Just completed a new article for the Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide: “A Good Night For The Five-Weight.”

May24

I don’t fish for stripers like most people do. Sparse flies with no eyes. Floating lines. And perhaps most of all, unconventional rods.

For five years now, I’ve been catching striped bass on my trusty five-weight. The first time I used it, I fished in fear. The second time, more excited than frightened. By the third outing, I had completely embraced the concept of using lighter tackle to fish for stripers. Every year I try to push the limits of what I can to with my nine-foot TFO TiCr. Every year, I discover that I have far more power with a lighter rod than I ever imagined. Not to mention fun.

My new personal best on the five-weight, This 33″ chubette from a few weeks ago had some shoulders. She easily went 15 lbs.

For those of you interested in exploring the wonders and challenges of catching bass on lighter tackle, “A Good Night For The Five-Weight” covers basics like rod selection, rigging, and how to play and quickly land larger fish. It will be in the July 2013 issue of the Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide. You can find a copy of the Guide in fly shops from southern New England to North Carolina, or though their Facebook page.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks to everyone who visited my tying table at the NE Spey Clave II

May11

Lousy weather, terrific energy. That’s a good way to sum up today’s festivities. Thanks to everyone who stopped by my tying table. It’s always nice to put faces to names, whether you’re from an internet forum or a faithful follower of currentseams. I always enjoy the discussions, and for those of you who had questions, I hope I helped.

The Purple Spider, a steelhead soft-hackle

And to those who walked away with one of my flies: do me proud.

Last night, while you were sleeping…

May2

…I was standing waist-deep in an estuary, searching for stripers.

33″ and well-fed. 15 pounds if she weighed an ounce. And a new personal best on the five-weight. She took a Striper Moon flatwing/bucktail hybrid about 8″ long on the dangle.

Guten tag cows mit der Herr Blue flatwing

Apr17

It’s getting to be that time of year: herring moving upriver with plenty of cow bass along for the ride…or at least a meal or twenty. A floating line, a greased line swing, a Herr Blue flatwing swimming broadside or just hanging there, hackles undulating in the current — I can almost feel the sensation of the strike.

To the fly: my nine-feather flatwing translation of the R.L.S. Herr Blue bucktail, tied about 11 inches long. I really like the colors on this one.

The Herr Blue Flatwing, nearly a foot long.

Hook: Eagle Claw 253 4/0
Thread: White
Platform: Ginger bucktail
Pillow: White
Support: White neck hackle
Body: Silver braid
Tail: 2 white saddles under 1 pink saddle under 2 strands pearl flash under 1 violet saddle under 2 strands silver flash under 1 pink saddle under 1 blue saddle under 2 strands light green flash under 1 orange saddle under 2 strands purple flash under 1 olive saddle under 1 blue saddle.
Collar: White and ginger bucktail, mixed
Wing: 20 hairs dark blue bucktail, 15 hairs olive green, 15 hairs grey, 15 hairs orange, mixed.
Cheeks: 3 hairs each of orange, chartreuse, pink, turquoise bucktail, mixed
Topping: 7 strands peacock herl
Eyes: Jungle cock

A closer look:

And a proven performer. Not quite a cow, but easily into double-digit pounds. The fly is same as the one in the top picture. This striper was taken last spring on a greased-line swing.

Steve Culton

Becoming an instant expert

Apr15

I stole that phrase from Grady Allen, who used it to describe fishing on the Farmington after the stocking trucks had done their work. For a shining hour or two, it’s a fish on every cast. You can do no wrong. You savant, you.

It’s kind of the same with early season stripers. The water temp shoots up 10-15 degrees in the course of a month. The fish are on the move. And they’re hungry. All you need to do to catch bass is find them and put a fly in their area code. Find a big enough school, and your arm can get tired right quick. And the thumb on your landing hand looks like someone took a belt sander to it.

Like casting to freshly stocked trout, the fishing isn’t very technical. But for the first few trips, Lord is it fun.

Friend Todd with one of his 400,000 stripers. Dusk can be a magic time.

Six of us ventured out to an old stomping ground to catch the bottom of the tide, which conveniently fell at dusk. We quickly found stripers, and the fishing was stupid good for several hours. I was using my 10 and 1/2-foot switch rod with a floating line and a 4-foot T-11 tip. Fly selection was irrelevant. I fished a Ray’s Fly-like bucktail till it was ground to kibble and a September Night. Everyone else used their own favorites. I caught them on the strip, the swing, and the dangle. Wonderfully easy to please, this lot. The only negative was a 10-15mph wind out of the northwest. But that’s the price of admission along the shore, isn’t it?

My original plan was to fish until full ebb, then seek my striper pleasures elsewhere. But the wind had picked up. And I had had my fill.

Besides, It’s good to go out on top.

Two-handed casting practice.

Apr4

You don’t know if you don’t go, so this morning I headed to Ye Olde Spring Striper Spot to see what the outgoing would bring.

I can’t remember the last time I saw ice in saltwater, but there it was, a hoary reminder of last night’s unseasonable cold. Water was slightly off-color and a sparkling 41 degrees. A most unbenevolent 10-15mph wind lashed at my face, turning the water into a frenzied chop that made riplines hard to see. The four fly anglers who had been fishing were retiring for the day, and the two spin guys weren’t very far behind.

Yup. Didn’t look like it was going to be my day.

On the plus side, I got to re-acquaint myself with my old friend the sea. My morning cigar was splendid, though the wind made short work of it. And I got to shake some of the rust off my two-handed casting (to be fair, there was enough oxidation there to want a wire brush). I test-drove the four-foot T11 sink tip I made over the weekend, and discovered that I could easily get my fly to the bottom in current with some strategic mends. Best of all, I had the whole place to myself.

So, not yet. But soon. And, like Ah-nold, I’ll be back.

Peepers. But sadly, no stripers.

Mar29

I usually fish for stripers twelve month a year, but somehow January and February escaped me in 2013. March nearly got away, too. But I took care of that last night.

Met old fishing buddy Dr. Griswold to catch the bottom of the tide at one of our old haunts. The conditions were certainly favorable. A strong moon tide, good water level, and a water temp of 46. But alas, no stripers for either of us. I swung. I greased lined. I nymphed. I stripped. I jigged. I fished deep, on top, and all points in between. But, you can’t catch what isn’t there.

On a positive note, Bob didn’t lose his Christmas gift. Every year I tie some flatwings for friends as a present, and every year Bob loses his fly on the bottom or in a tree within the first five minutes of fishing it. Not last night. Well done, Bobber.

What Santa brought this year: the Rock Island flatwing

I was also able to coax ninety minutes out of an E.P. Carillo Golossos while on the water. Terrific cigar.

And when I got home, the choir was singing. Spring peepers. Their first performance signals that the over-wintering bass in my local rivers are getting ready to move.

Not tonight. But soon.

The R.L.S. Herr Blue

Mar19

In a vast Sargasso Sea of opaque, doll-eyed baitfish patterns, the R.L.S. Herr Blue shines as an understated alternative. This is my favorite fly when the bait is juvenile herring.

Sparse construction and impressionistic design are hallmarks of the R.L.S. bucktails, outlined by Ken Abrames in Chapter 2 of A Perfect Fish. There are 14 flies listed. You’re probably familiar with the most famous of them, the Ray Bondorew classic, Ray’s Fly. There are enough color combinations among the R.L.S. Bucktails to match many of the baitfish stripers favor – or match or contrast the color of the sea and sky on any given day. (Think I’m crazy on that last one? Tie up an R.L.S. Easterly on a grey, foul day when the wind is blowing 20 knots out of the east and see what happens.) Size-wise, you’re only limited by the length of the bucktail you have on hand.

Like Ray’s Fly, the Herr Blue embraces the philosophy that less is more – with only 66 total bucktail hairs, you can easily read the newspaper through its body. It’s also a fascinating exercise in color blending, with no less than nine different bucktail colors that create all kinds of secondary and tertiary hues.

Herr Blue is the kind of fly that doesn’t get a lot of attention on internet forums or in flyshop bins. That’s easy to understand. When it comes to popular perception of saltwater patterns, impressionism always takes a back set to realism. That’s a shame, because flies like this reveal to you just how low on the intelligence scale fish really are.

But now, you’re in on the secret. And you’re going to love the look on other people’s faces when you show them the fly you’ve been catching all those stripers on.

Ich bin ein Herr Blue (click on image to enlarge)

Thread: White

Hook: Eagle Claw 253 or Mustad 3407 (this is the EC 253 size 1/0)

Body: Silver mylar braid

Wing: Bucktail, 15 hairs white, 5 ginger 1.5x hook length, mixed, under 8 violet, 4 pink, 10 light blue mixed 2x hook length, under 2 strips silver and 2 strips purple flash (I only use one of each for the smaller versions) under 10 dark blue, 4 emerald green, 6 smoky blue/grey, 4 orange mixed 3x hook length.

Topping: 5-7 strands peacock herl a half inch longer than the longest bucktail

Eyes: Jungle cock (optional)

Tying notes: This fly is 3½” long. I usually tie it from 2½” to 6”. In the smaller sizes, I use only one strand of flash per color. You don’t have to make yourself crazy trying to calculate bucktail lengths for different sizes; sometimes I just make each section about a half-inch to an inch longer than the previous one. The jungle cock eyes are a nice touch, but most of the time I fish this fly neat – no eyes. One question I get a lot is, “Do I have to actually count the bucktail hairs?” Today, my answer is yes. Two reasons. One, I’d like you to see just how few 66 bucktail hairs really is. Two, you are embarking on adventure in controlled color blending. Think of it as a custom color you order in a paint store. They take the base and add precise shots of pigment to it to create the same color over and over. Same thing here. This fly was created by a painter with an exceptional eye for color. I trust his judgment, and I want to try to see what he envisioned when he specified this blend. Having said that, the universe will not implode if you use 12 violet, 6 pink, or 15 light blue bucktail hairs. So, do it by the book, then improvise to your heart’s desire. Try to keep things sparse, though. A little bucktail goes a long way.

The (Super-Sized) Magog Smelt Flatwing

Mar9

It would be pretty fair to say that I’ve got a jones for the Magog Smelt. The Magog Smelt is a classic landlocked salmon streamer that originated in Maine. It sports a striking color palette: white, yellow, and purple bucktail. Silver flash accents. Flowing red marabou, offset with barred teal flank and iridescent peacock herl.

Up until a few years ago, I’d never heard of the Magog Smelt. Then one day I was having a conversation with Ken Abrames about old time striper flies, and he told me the Magog Smelt was his father’s favorite fly for Rhode Island bass. So I looked up the pattern and tied a version based on the Ray’s Fly design. The first time I fished that that fly was at night in a breachway, and when I caught a striper on it, I could almost picture Ken’s dad standing on the shore, nodding in approval.

I started playing around with the color scheme of the Magog Smelt in different formats, from soft-hackle to single feather flatwing. They all worked in the salt. Then I got ambitious and tied up a 10” long, nine-feather flatwing. A substantial morsel to tempt the stripers when the big bait is in. Bold. Daring. More of a caricature of a herring than a formal portrait.

And here it is.

The Super-Sized Magog Smelt

Hook: Eagle Claw 253 3/0

Thread: Black

Platform: White bucktail

Support: White neck hackle

Tail: 3 white saddles, under 2 strands pearl flash, under one yellow saddle, under 2 strands pearl flash, under 2 yellow saddles, under 2 strands silver flash, under one lavender saddle under 2 strands silver flash, under one lavender saddle under 2 strands red flash, under one lavender saddle under 2 strands purple flash.

Body: Silver braid

Collar: a 2/3 veil of long white bucktail one hair thick

Throat: Full tip of red marabou

Wing: 30 strands purple bucktail

Topping: 7 long peacock herl strands

Cheek: Teal flank feather tip

Eyes: Jungle cock

A closer look at a fly that fishes big, casts small.

Tying notes: Since I didn’t have the darker purple the original calls for, I used lavender saddles and some deep purple bucktail in the wing. There’s something magical about the effect created by placing the jungle cock over the teal flank cheeks. This fly is tied Razzle-Dazzle style with the flash about an inch longer than the saddles.

You can see the stiff, white neck hackle I’m using for a support along the arm of the vise. A properly constructed big flatwing like this will not be prone to fouling.

Another Good Night For The Five-Weight

Mar4

“What?”

That was my wife’s response, delivered with no small amount of incredulity – or was it sympathy – when I told her I was going fishing tonight. I really couldn’t blame her. After all, I had been traveling home from Florida all day. Now it was evening, and I was on the phone with her, calling on a New Haven-bound Amtrak from Manhattan. I wouldn’t be home for another two hours, and then it’d be another two hours before I could leave.

But, you get to used to the oddball treatment from people who don’t obsess over tide times, heights, moons, and river levels like you do. Even if you’re married to them.

I hadn’t fished in over a week, so I had it bad for some stripers. Tonight would be a perfect night for the five weight rod. Not too windy, and the prospect of a striper in the 15 pound class. I attached a fresh 30-pound test leader about eight feet long to the line, then tied on a Herr Blue flatwing about eleven inches long from nose to flash. Everything looked just right.

Not even a nighttime roadwork traffic jam could slow my spirits. I ended up getting my spot ten minutes late. So what? The fish would still be around.

The current on the outgoing tide was moving at a slow walking pace. In what little ambient light there was, I could see the intricate cake-frosting swirls of the eddies as they passed over the hidden bottom structure. I tried to guess the water temperature with my index finger. 58? 62? The thermometer said 59 degrees. Not a bad couple guesses.

I began by working a deep little run between the rocks. Herring swirled near the surface right in front of me. I tried a few dead drifts, almost like high-stick nymphing, but there were no strikes. So I began to methodically walk down-current, greased line swinging the whole way.

The fish in this section of river tend to hit on or about my second mend, but forty minutes had gone by without a tap. The drill was comforting. Cast. Immediately throw an upstream mend. Then another. Let the fly swing around. Swim, pulse, and dance it in the current. A few short strips, then let it fall back. Even fishless, the presentation was pleasant and meditative. A glance at my watch showed it was well into the wee hours, and I was out here all by myself.

Except for her.

She took the fly as they often do on the greased line, slowly, with full confidence, inhaling the Herr Blue near the head, then turning back toward the bottom. I felt it as a sudden change in pressure on the line. Subtle, nuanced, yet distinctive from the unimpeded drift. No demonstrative WHACK! No explosion on the membrane between water and air. Not yet. I came fully tight to the line with a backward thrusting motion. The hook point found its seat in the corner of her mouth. Right where it was supposed to be.

Now she becomes unhinged, tail thrashing at the surface. At first, I’m unsure how large the striper is, and I under-guesstimate her to be in the 24”class. She’s moving toward me, and I’m hand stripping her in. Once she reaches the edge of the sand bar and discovers she no longer has the comfort of depth to rely on, she lets me know that hand stripping will be ill-advised. The fish begins her first run, taking the slack line out of my shooting basket through my thumb and forefinger at a jerky, frantic pace.

The drag protests as more line is peeled off. I ratchet things down a little tighter, and that stops her. Just to be sure, I re-set the hook. Line is regained, lost, and regained. She’s tantalizingly close now, about twenty feet out, but not quite finished.

Her last defense is her undoing. To escape the shallows of the sand bar I’m standing on, she heads for the deepest nearby water, which happens to be upstream. Between the current and the pressure I put on her, she tires quickly.

As I cradle her in the water, I wonder how many herring she’d eaten that night? Our time is all too brief together, not only the fight, but the release as well. I don’t have her in the revival position for more than a few seconds before she thrusts out of my hands and melts away from the beam of my headlamp into the darkness.

I climbed into bed around 4am. The birds were singing. I was, too. All the way home.

Miss Piggy poses for posterity. “Dang,” she’s thinking, “I really thought that was a herring.” For perspective, the fly, a Herr Blue flatwing, is about 11″ long.