So I thought I'd post a new fly from this Fall's streamer wars.
But first some background. According to BC fisheries biolgist T.E. Reimchen's
Evolutionary Attributes of head first prey manipulation and swallowing in piscivores, trout tend to swirl on minnows and bite from the side, at mid-minnow, with a quick hard bite designed to stun and disable the minnow. Then they bite again, this time tossing and juggling the minnow into a head-first-down-the-gullet orientation, before chewing and swallowing.
That's why you miss more strikes with streamers than any other form of fly fishing: fish bite and let go on purpose. That's they way they do it. If the minnow turns out not to feel or taste like a minnow they abort the swallowing steps. You could make soft plastic minnows they bite a second third and fourth time. Or you could work with other hooking arrangements combined with fur feathers and other more traditional materials.
So now the punchline. Largely traditional streamers--tied with a short-shank stinger hook trailing behind on a short length of soft supple Dacron backing-- hook better than streamers tied on rigid long shank hooks. That was my hunch anyway. And it turns out to be unequivocally true. In my experience anyway. Lots of tiers have been making "Articulated" streamers with trailing stingers. Kelly Gallup is perhaps the most widely recognized. But Kelley uses stinger hook technology to make giant minnows for hunting huge brown trout at dawn, dusk and during Spring and Fall. What I'm doing here is to make stinger hook streamers even in the smaller sizes, for use at any time. For hunting trout of all sizes. I like stinger hooks because they hook SO much better than long shanked hooks. Regardless size.
This one is made with a swivel attached to a short hook, snelled on some backing. But you
could (like most other tiers) make the front part out of a second hook. If you do use two hooks it helps to snip the bend off the front hook so you end up using the shank and eye only. That keeps the stinger from constantly tangling with a front hook that never hooks the fish anyway.....it's always the trailing stinger that gets them.
http://web.uvic.ca/~reimlab/headfirst.pdf <== TE Reimchen's paper on Head first prey manipulation in piscivores
Any hook that looks good
Two badger hackles
A clump of Pearl Ice Dub
Glue on prism eyes (or metal barbells)
....all tied on a swivel.
This one has fluorescent green backing and fluorescent pink thread. But those colors are how you like it.
Tie some backing to a swivel. Flatten the rear loop of the swivel with pliers. Snell a hook. Put a thin needle in the vise horizontally. Poke the needle into the rear end of the swivel. Lash the swivel onto the needle. Wrap over the flattened metal loop. Soak it with water based fabric cement. Add two feathers. Add a clump of Ice Dub. Glue on two prism eyes. I start gluing with CA glue and then finish up with a UV flashlight and UV glue.
g catching fly. You can add barbells up front if you want more weight.
This is a simple and good fishing catching fly. You can add barbells up front if you want more weight.