This Fly Took A Beating;

[Hardyreels]

Hi fly lovers,

You never hear much about me catching bunches of fish but trust me it's been a pretty good season for dragging fish in. I've been tying streamer flies and salmon flies for a long time and I have came to take pride in making good durable flies. Trying to take time to put a dab of cement here & there, and good tight thread wraps go a long ways toward making a fly that will take some punishment. Every now and then a fly starts to come undone or simple gets torn up by fish. Happily I've found enough fish the past two days that they pretty well shredded up a fly.

This is what the Jock O' Dee from the Tie Along thread looked like when I tied it.

[IMG][/IMG]

It was a Dee wing pattern, not perfect but OK;

[IMG][/IMG]

Over the past two days the fly caught 3 Char, several dozen Grayling, 6 Rainbow Trout, and 1 Coho Salmon. When I say several dozen grayling that means I don't know how many were caught. The Grayling took the flies all day both days, sometimes every cast.

By 2:00 PM today (Friday 9/30/2011) the old Jock O' Dee was looking pretty bad. I think it may have kept on catching fish until it was back to a bare hook but I changed it at this point.

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[wannafish]

An old fella I fish with sometimes for salmon says the fish go for the beat up flies quicker than for the mint condition flies. I can't imagine hooking that many fish in that short of time. As I said before, you live in paradise! That's good fishing.

[madjoni]

Flies cant last forever

[gt05254]

Great fly, Ard! It deserves going to the old flies home.
Gary

[caseywise]

ard,
nice looking fly, before and after
it deserves a home in the bill of your cap or a piece of driftwood

casey

[MoscaPescador]

Umpqua fly designer, Andy Burk, was at the shop a few years back. He tied a perfectly proportioned Bird's Nest. Then he took a brush and roughed it up.

Here's my before and after shots of a beater.

Before


After


I'd love to see more beat up flies.

Dennis

[Hardyreels]

Dennis,

if you would have been with me yesterday early evening (about 5:00 - 6:15 PM) you could have gave it a beating. There was a very heavy bi-hatch of caddis and some very small stones. The flats came alive with Grayling & Char with average size about a foot. If I drug my 'new' fly across the surface they would come sailing right out of the water trying to grab it. I was using a 13' rod and a #6 wet fly and searching for their larger relatives. Based on what I've caught and those who came off the hook but not before I got a glimpse of them, I figure there are some 16 inch or larger grayling in the river.

I don't know a whole lot about this species (Grayling) but I'm learning. Like everything else here the first thing is to learn their preferred water conditions. You can fish a mile of river and catch nothing (how would I know.....) and suddenly you hit a stretch where you catch 20 fish. Not an accident that they are all in the same area, and I can't help but to think there are some big ones around.

[MoscaPescador]

That sounds like fun. Now if I could afford an airline ticket.

[Hardyreels]

Apparently COLOR does matter; I replaced the torn up Jock O' Dee with a version of Ard's Nine three (no picture of it) it had an olive silk, tinsel wrapped body, black Spey hackle and olive green feather wings. I swung and swam that fly for 20 minutes with only one bump. So I started looking for another fly hackled similar to the J O' Dee. I selected this Carron style tie, the red body had little to do with effectiveness, I think it was the combination of the gray hackle and the wing / collar that was doing the business.

[IMG][/IMG]

With the new fly secured to the leader I continued to catch fish until it was time to start the hike back to the car.

[jpbfly]

Ard you should get on well with Nico...he uses his flies till they're completely destroyed...sometimes they're better than when they were brand new
Nice fly Dennis