Eyes for Flies #1

Over the years I've realised more and more the importance of the role of eyes when tying flies.

Years ago I used just burn the end of a piece of mono and waalaa, nice tie eyes that looked real enough. These were used on crab, shrimp, creature and any other fly that needed stalk eyes. As far as fresh water eyes went I barely bothered. Only the biggest streamer flies got the most basic black dots.

My first trip to the Seychelles in 2001 taught me a little more with regards to the importance of big, shiny eyes on big flies as triggers. I hadn't until then given much thought as to why fish ate flies and those all important triggers. I was young and the realisation as to why realisitic flies weren't always the most effective was rather profound.

Production line eyes. Trying to cut down on the time. These have been burnt, painted with pink (left)/red (right), had a silver glitter added and are waiting a black eyeball and final epoxy/polish finish.

As my Dad had always said, flies aren't tied to catch fisherman; they're tied to catch fish. Until then I had always taken this statement as a tongue-in-cheek excuse for the not so neat and tidy array of flies that adorned his fly box.

I began in earnest to read and experiment with colours and movement in my trout and yellowfish flies. And the results started to show. One of friends once called one of my flies an abomination and should never be cast at anything except bass, yet he still asked for one at the end of the days fishing.

As I explored the salt more and more, I began to take heed of the fact that eyes were of critical importance in the triggering of fish aggression and fly-eating behaivour.

I started playing with different materials for eyes. Glass beads - silver, red, orange and even blue. Using mono, heat and superglue I was able concoct a number of different eyes types. Sometimes even the use of tungsten beads in the eyes to change the angle of drift or swim of a fly.

A rough epoxy finish and ready for tying. Still working at final polished finish that I'm happy with.

It was recently that I saw a fly with the most amazing eyes I have ever seen on a fly. These had taken time and effort. Layered with colour, sparkle and shine. I'm a fly tyer who doesn't like spending hours tying a fly, let alone making one aspect of the fly. But realised I may have to revise my attitude on time when it came to these eyes.

And so the playing began. Melting mono, playing with nail polish that that always brings raised eye brows when purchased, covering with glitter and finishing with Hard-As-Nails or epoxy.

The results have been mixed but I have settled to two types that I'll be using on all stalk-eyed flies for awhile!

Paying the Taxman

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

I doubt Ben Franklin would have ever thought his depressingly true quote could ever be applied to fishing. But like that yearly income statement there are few things that hurt like a good fish getting eaten while on the line.

Bluefin Trevally after a Lemon tasted him.

I absolutely abhor the sinking sensation that comes with the sudden and strange heavy thump on the rod possibly followed by some head-shaking and an inevitable dead-weight that needs to be cranked up.

While this may be a foreign concept to the majority of freshwater fly fisherman (there are, however, some seriously toothy fish in the wilder fresh waterways of the world) it is a very real and sometime fairly common occurrence for the saltwater fly fisherman. With so many different types of hungry and angry fish out there that are armed with a fearsome array of teeth, it is simply a matter of time before a regular brine thrasher has a fish taken by the 'taxman'.

Rex Fey displaying the half the 6ft Great Barracuda didn't get.

Whether its barracuda, a shark dogtooth tuna or some other serious predator making light of your catch, it annoys one. Especially if the fish being eaten is a trophy fish. I get very upset if I can't release certain species. It leaves a sour taste and I know I am guilty of causing that fish to enter the foodchain a little earlier than nature may have intended.

Will I stop because of it? Never.

 But like paying SARS, you just have to harden up and realise that the taxman will have his due.

Lemon Taxman on the flats.

Thinking Milkfish Flies

Was chasing Milkies again yesterday, and as Murphy the shit would have it, now that I was ready they were nowhere to found. A change of wind direction and they had disappeared. New flies to test and no test subjects.

Oh well. Below are pictures of two of the Milky flies I had ready and hope will work. The first is a copy of Arno Matthee's original Milky Dream fly and the two in the following picture are an example of what happens when Mr Avalon meets Miss Milky Dream and they get it on. The darker green is to match the colour of the weed floating in the windlanes and the bright chartreuse is because so many chaps who know more than me say it is a must!

The sink rates are slower than before - which is good - but still need to determine if it's the right rate.

Can't wait to find them again :)

Arno's Milky Dream

Avalon come Milky Dream - time will tell.

More to come...

Missing the Milkman

I've started to take this personally! This evening I had nine shots at Chanos chanos.

Jono Shales with a magnificent Milky (photo courtesy of Exmouth Fly Fishing)

And nothing. Denied every time.

Drifting the wind lanes is a patient game. It's so easy to get distracted by the huge amount of fish activity in these naturally food rich areas. Eight of the nine swim-bys happened late in the afternoon - the sun was well down and made watching my fly below the surface absolutely impossible. A lot of guess work and an even greater amount of hope was applied to every cast - it didn't pay off.

A clear and typical windlane with a Milky I thought (for a second) I may have hooked! (photo: Anne Davis)

Obviously the go to fly is Arno's Milky Dream. Developed by Arno Matthee on Alphonse it (and he) did the so called impossible: catch Milkfish regularly. 

I've been tying a fair amount of these bad boys but I don't have sink rate right for the windlane Milkies. The more I read the more I realise that this is the crucial element. An interesting note comes from that online bible of saltwater fish: Fishbase.org. Apart from soft algae - which I would presume is the basis for Arno's Milky Dream - Milkfish also eat cyanobacteria, small benthic invertebrates and, how's this now!, even pelagic fish eggs and larvae!

Cyanobacteria is what causes algae blooms and often is a bright green or blue-green colour. This explains the success that has been had with bright green chartreuse weed flies and why Arno's Milky Dream is often seen with chartreuse loop. 

Small benthic invertabrates are the tiny chaps that live in the mud and sediment of lagoons and flats areas. This explains why you sometimes see smaller Milkies in shallow water eating stuff off the bottom at random. And also why some guys have caught them on really small Charlies.

But I'm really interested in the last one: the fish eggs. Maybe a Milky dream with suspended plastic or glass beads as fish eggs. Or just a clump of fish eggs. I'll be in the windlane with mask and snorkel tomorrow evening planning and plotting.

These Windlane Milkies seem to act like they down at Alphonse. While they do stick those odd mouths of theirs out the water filtering away, they don't daisy-chain and they don't come buy in shoals of hundreds. They cruise the windlanes in shoals of anything from 3 to 30 fish and although they are visibly feeding - sometimes even swirling and doubling back for a quick second look - they don't hang around for pudding.  

My emails bugging the gurus are primed and ready, the tying bench is set out and my thinking cap is on. I am absolutely frothing for another shot tomorrow... and the next day... and the next day... until I come tight!

I thought this was it!!!

The Evening Permit

So I’ve been trying crack the Muggle problem lately. I have been wanting to catch Mugil Cephalus (Mullet) without chum for ages now. Using bread, it’s easy. But I want one without using a starchy chum and a ‘Bread Fly’. I've been playing with floating shrimps, blood worms and variety of educated guesses but the Muggles have been difficult. There has been little success. But this is not about Muggles...

It is about one of my other piscatine infatuations: Permit.

Evening shades of gold.

The uttering of that name sends shivers down the necks of any serious saltwater flyfisherman and a trophy specimen is on the top 3 bucket list of the same group. I’ve been lucky enough to catch several fair sized specimens over the years but have been chasing my trophy for a long time now. And, well, I am still waiting. He will come though!

But to prevent this post from becoming convoluted, let me get back to point. This evening I grabbed the #3 and few experimental Muggle flies and heading down the road to see if I could convince one of them eat my latest guesswork of fur and feather. In the pocket I had a couple of blood worm imitations, a small shrimpish looking fly, a minuscule crab and, as always, a few Crazy Charlies (one should never leave home without at least a couple of Charlies in the box).  Mom and Dad, who are visiting at the moment, came for the short and where heading down the beach for a swim.

Chasing Muggles

As things go, I had barely told them to enjoy their swim when Dad shouted that there was a permit swimming toward me. I asked him if he was sure. He told to stop being ridiculous and catch the damn thing! 

"Our" Permit, by-the-way, is actually called a Pompano (Trachinotus blochii) and is the Indian Ocean’s version (and close cousin) of Trachinotus Falcatus – the famous Permit of the Western Atlantic.

Now he wasn't a big Permit but neither is my little trout rod. And well, a permit is a permit so I very hurriedly changed the San Juan looking blood worm that the Muggles had be so willingly kicking to the curb to a dark brown Crazy Charlie and began hoping.

Small...

Getting ahead of the fish was made easy by the sea wall that I was fishing from and a flick of the old 3 weight put the Charlie just far enough ahead of the Permit for him see it sink but that close that he got spooked by the big plop.

... but you know you want one!

After that it just seemed too easy. The little beauty sipped up the Charlie, I set the hook and he gave me a great rev on my trusty old #3. A couple of photos courtesy of Mom and my little Permit was sent back to grow into my trophy. 

Not a terrible evening at all!

Hunting Gods: POV Video

In a follow up to my last GT post, I'll give you all a little bit of visual representation of what fighting one of these special fish is like.

The first two casts were too far in front of the fish, that cast where the line tangled around the butt of my spare rod almost ended my life. My palms were sweaty and I honestly thought the fish would hear my heart smashing against my rib cage!

I absolutely love the fish's acceleration and the amount water he displaces as he takes off after my fly. The take is clear - I love the way he changes direction after getting hooked and at first blindly charges away and almost takes me for a walk. You can see how I have to almost run after him because of how tight my drag is set.

He very soon establishes where the deep blue water is and doggedly fights his way towards it. I have my hands full trying to turn him before he gets over the edge and do so only with a meter to spare. I have to pull him so hard that he literally cartwheels as i turn him. He then still makes a final last ditch effort to reach the blue.

The fight is relatively short but at the end both myself and the fish are stuffed. But a short fight like this does mean that the recovers very quickly and swims away strong.

Enjoy.

Hunting Gods: GTs on the flats

“Ka ulua kapapa o ke kai loa”

The ulua fish is a strong warrior.

                 -Hawaiian proverb

“Kayden, once you get da taste fo’ ulua fishing’,

you no can tink of anyting else!”

                                                      - From Ulua: The Musical, by Lee Catalun

No amount of reading will ready you for the first time you come face-to-face with a bruiser fish in shallow water. No amount of day dreaming will help you understand your emotions the first time that the water where your fly was erupts in an explosion of aggression. Nothing can ever prepare you for this; the first time you do battle with Caranx Ignobilis in shallow water. 

To define a piece of water as a flat, the said piece of water needs to be of substantial size and should have an average depth, depending on tide, of between ankle and waste deep. If you can’t comfortably wade and cast a fly across them, they are no longer flats.

As far as the imagination... Nick Filmalter prospecting...

Flats fishing of any kind, whether it’s that shallow area at the head of the big lake up the road or those endless areas of tropical sand and grass of the Seychelles, seem to send flyfishermen into a quiet revelry in which day dreams of sight casting to big cruising fish proliferate. I have had an infatuation with flats since I started fishing, which pretty much adds up to my entire life. I remember chasing trout fingerlings around the tails of Natal trout streams. And I do realise that the shallows of a trout stream probably don’t qualify as flats but in the mind of 4 year old, they stretch to imagination’s end. I still can’t get enough shallow water fishing - hence the reason for moving out to the Seychelles for awhile!

Now couple the endless flats of a tropical atoll with big, angry GTs and you have a fishing spot built for those with strong hearts and adventurous souls.

The GT is THE man on the flats. He swims around with the attitude and swagger of the top dog. He’s King Rat and he knows it. The split second change in temper as cruising fishing becomes hunting fish. The unbridled aggression when he smashes baitfish. The absolute distain he shows for anything smaller (or larger) than himself highlights why he is the apex predator of the flats.

The ulua, as it is know in Hawaii, was so believed to be such a fine warrior that women were banned from eating it. It was believed to be a god which the commoners were not allowed to catch.  Such was the respect and awe lavished on the ulua by the ancient Hawaiians that it was even used as a human sacrifice when no satisfactory human was available! *

This is truly a fish of mythic proportions. Growing to 1.7m and up to 80kg it has the ability to not only make a flyfisherman go weak at the knees but to also give his ego a severe thrashing. Stories of smashed leaders and rods are not uncommon and many a fisherman has paid the price that is inevitable when doing battle with a god.

Top LandR: JD Filmalter shows off his top dog. Mesmerised by my first flats GT.
                                            Middle: GT rage.
Bottom: Peter Coetzee: taming the gods!

Fishing for him can seem a fool’s errand. Armed with thin piece of graphite, some Teflon or cork to slow the screaming run and a curved piece of metal that just seems too fragile to halt the beast you slowly stalk the vast expanse of turtle grass and sand. Wading along the push of the tide, you need to read the water and ask where the king will find his meal – he’ll be swimming against the current, into the oncoming bait. Your fly needs to be big. My personal favourite is a Black Brush Fly tied on an 8/0 Gamakatsu SL12S.  However, a hungry GT will eat most well presented patterns. When you are hooked up, the best advice is to give as good as he gives: pull him as hard as you dare and try not to let him run. If he gets some head, consider the fight lost! Best make sure that your knots are perfect...

  

Cradling addiction.

I have experienced this primal predator in a personal capacity and can only say that I'm addicted to hunting him. I've been brought to my knees by this fearsome fish and I know that I won’t always win the fight. But just as nothing will prepare for your first time, after your first battle is over, nothing will take away the nagging need to fight and beat this fish in the shallows of the flats.

To fight another day.

* Rick Gaffney and Associates, Inc. (2000). "Evaluationof the status of the recreational fishery for ulua in Hawai‘i, andrecommendations for future management".Division of Aquatic Resources Technical Report (Department of Land and Natural Resources, Hawaii) 20-02: 1–42. Retrieved 2009-09-14.

Casting like the Flemish

I thought I'd heard of them all... The roll, the steeple, the Spey, the overhead, the reach cast, the Skagit, the double haul. (It's a long list and some differ only fractionally!)

But thanks to the guys at Gink and Gasoline, I learnt a new one today. The Belgian Cast.

Personally, when the wind is giving me gears over my casting side I've always just switched over to backhand casting and have had just as much success with distance and hookups (I think so anyway!). But it is interesting to see a new angle on dealing with a most annoying situation of having the wind blasting your casting ear.

Thanks to Gink and Gasoline and Bruce Chard

Gold at Last

"Down to the core of every fisherman's heart is the belief that on any day something wonderful and unlikely could be made to happen, and that if you're careful and patient enough it could happen to you." - John Gierach


It had not been an entirely happy weekend. The planned dropoff trip had been, from Wednesday, solwly downgraded and degraded to a free dive on the south coast of Mahe. Not a terrible way of spending an afternoon but just not the same as screaming reels and bent rods. I had fought with ferry ticket sales, elbowed and pushed onto a boat packed with humanity who were all brimming with beer and anticipation for the Seychelles Carnival. I wanted nothing to do with this excuse to throw name away and went to play poker at the Eish Bar. I lost.

A slow start at the 'Fishing Shack'. (photo: Francois Botha)

Saturday was slow and frustrating. I could literally scope the same irritation oozing off JD. To make it worse he had to work on Sunday. The dive was good. A Combi door of Napoleon Wrasse came to say hi. But it was still a 'just kissed your cousin' feeling in comparison to the fact that the sea was very fishable and the trip had been bailed upon at the last minute. So Saturday blurred into Sunday with the Sharks losing and rum disappearing at an almost alarming rate. Francois had arrived and there was much scheming and story telling at the bar. 


Sunday arrived mildly hungover. JD headed to work - rightly unhappy - and Fab, Francois and myself contemplated what to do with the day as we half heartedly nosed fishing gear around the 'Fishing Shack'. It seemed that Kai, Francois' girlfriend, wasn't arriving as planned so we went fishing. I was beyond keen to wet a line. A combination of ADD-and-lack-of-fishing-twitches was making people nervous. In the car Fab and I got talking aboutGnathanodon speciosus - the Golden Trevally. This fish is my unicorn. I had yet to have caught a half decent one on fly and I had been starting to take it personally. But anyway, there's a certain spot somewhere on the northern side of Mahe that we've seen good numbers of the "other GT". I've been wanting to approach this spot from a certain angle for a while now. And today was that day. As Francois and Fab moved down the flat, I circled up and around. The feeling I had that something had to my way was still more hope than concrete belief. 


It was this half belief that led me to tie on a Charlie instead of an Ugly Crab. It was this half-belief that would cost me my first shot that day.


As mentioned, I've been craving a Golden for ages now. They're stunning fish; whitish silver, with dark gun-metal bars over a light shading over golden-yellow shading darkening to fin tips And those tattooed spots on the flank, unique to fish. Those hover-like mouths coupled with the attitude of a trevally make for a tailing flats fish that can still beat the hell out of an unsuspecting flyfisherman. My craving has been so much recently that I'd happily walk straight past tailing bonefish in order to have a crack at a small Golden.


As I had tied on that Charlie, Murphy started laughing and sent the first shoal of Goldens straight past me. I ducked and tore in wide running arch to try and intercept them.


When Golden's are happy and feeding they move in slightly unpredictable patterns at a pace that make them seem almost spooked. As they mission around the flats reeking havoc on the local crustaceans, single or double fish will break off the pack and put some extra effort into tailing up a few prized morsels. Its these tails that one often uses as a pointer to find the shoal. And when the whole shoal decides to have a dig around in a single, respect to the fisherman who keeps his knees still. 


And this really is the spot you want to land your fly. Their unpredictable movement makes it difficulty to cut the shoals path - don't even try imagine the frustration of chasing a single fish - but sometimes it all comes together. Fab and JD have both got Goldens; JD in particular has a knack for finding and landing these beautiful fish. This had to be my turn. I cut their path, put my cast out, strip... strip...


Denied... 


My Charlie obviously wasn't heavy enough, light enough, big enough, whatever! The weekend wasn't improving. I was negative. 


Yet something, as it does, kept me there; hoping. Change fly. Ugly crab on. Pick my channel and wait. 


And it all came together. The patience paid off. Another shoal pulled in, stayed on my course. Cast, present. 


For me the hardest part about fishing a crab is leaving it dead still. Have you ever realised how arrogant a crab is? He'll square up to you and give you a middle pincer. It takes me him awhile to admit that you'll probably win and only then does he scuttle away.


Fish arriving. Wait, strip, strip, wait A small fish showed serious interest. Twitch crab. And to my delight King Rat muscled his way onto the scene, the little Golden gave and I was left with the realisation that THIS fish had sucked up the Ugly Crab. 

Possibly a bit too casual. (photo: Francois Botha)

INSIDE! Strip strike! Fish on!!!!


Everything blurred after that. I let him run, then got nervous when he turned towards the moorings and fishing boats so I chased him and some line back on the reel. I remember flashes of silver, excited gesturing and being told to concentrate on the fish! I eventually started breathing when Francois, who'd come across to get some photos, deftly tailed the beaut for me. 


I must admit that I air punched. Twice.


Photos. Smiles. Banter. Friends.

The weekend was good again. It was wonderful and unlikely. And it had happened to me.

Hero Shots (photo: Francois Botha)

Fishing Ugly Crabs

The first time I threw a crab pattern at a fish, I got denied. And so was the case for the second, third and so on times. I lost a lot of borrowed and non-existent faith in crab patterns and really relied far more on Charlie and smaller Clouser patterns for my flats fishing.

There were so many different patterns. The Crab-Apple, Velcro crab, Merkin Crab, Epoxy Crab, Deer-Hair crab and the list went on and on. I tied many and fished few. They just never inspired the confidence that, in the heat of flats stalking, leads to many tie-ons and casts.

Ugly Crab in the scissors!

It was only moving out to the Seychelles two years ago that I once again started to take crabs seriously - and more out of a personal experiment than any actual belief that I may catch fish on them.

The first success I had was on a merkin style crab tied using the strands from an old mop. I think it was a sucker of a bonefish that fell to this horrible creation, but it did. Time went on and my enthusiasm for crabs can only be described as tidal.

A Titan that couldn't resist the Ugly Crab

It was the Farquhar trip (which I still need to post about) that I took the tying of crabs more seriously. Using a combination of traditional merkin crabs and adding on features inspired by several clever flyfishermen - including Jono Shales and Peter Coetzee - I had my pattern. At this point I should also suggest that much of the Ugly Crab's success does come from the fact that its basic design is based on Del Brown's famous Merkin Crab.


They didn't look like the crabs in the mags but they landed bones, triggers, snappers and even a fat bluefin!

The two Ugly Crab variations parking cheesy

And they checked all the boxes I like to be checked when tying flies.

Namely:

* Fairly easy to tie
* Its not too neat
* Rides hook up, and
* When most fishermen look at it, they laugh

And, as it turns out, it catches fish.

There are now two variations and I swear I'll be hard pressed to ever tie any other crab pattern again.

The pattern:

#6 - #1 SL12s  Gamikatsu
Thread: Light pink or orange.
Body: Any stiff synthetic hair material that can be tied merkin style
Mouth: Orange marabou
Eyes: 50lb mono with red beads (or get fancy and use epoxy and glitter)
Pincers: Combo tan marabou and natural zonker strips.
Legs: Either thin elastic bands or long silly legs (like proper long - check the pic)
Weight: Keel style tungsten beads... amount dependant on depth you fishing.

Right: Junior Bohar
Below: Spangled Emperor