Happy New Years

 

I hope everyone had a good year and that 2024 is even better.  And I want to thank everyone who continued to read this blog even when other commitments (my ankle) forced me to sit on the bench for a while.  We still have the most pageviews of any New England blog and we will continue to bang away at it!!!

See you in 2024!!                           

Ken

The Dusty Partridge

An old fashioned fly, in the same class as the Picket Pin, that has never left home before a day on the stream.  It is half nymph and half streamer although it is more of the former than the latter. And it is a REAL freestone fly because of it's size (size 12 hook) and its somber hue. 

The tail is made of partridge hackles and the body is from that partridge fluff that is so underrated.  The key is the four turns of full size partridge hackle that's palmered onto the hook. The only "flash" is a bit of brown ice dubbing. It is fished with some wire weight by the head or none at all.

No Beads!!!

After I tie one I run it under some water and then squeeze the water out while pushing the hackle fibers back.  Does it make a difference?  Probably not but I like it and enough trout and bass do to!!!

Have a great Holiday, whatever it may be, and I'll see you in 2024. My ankle is almost back in form.

Ken

 

Tiny Fish (What Big Fish Want)

 There's a fine line between fishing and standing in the water like at idiot"  - Steven Wright

One of my favorite spots to cast a fly is on a section of the East Branch of the Westfield River (more commonly known as the EB) and that spot is known as the Slant Rock Pool. From the tail of this water to the fast water at the head it is "dry fly land".  Morning shadows cover this water in Summer until around 11 am and then the shadows creep back in around 8 in the evening. 20 foot drifts are common here.  It's a great place but it holds another secret: the place is alive with tiny emerald shiners.  Some of these little guys get caught in seasonal pools and can't make it back the EB.  But enough get back to feed the trout that we are after.  

   

When I don't think there will be much in the way of surface activity I'll tie on a tiny shiner pattern that is only about an inch long tied onto a size 8 short shank egg hook.  The little guys seem to want to hang out in the deeper sections and this pattern with its heavier hook gets their attention !

The  material that I use for this fly is the same as I use for stripers, it's just scaled down to fit the game. I've used this Tiny bait fish pattern at Wachusett with good results.

Ken

Why I Don't like Beadheads

 

The great Sylvester Nemes was the godfather of the soft hackle fly.  Now, I said "godfather" and not the "creator" of the soft hackle. That distinction goes back centuries to who knows who (too many to name here) but Nemes brought the fly back from the dead and showed us all how to fish it.  He also lived long enough to see what we did to this fly - we gave it a metal helmet which it never needed and called it a beadhead!!!!

His wife was pretty vocal about this concoction and said more than once that Sylvester did not consider it to really be flyfishing. An old fishing buddy (Jim Bowker) of Sylvester's said that Nemes would chew his butt off when he saw him fishing a beadhead.  

I have written on this blog how I think that the BH stretches the definition of flyfishing by showing anyone who was interested that a trout will grab a bead that has been glued to a hook and doesn't really look like trout food.  Thomas Ames, Jr., who wrote the great book, Hatch Guide For New England Streams, really couldn't say what the bead was supposed to represent.  I think it's just an attractor that sinks unnaturally fast and that's that!!!!!

In the past 25 years the vast majority of my sunken fly trout have been caught on soft hackles. Most of the time I use no weight but when I do it's with drop shot. I get hung up enough to know that I'm fishing in the zone.  If I see surface activity it's very easy to pull off the shot and go at it.

BTW, I fish subsurface on the Swift with nothing smaller that 5X and my 5X gets me down quick enough and I believe I've never had a refusal on the Swift because of 5X tippet.

Ken