Tag Archives: flat wing streamer

2015: A Striper Oddity

I never thought I’d be so excited about catching four school bass. But after this crazy spring, yowzah, woo-hoo, awwwright, yessiree Bob, good golly Miss Molly, I am all fired up.

Ahem.

Now that cooler heads have prevailed, I want to tell you about my funny faux pas today at Ye Olde Striper Spot. The wind was gusting out of the NNW, 10-20 easy, and the cloud structure was breathtaking. When I waded in, I was the fifth guy at the end of the line. We were all pretty evenly (and courteously) spaced. After an hour or so, our ranks had swollen to nearly ten. Some people were catching, others were not.  I turned to look behind me and I noticed that the angler above me had closed the gap to about 30 feet. He hailed me. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” I thought I was going to get a question about the two hander, or the floating line, or what color fly I was using. No. “Can you stand back a bit? You’ve moved quite a ways toward me.”

Well, to clean up Jack Nicholson’s line from “A Few Good Men,” didn’t I feel like a freakin’ butt hole.

Sincere apologies were offered, as was a fly. I appreciated his politeness and understanding. We talked about fishing for a few minutes. Then, fences mended, we returned to our precious avocation on this strange grey-green-blue windy day.

Monday’s implements of destruction, drying for the next session. Water temp was 50 degrees.

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“The Streak” in the current issue of The Flyfish Journal

Catching a striped bass on the fly from the shore for twelve consecutive months takes determination, fortitude, and luck. It also takes you to some pretty strange places.

At long last, “The Streak” has arrived in Volume Six, Issue Three of The Flyfish Journal. “The Streak” is about my second attempt to go twelve-for-twelve, January through December. How it ends really isn’t important. It’s all about making the attempt.

Let me know if you get the chance to read it.

The Streak. Read all about it in the current issue of The Flyfish Journal.

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~

Whether they admit it or not, every outdoor writer likes seeing their work in print. When it’s in “fly fishing’s coffee-table bible,” it makes it even sweeter. In addition to the words, I have two photos in the book. I’d also like to give a shout out to my brother David, who earned a full page for his beautiful time-lapse night shot of the SoCo shoreline. David also took the photo of yours truly for the Contributors page.

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And on the 500th cast, a striped bass

It’s been a pretty weird spring for those of us who chase striped bass from the shore on the fly. Ye Olde Striper Shoppe, usually overflowing with eager school bass this time of year, continues to fail to produce. You’ve heard me say it before — every year is different — and as Joe Jackson might say, “so there goes your proof.”

I almost didn’t go yesterday because I simply wasn’t feeling it. But I talked myself into it. Not too hard a sell, since it’s got to turn on sometime, right? In the interest of avoiding crowds and trying something different, I went to a place that had no right to be holding stripers. It wasn’t. But I got my money’s worth of casting practice. Oh. And there was that rip. That paramour-sexy rip with its erotically dancing, undulating surface that made brazen overtures to my weaknesses for such water. Mark my words, there’ll be a bass or ten in it sometime soon.

I forgot my good camera. Usually that means a big striper. But you’ll have to settle for this water, weed and sand sculpture.

April sand bar

Switched from the full sink to the floater for a second piece of water. Nearly two more hours of casting practice. It was rejuvenating to perform a proper greased line swing again. (The poetic majesty of the greased line swing cannot be under-estimated.) But, time on this session had run out. Three more casts. And on the third, as the seven-inch long Crazy Menhaden flatwing swung down and across, a firm take worthy of the year’s first striper. A standard-issue school bass, under twenty inches, still wearing the colors of estuary in winter. But for today, a perfect fish.

I gotta tie some more of these. And some Rock Island flatwings, too.

Crazy CU

Soft-Hackled Flatwings, Ready to Swim

Fresh off the vise and ready to be eaten. Grey dun/fluorescent yellow, pink/chartreuse/olive, and white/blue/mallard flank. Of course, endless color variations are possible. Sparse, yet full. These are all three-and-one-half inches long.

SH FW Hybrids

Here’s the basic template:

Hook: Eagle Claw 253 1/0
Thread: 6/0
Platform: 30 bucktail hairs
Tail: Flatwing saddle to match platform color, under 2-4 strands flashabou
Body: Braid
Wing: 30-45 bucktail hairs, under 10-20 hairs contrasting color, under 2-4 strands Krystal Flash or flashabou
Collar: Blood quill marabou, tied in at tip, 3-4 turns; 1 turn mallard flank (optional)
This is one of my favorite patterns for early season stripers.

Knights of the CFFA Fly Tyers Roundtable

Camelot it is not. But if it’s a laid-back evening of fly tying, fly fishing talk and meet-and-greet, the CFFA Fly Tyers Roundtable in East Hartford is a fine place to be. Tonight I focused on soft-hackled streamers for stripers and trout. Some thanks are in order:

To the CFFA for the delicious dinner (man does not live on bread alone, but it sure helps) and for asking me to tie again;

To Bill Keister for letting me bogart his light;

And to everyone who came out on a cold, wet, rainy night. I think I can speak for every tyer when I say we appreciate it.

I don’t know what point I was trying to make, but I look pretty convincing. I think. Tying a Hi-Liter trout streamer.

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Striper Report 4/3/15: Fifty Shades of Skunk

If you read your Bible, or if you’ve been paying attention in church over the years, you know that St. Peter had two jobs. I don’t know how good a fisherman he was, but I like that he fished for a living. I’ve gotten it into my head that given Peter’s involvement in the crucifixion, Good Friday is an appropriate day to honor him by going fishing. Striper fishing, specifically. So I’ve been doing that for years now.

With our prolonged winter and spring’s current refusal to make a proper stand on the issue of warm and sunny, I figured it would be a little early to find linesiders at Ye Olde Striper Spot. But you don’t know if you don’t go. Besides, I could shake off the big rod casting rust. And there was that EP Carrillo Golossos I had been saving.

Rain and wind, followed by mist and fog and utter calm. You could probably count fifty shades of grey here, but the only spanking was handed out by the bass. 50 Shades of Grey

The water was loaded with organic flotsam: leaves and sticks and bark and reeds. I was surprised to see 42 degrees on my thermometer. No bass that I could find, nor any reported by the three other anglers who had the good sense to leave ninety minutes before I did. But I was glad that they left, because I got to fish in this gorgeous greyness all by myself. Well, just me and St. Peter.

Yes, it was wet out there. I love Ken Abrames’ RLS Easterly color scheme (grey, silver, peacock, and a touch of fluorescent yellow) on days like this. A little color goes a long way. The fly is a sparse, soft-hackled flatwing.  Rod-Fly-Grey

Currentseams Q&A video debut: Adding weight (or not) to striper flies

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Currentseams Q&A videos.

I really like the idea of answering questions in a video/podcast format. It allows me to provide more comprehensive answers, and include visual elements in my explanations. Everyone learns differently, and I hope this covers more bases for more people.

What’s more, while the internet is a terrific way to connect with people many miles away, sometimes the written word can’t compete with a little face time. (Although you may see now why I have a great face for radio.) Victor Borge said, “The shortest distance between two people is a laugh.” I hope these will be fun as well as instructive.

If there’s a question you’d like answered, send me an email or leave a comment. In the meantime, I hope this helps.

Paul’s Striper Fly Selection

Paul was the lucky winner of the Currentseams 200th Follower Contest. He had his choice of striper, trout, or steelhead flies, and Paul went with the striped bass fly selection. He also mentioned that he was a big fan of the spring cinder worm hatch, so I tied up a bunch of Orange Ruthlesses, my favorite clam worm fly. I also included some sand eel patterns, some soft-hackle/flatwing baitfish, and a classic sparse bucktail.

Starting clockwise from bottom center: the Orange Ruthless, a single-feather flatwing; a Big Eelie in the Bruiser color template; the Golden Knight, a matchstick sand eel bucktail; a juvenile herring bucktail, unnamed, tied so sparse you can read a newspaper through it; a soft hackle/flatwing hybrid in Ray’s Fly colors (a good fly on a bright day); and a soft-hackle/flatwing hybrid in Easterly colors (tailor-made for a gray-green rainy blow).

Paul's Flies

Thanks to Paul for allowing me to take my time with these.

We’ll have another fly giveaway when we reach 300 followers. Thanks to everyone for your support, readership, and kind words.

Return of the Good Night For The Five Weight

Some day, I’ll have to tell you about the two nights in October many years ago when I caught seventy-five striped bass on the five-weight. But for Friday night, one was the number I happily settled for. It’s been a tough fall for me, with many hours put in for very few stripers. Such is the price of exploring uncharted potential big bass waters.

So Friday night I returned to some old haunts in Rhode Island. Even on the inside, a steady 15mph southwest blow made casting a chore. The first place I fished was a blank. I wasn’t feeling it from the start. So I went back to the truck for for Plan B, swapping out my three-fly rig for a single fly, a Crazy Menhaden flatwing/bucktail hybrid.

I spooked a bass on the wade out, so that was encouraging. Inside of five minutes, I had a follow and a missed hook set. Also encouraging. Then nothing during a half hour of casting, mending, swinging, and dangling. Weeds were a minor nuisance. Suddenly, bang. I was on. A twenty-four inch bass in a ripping current on a five-weight is about as much fun as you can have wearing nylon pants and rubber boots. If this were a Hardy Boys book, I’d say I chortled.

The last stop was anticlimactic. How far the mighty have fallen: this used to be a place I’d visit when I absolutely positively needed a striper. I don’t think I’ve taken a bass here for three years now. But the heavens were lovely and deep, and a shooting star was my reward for looking up at the right moment.

The wind was still blowing when I climbed into bed at 3am.

Crazy Menhaden flatwing/bucktail. Friday night, one of these in the 7″-8″ range made a crazy good-enough mullet.

Crazy CU

First stripers of (by the calendar) fall

My calendar is a little different from the rest of the world’s. For me, fall starts in early August, around the time of the Dog Days (another widely misunderstood meteorological phrase, but that’s for another post).

I have been getting my butt kicked on the striper front for the last several weeks, with not even a bump to show for the hours I’ve been putting in. It looked like more of the same last night. Spot  A was the outside of a jetty with the two-hander and an 8″ September Night variant. Bupkiss. I turned to the inside of the jetty, where I performed some greased line swings on the incoming tide that were utterly poetic in execution, if not result.

Got into my truck and drove to Spot B, a bottleneck on the inside. Pods of worried mullet, but nothing I could find that would cause them any kind of neurosis. (See “Spot A/Inside” above for summation of activity and results.)

I was getting a little bummed at this point.

Off to Spot C, a location on a different inside that was perfect for the five-weight. And there I found them. Scads of silversides and a several marauders willing to jump on. Sure, they were all south of 20″, but they hit with fierce conviction — and any striper is unequivocally joyous on the five-weight. I fished a three fly team of a small, sparse PB bucktail on the top dropper, a sparse Eelie on the the middle dropper, and a small September Night on point. I took fish on all three. I savored the romance of wet fly fishing for stripers with a five-weight rod on a lovely fall night with a JR Cuban Alternate Cohiba Esplendido.

Si. Muy bueno.

How sparse is sparse? If you can read a newspaper through the fly, it’s sparse. One of last night’s winning flies.

Sparse PB Bucktail