Fly Rod Flure Summary
I'll add another photo at some point. I've definitely learned something and I also think I'm onto something hot. Hot as a pistol. This feels like a throbbing bent rod to me.
I don't know much about bass fishing. I did it as a kid in New Jersey and then moved West and never looked back. Most bass lures float at rest and dive only upon steady retrieve. Some, like Countdown Rapalas sink a little. But not much. You've got to count a long time before they go very far. West Coast Steelheaders pull plugs with large-billed "Hot Shots" that dive well. But they too float at rest. They require an oarsman in a big drift boat to pull back hard on the oars so the downstream current pulls a big lure down. Wiggling as it goes. In that sense, among plug pullers it's the oarsman who's doing most of the fishing.
When I make my flures I (still) never know exactly what I'm going to get. About half of my efforts work right off the vise. Half need considerable tuning in the bath tub. I mentioned a bullet list of tuning techniques above. When I'm done some of my efforts wiggle widely. Some wiggle with a more tight vibration. Some dive better than others. Some dive like daemons but don't wiggle much. Some don't wiggle at all but dive and dart left and right, veering off on long high speed tangents. All are valuable.
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The one trait they all share is sink. They all sink quickly
even at rest, because that's what I want. I make them that way. That's what works best for fishing in rivers while wading, walking standing and casting. And for casting toward holding spots from a moving drift boat. Because my flures sink I can cast them upstream and let them drift, gaining depth as they go. Once they get even a bit downstream they begin to move and at that point they still hold their depth--rather than shooting right back up to the surface, as most downstream wet flies do as your line straightens out. And when I'm casting from the front of a moving drift boat, usually casting a bank side holding spots or mid-river seams, they don't shoot back up to the surface
when I strip them in.
This is something you cannot buy. There is no sinks-even-at-rest diving wiggling or darting flure for sale anywhere in the world. They're powerful fish-catching machines and the only way to get them is to make them yourself. Floating fly rod divers
are for sale. You can still buy small #1 and #2 Flat Fish. But those are floating divers that never gain much depth and they're not easy to cast. Castable diving fly rod wigglers, that sink even at rest you have to make. There is no other way.
The ability to put action on a small streamer-like fly WITHOUT immediately pulling it right back up to the surface is lighting in a bottle. These really are fish-catching little machines. I have access to a small private section of a famous Spring Creek. I won't say where for obvious reasons and I'm not the only one allowed to fish there. Traditional fly fishing is often fabulous there during peak mid-summer hatching events. And in the evenings too. There are some giant fish in that tiny little creek. But in the late afternoons when the bugs aren't hatching or in the Fall when the season's bug events are long gone traditional match-the-hatch fly fishing techniques will leave you empty handed and frustrated.
During those midday slow times, however, I can still wack'em. Big time. With small (very small) down and across streamers. And even better yet with tiny wigglers. Small spring creek wigglers are like a fly fisherman's Kentucky Moonshine on a Friday night.
Halford's Ghost