but only on a couple streams I frequent.

Hey guys, I saw this in about a foot or two of water today on the stream I was fishing. I have seen these in the past, always in the fall, but they were on rocks at the waters edge. They're about 5 inches long and and as thick as my little finger, looks like a Senko....Ha. Got any ideas what they are? I'm sure they would be a tasty treat for a smallie.

Photo please of glue to tail technique. Thanks, Rob

Doh ! Sorry Have to go with braids for better hook sets, with or without barb, therefore less thrown hooks but this is of course theoretical and based on anecdotal evidence.

Mark, is there a reason you don't just mash down the barbs and / or take a quick file to the hooks you already use and see how they work for you? Sorry if I missed something here?

Got a chance to head to a nearby pond this afternoon to try out a couple of the hollow fleyes using the mono loop and trailing hook as shown in the above video, post 51 bottom line >>>> Don't waste your time, the fly loses all its shake and bake action and even its shape is somewhat distorted. Another "looks good in the vise and in theory" but it won't hunt as well IMO.

Hey Josh and others, have any of you tied these things up by clipping the hook and using a trailer hook via mono loop tied in like this video displays. I like the look of this because it keeps the hook towards the rear, hopefully reducing those short strikes which are quite common with this fly. Not sure if the trailing hook will get hung up with the craft fur and/or impede the movement but I'm definitely going to tie a couple up like this and see how they perform.

Thanks Josh, I appreciate your opinion and the reference to the Bad Hair Day fly. Good stuff there.

I sent that to a friend and he seems to have enjoyed it as much as I did, but now he's calling me "Creek dog" Ha

A couple thoughts on this fly now that I have had a chance to use it more. Consider using a loop knot when tying on. Not always the case but on this particular fly, I seem to get greater side to side movement which entices. Tie it using a pretty WIDE gap hook. There is a lot of material tied to the shaft and found that I didn't get a good hook set on some of the flies that I tied when using a size 4 standard Daiichi stainless hook. I'm now using a Gamy Stinger hook while opening the gap just a touch and have had far less fish coming off. I can't make a good case for tying the fly with eyes on. I think it looks cooler but I fished a couple that had caught so many fish that the eyes eventually came off and yet the fly kept producing at the same rate. Jury is still out on this. Don't hesitate to load the front of the fly with heavier amounts of material vs. the rear. In much of fly tying, we always hear.... sparse is better but the front of this fly seems to appreciate more material, hence the wider gap hook to deal with that. This one is a keeper for sure since it has accounted for many of my larger fish this year, and at about 4" it seems a nice size that larger fish might appreciate. Btw, I would love to hear any thoughts that others might have on their design or use of this fly.

Mike, I finally got a chance today to spend some serious time on the water (about 8 1/2 hours) and put those flies to good use. It started slow but heated up as the water heated up. I rang up 3 x 17", 2 x 16", and a half dozen 15"ers along with numerous smaller fish. Your maribou/crosscut rabbit contributed nicely to those larger fish. White was right and the movement was ample in the clear low water. The other fly using the new material has a decent amount of movement if worked properly but it's not going to move much when the fly is not being stripped. Also the profile is smaller than I normally like to use if I think there are decent fish in the area. I think it would be an outstanding fly for white bass, rock bass, crappie or on some of the small streams that I fish where a 15" is about as large as I can hope for and often will fish with my 4 wt rod which would cast that fly with ease. The other fly that continues to do well is that Hollow fleye. It accounted for several nice fish today along with Lefty's popper which grabbed the largest fish at 17.5 " ( I had to use white calf tail since I don't own any white squirrel tail..... I need to take a trip to Olney, IL google it : )

Thanks Mike, that was well worth reading ! Sounds like I need to redesign my poppers. Ha

I guess it would depend on what weight rod you are using and how large a fly did you tie. I don't feel it would be easy with my 5 weight rods since I'm tying this as a rather large fly but it is not like casting a heavy wet sock either. The synthetic craft fur sheds water pretty easily.