Fugly Foam Floating Flies.

Sexy Loops have just put up an article of mine on foam flies. I am a convert. Using these flies is much more fun than being grown up.

Just a Quick Content Warning: Anyone of a purist dry-fly persuasion or of a delicate disposition should proceed under caution.

Posted by Tony Bishop in fishing flies, fly tying

Sneaky Buggers Catch More Trout

“Trout aren’t stupid. They might be brainless and lack creativity (a lot like the creators of Gilligan’s Island), but they’re survivors. And they didn’t get that way by offering themselves up as a meal for every predator that wanders by. Which – if you stop to watch most fly fishers on the water – begs the obvious question. Why don’t more fly fishers act like predators?”

This piece on the Trout Underground offers good advice on getting close to a trout, in a fly-fishing way of course.

Posted by Tony Bishop in fly fishing how-to

Booby Fly Variants


I promised some time ago to put up a photo of Booby fly variants on the Booby fly article, and finally I found my round-to-it, and it is up there, and as a special bonus it is here as well.

Top is a Rabbit Booby, next a Mink Booby.
The third from the top is a Sparkle Booby, good daytime fly and on moonlit nights.
The Viva Variant Booby is good at night and during the day – yes I know the rule, dark flies for the dark bright flies for the light – rules are for the obedience of fools, merely guides for the wise.
The Little Black Number is good at night and in the day – read the rule above.
The bottom fly, a Blob Booby works well at night and daytime too.

There are tying and fishing instructions for all variants in the original article.

Posted by Tony Bishop in fishing flies, fly tying

The Words Get in the Way

It was interesting, the reports in US web-sites about a Kiwi angler who “snagged” a 700lb tuna. Great fish and all, but the reports show just how different Amglish has become. The reports I am sure were meant to indicate the angler had caught the fish, but in English snagged means to foul-hook a fish, by accident or worse.

The list of the differences between English and Amglish are many, but some can lead to great embarassment – like when I asked a Secretary of a company I was visiting in the US for a rubber. Fortunately help was at hand to explain I wanted an eraser.

I can still remember my reaction when a female US client of mine asked me to hand her, her fanny pack. In English ‘fanny’ is not the backside, and only females have one.

Still I suppose that all these differences only serve to enrich the language, because if English is nothing else it is constantly evolving. But there is one word that Amglish has invented that has no place in anybodies language, and that is ‘gotten’, it is ugly, it is inelegant, and the originator should be shot at dawn ?

Posted by Tony Bishop in fishing humour, Life & Stuff

The Trout I Did Not Want To Have to Catch

He was my oldest friend. From age 10 we have fished, dived, and generally had a hell of a good time, with lots of “frivolity”. It was his Birthday just on a month a ago, and I rang him to see what he wanted for his birthday.

He replied that he wanted the gift of my company, and if at all possible a trout for dinner and a bit of frivolity. I could not refuse, especially as this birthday would be his last.

So I took off for Taupo the afternoon before the party, filled with performance anxiety. Providing fish to order is usually the kiss of death. Not this night. On only the 3rd or 4th cast I hooked up on the wonderful fish you see here. I duly landed it, killed it, gilled and gutted it, and packed it in ice in a chilly-bin, and back I drove the 3.5 hours back to Auckland.

I arrived before the other guests, laid the trout on a very big square of aluminium foil, splashed on the liberal dose of white wine, lots of pepper and salt, plenty of chopped corriander and mint. Then I pulled up the sides of the foil, and formed a ‘tent’ over the fish by wrapping the edges of the foil over themselves, several times. Then I popped it on the barbecue to allow the trout to slowly steam. Just as my friend had ordered it cooked.

The trout went down a treat, so did plenty of wine, and there was lots of frivolity – just what my friend ordered.

I did not want to catch that fish, I did not want to face the reality that he and I would never fish together again. And we won’t – he died last week. But, the rivers are still flowing.

Posted by Tony Bishop in Articles and stories on fishing in general

Cheats and Fishing

A little while ago I was having a few drinks with a group of fishy characters. The group included well-known big-game fishing charter-boat skippers, some deck-hands, and small-boat charter skippers, and a few fly fishing guides.

The subject of discussions was records, competitions, trophy fish, and the lengths some people will go to to win them. These discussions exposed the dark side of the fishing force.

Without exception, each of the group, (around 15), had been and are still, regularly offered many financial inducements to ‘bend the rules’ so that the client would win a competition, gain a world record, or ‘catch’ a trophy trout. Actually they are offered bribes, not financial inducements, let’s call it for what it is; a payment to cheat.

The full story is here

Posted by Tony Bishop in Articles and stories on fishing in general

Bead Flies and Adding Weight

I have had quite a few questions about adding extra weight to bead flies.

The short answer is that it is really not possible to add lead, or similar, to bead nymphs. But of course a gold or tungsten bead or two can be used when assembling the fly.

But when considering how much weight to use for a bead nymph, think on this:

  • Glass bead nymphs are relatively heavy, and in my experience heavier than similar lead weighted nymphs.
  • Because there is little or no fur or feather, little or no floatation from trapped air is possible.
  • The nymphs tend to be slimmer than ‘fur’ nymphs, and sink faster.

I think this ability to sink faster is one of the keys to the success of bead flies. They are ‘fishing’ longer than standard fur and feather nymphs.

Another question that hits my email is whether bead flies will take brown trout. This I think is based on the thought and fact that rainbows tend to take more colourful flies than browns. The bead flies I make for browns use dark coloured beads, often all black.

The bead fly article that raises all these questions is here.

Posted by Tony Bishop in fly tying

Dry Flies in Winter?

I have just spent a couple of weeks fishing in the Taupo region. Well fishing is stretching it a bit. The first week the weather was atrocious, snow, rain persisting down, and gale force winds – and that was the good bits!

But it cleared up; I stopped swearing at the weather, which I have noticed in the past seems to have absolutely no effect on it what-so-ever, and went fishing. I had already decided that I was not not going to fish elephant-gun tactics – chucking and ducking nymphs the size and weight of a 9mm bullet, or heaving out fast sinking shooting-heads, in the big water of the Tongariro; this has well and truly lost its charm.

So I wandered up the smaller rivers. But I had forgotten that it was school holidays – what clown decided to give kids holidays in the middle of winter? So I attempted to fish the pools away from the teeming, water-thrashing hordes. This proved to be frustrating; regular floods have filled these unpopular pools with trees and the bits of same. Every drift it seemed would hook up on some bit of drowned timber or other. But there were fish there, deep in the jungle. Smart fish these Kiwi trout.

Help was at hand though, and I yet again grateful for a life-time habit of reading extensively. I had a month or two before read a book, ‘Tying Flies with Foam Fur and Feather‘ by Harrison Steeves. I had even got round to tying a few of these monstrous creations. Hidden away somewhere in that book was Harrison’s observation that he uses his foam flies in winter. That piece of information, hopped out from the dark depths of my mind, and demanded action.

So rather than lose more nymphs, I tied on one of the foam flies I had made ugly, tied a little gold-beaded thingy fly about 10cm away from the bend of the foam fly. Then I launched this combination out over the subterranean forest, with absolutely no confidence at all.

First drift, and the foam fly was monstered by a hen rainbow of 3kg (6lb). She and another four fish of around the same weight hit the fly, realised too late their mistake, but finally swam away once I removed the hook.

Three more pools, pretty much the same result, give or take a few fish up or down. Next day, more of the same, and the next, and the next.

The most surprising thing to me (after finally trying using a dry fly in winter) was the number of anglers who walked past, saw what I was doing, shook their head at the antics of the ‘old duffer’, and carried on to fish the crowded pools. Hope they never read this!

So they say that if you don’t learn something new every day, you had better pinch yourself, because you might be dead. It just seems to me a great shame that learning about foam flies in winter has come so late in my fishing career.

 

Posted by Tony Bishop in fly fishing how-to

Winter in The Other New Zealand Fly Fishing Destination

If you were to read the magazines, watch videos, and view reports on the net, you could get the impression that New Zealand fly fishing was confined to the South Island – or the ‘Mainland’ as South Islanders call it – and confined to Summer. Not so!

The South Island Fishery has a great deal going for it; big fish in clear water, demanding fishing even for good and better fly fishers. Most South Island waters are open during Summer, but closed during Winter. But the North Island too, has superb fishing, in clear streams and rivers as well, especially throughout the central North Island, and especially for anglers prepared to venture off the beaten tracks. But many of these streams and rivers are closed over Winter as well. So what do do over Winter, apart from tie flies, tell lies, and wait?

The good news is that much of the Lake Taupo area, on the Central North Island Plateau is open over Winter (May through August), and it is the time Rainbow and brown trout head up the rivers and streams (all 47 of them that flow into Lake Taupo) to spawn. (Most of the rivers, have closures on the upper reaches to facilitate undisturbed spawning from the end of June, and many smaller streams are closed over Winter.)

So what is the attraction of this fishery; remembering it is often colder than a mother-in-law’s stare? Well trout that average 2.2kg (4.5lb) is for starters, for more go here.

Posted by Tony Bishop in fly fishing

The Mystery of the Ratty Fly

“It’s an ages-old question: Do trout sometimes prefer a beat-up pattern?”
The excellent MidCurrent blog features an excellent (of course) article by Paul Schullery on the old question of whether ratty, beat-up flies catch more fish than neat’n’tidy offerings.

I’m a believer. I have written a couple of articles on this theme, Rufazgutz, and Imitation or Approximation.

If you buy store-bought flies, have a read of these articles and then take to your flies with something rough like a piece of hacksaw blade or a piece of Velcro. Picking out some fur with a pin or needle will help too. And as the article says if your fly gets a bit ratty, but is still catching fish, for goodness sake keep using it.

Commercially tied flies are tied to meet the demands of the first rule of fishing tackle retailing; ‘First Catch Your Fisherman’. I should know – I owned a tackle shop for ten years.

Posted by Tony Bishop in fishing flies, fly tying