I suppose you’re thinking, “Hey Chaz! What have you been up to since your last post?”
Well, I’m glad you asked.
I’ve been reading, writing, and tying, among other things.
I’ve been getting interested in Tenkara fishing. It’s a fixed-line method from Japan. It’s simple, elegant and a different approach
to fly fishing and tying. So, a lot of
my efforts have been geared towards that.
I’m reading Daniel Galhardo’s new book, Tenkara. It’s excellent, and I’m writing a review of
the book that I’ll be publishing soon.
I’ve been tying a lot for myself. I’ve also been experimenting – something that’s
always been an important part of my tying.
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| Extended Body Kebari |
One experimental fly is an extended-body sakasa kebari. “Kebari” is the Japanese word for a fishing
fly. “Sakasa”, is a term for a reversed
hackle - one that slants forward over the eye of the hook. This is a common style for traditional
Tenkara flies. I’m using a short-shanked,
wide gape hook and a pearl core braid for the abdomen. It looks like a promising pattern that I’ll
start testing in a couple weeks.
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| A batch of Squiddies ready for the water. |
Another fly I’m looking at is something I call a “Squiddie”.
I call it that because it looks kinda
like a squid. The fly is intended for
freshwater use, and specifically trout.
Yes, I know that squid don’t live in trout streams. I’m counting on trout not being that smart, or
discriminating, and that they’ll respond to movement, color, and reflection. It will also be a hit, I’m sure, with people
who fly fish for panfish. I'm also thinking tan, gray, orange and white might make good good colors along with the pink I chose to start with.
I was poking around on Yoshikazu Fujioka’s excellent “My
Best Streams” web site and saw a picture of a Kebari used in the Itoshirogawa River region
in Japan. This wet fly used the base of a
saddle hackle for collaring. I thought
this was an interesting approach but not suited to the smaller flies I’d be
fishing. So, I tied up a few flies that
use the aftershaft or philoplume feathers found on chicken and pheasant saddles. These are like tiny marabou feathers. They’re delicate, but can be wound like
regular hackling feathers if you’re careful with them and move like crazy in the water. The finished fly looks good and they’ll be
added to my testing collection.
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| Olive ....... Thing? |
I recently got a Petitjean Magic Tool. I was using it to work with various materials and came up with an idea for a simple soft-hacked wet fly using a shaggy antron body using chenille made with the Magic Tool. The pattern has some promise I think. I don't have a name for it yet....
Finally. I was messing around one day and came up with a RS2 type fly. It has a thin, thread bodyy coated with UV resin, short, hackle-tip wings and no tails. It's shiney, colorful and has what might be a very attractive profile. The first fly was in purple, but I've been tying them in grey, back and olive as well. I plan to fish this "damp" - just below the surface, like an emergent insect such as a mayfly or caddisfly. Again, there's no name for this fly, but that won't stop me from fishing it.
So, from my vise's point of view, it will be an interesting season. New flies, new techniques and maybe even some new water.
One of the coolest things about fly tying is coming up with new flies to use. While it's true that just about any fly can and will catch trout, it's also true that some flies will work better than others. Figuring that part out, a new pattern that might work better, has always been where juice is for me.
