Flymen Blog
This fly is effective on pressured fish who need a little more reason to eat — especially in slow moving water when pressured fish have a long time to look at flies before they commit to eating.
Just as The Sexy Walt’s and The Frenchie are simply tied patterns, so are these quill-bodied bugs.
One of the hallmarks of these simple flies is that there’s not a lot of junk on them to keep the fly from cutting through the water on its descent to the bottom. All that extra junk on flies can also spook fish hooked too many times for their own comfort. Continue reading
If you’re an egg-slinger and don’t have a box full of Jeff Blood’s Blood Dot Eggs, you might want to rethink your inventory.
This egg style is the single best I’ve encountered.
This fly is especially productive from October through January and March through May – or whenever the fish in your neck of the woods are spawning and eggs make up a substantial portion of the edible biomass in the water. Continue reading
It doesn't matter what happens in the fashion industry – when it comes to fly fishing, there's no new black.
We've all heard it!
"Orange is the new black," or "purple is the new black," or even that olive would be the new black.
Don't get me wrong – I know there are a lot of colors that are really effective in different types of flies. I love throwing white deceivers to snappers and other saltwater species, and big olive flies to pike, not to mention fishing a banana-colored zonker for salmon or a big gray articulated streamer for trout.
There are so many colors that are important when it comes to flies and fly tying, but none more important than black. Continue reading
The Sexy Walt's is especially useful on highly pressured fish in slow to moderately fast-moving water.
Here’s the deal with this fly, I think. My dad has this theory – no matter how much you’ve had to eat, when you go to the bar and they pass out the peanuts, you’re going to have a handful of peanuts.
Fish are the same way. Over time, especially after a season (short or long) of pressure, fish start rethinking their meal choices. But give them a peanut, and they’ll eat. There’s no other reason midges work!
This is a peanut fly, and fish eat it up.
There’s nothing to scare fish away – no crazy rubber legs, no funky dubbing… Just simple. Continue reading
by John Zimmerman
I don’t know if the story about this fly is true or not, but this is how I first heard it and have heard it several times since.
A young French kid was kicking butt and taking names at a world championship event a number of years ago.
Not wanting to be "that guy,” no one asked him what was affixed to the end of his tippet during the event, but everyone wanted to see his fly box upon the event’s conclusion.
Expecting immaculately-tied, realistic patterns, most were shocked to see a fly box full of simply-tied bugs that were essentially bare-bones pheasant tails.