What has kept me faithfully wedded to casting a hook with a fly line over so many years? Certainly, one reason is the joy of creating I get from lashing together diverse elements onto a hook, such as this little shad fly I call the Lipstick. But the beauty and rhythm of a fly line looping through the air was Cupid’s arrow. It was love at first sight.
The first time I ever saw a fly line being cast was while walking across the Yuba College campus toward the cafeteria between art classes. It was the spring of 1979. Honeybees dusted with pollen buzzed through a light breeze perfumed with cherry blossoms. Robins, seeking to feed their ravenous hatchlings, hopped in the green grass, tilting their heads, listening for insects and searching for worms. A crow, one of many frequenting campus, passed me to the left. My peripheral vision picked up something moving through the warming breeze — a fly line: a thick tan string was rhythmically looping back and forth. Wow. It was beautiful, mesmerizing.
That line was being cast by one of two professors together on their lunch break. Rick Murai, my photography instructor, was trying out his new bamboo rod. I walked up and asked, “What’s that you’re doing?” Rick responded, “It’s called fly casting. Here. Give it a try.” I held the rod in my hand. It looked gorgeous and frail. I began flailing that bamboo back and forth through the air like a windshield wiper in a thunderstorm, waving it with no sense of rhythm and timing, like a madman swatting away at demons. “Stop. Stop,” pleaded Rick, in an attempt to save his expensive, custom stick of grass before it snapped in the tornado before him. I handed it back. Rick examined his rod and relaxed. He said, “ You sure weren’t afraid of it.” “Thanks,” I said and turned to the other professor, who was still laughing at Rick. He was holding feathers in his hand. “What are those feathers?” “A rooster cape,” he replied. “We make flies out of them.” Although it would be seven years before I owned my first fly rod and tied my first fly, that was when I fell in love. It’s now been over forty years, all leading up to the little shad fly called Lipstick in my vise.
This fly is the final refinement of a pattern I developed to catch finicky shad on the clear waters of the American River in Sacramento. There isn’t a whole lot to its construction. Here is how I tie it.
Begin by sliding a 7/64-inch fluorescent metallic pink tungsten bead onto a 60-degree jig hook, size 10 or size 12. Slide the bead to the eye and place the hook in your vise. Attach 6/0 or stronger fluorescent yellow thread behind the bead. For a tail, select about a dozen strands of UV Minnow Belly Flashabou, even the tips of one end, hold them together, and lash the ends behind the bead. Neatly wrap thread over the Flashabou to the bend and then back forward to the bead. Snip off the Flashabou to create a short tail. Now all you do is wrap the thread back and forth, creating a thin, tapered body. Whip finish behind the bead and snip away the thread. Thinly coat the body with UV resin and shine a UV lamp on it until it cures.
You’re finished tying the fly, but not done. Your last step is to take it fishing for shad and have some fun. The Lipstick is both a great fly project for the fledgling fly tyer and a productive arrow to add to the quiver of veteran anglers looking to fill that last empty spot in their fly box. Enjoy the shad season. Maybe you can even introduce a fledgling angler to the art of rhythmically waving a string through the air.
— Andrew Guibord
