Most of us judge a fly by its appearance. Are the proportions correct, does it use the right materials, is the construction sound? This is usually fine for most trout fishing on smaller rivers and creeks, where flies are typically fished with a dead drift. However, the equation becomes more complicated when you ply your flies in big waters such as larger rivers, lakes, or the surf. This is when issues like material selection, rigging, and retrieves can impact how the fly looks and behaves. Simply inspecting the fly when it’s out of the water is the same as judging a book by its cover, you can easily get the wrong impression.
JUST ADD WATER
It’s disappointing to discover a fly you just cast out is as lifeless as a trilobite, keels to one side, or drags its back end like a chihuahua with impacted glands. It’s downright depressing to be unaware of these problems and assume your lack of fishing success is because it’s just “one of those days.” This can all be avoided if you submerge the fly before you go fishing. The easiest way is to attach it to some tippet and drop it in your bathtub. A few pulls on the tippet will alert you to any flies that exhibit serious behavioral problems. For under twenty bucks, you can get a plastic aquarium, which allows you to view the fly from the sides and below, which is, after all, how the fish will see it most of the time.
Another option is to purchase a swim tank, a device that uses a water pump in a clear acrylic tank to simulate the currents in a river or stream. This is a good way to assess material movement and check for problems with pitch, roll, or yaw. At almost $200, these aren’t cheap, but neither is spending hours fishing with flawed flies. If you are into DIY, some YouTube videos show you how to make something similar using an aquarium and a small submersible water pump.
Swimming pools can be a great place to test your flies since you can use your rod and line and retrieve the fly just as you would when fishing. This often results in the fly behaving in ways that cannot be duplicated in the bathtub, aquarium, or fly tester. Subtle and not-so-subtle changes in retrieve tempo, aggressiveness, and length can make the fly respond quite differently. Switching from floating to intermediate or fast sinking lines can also make flies do different things. Of course, you’ll need to own a pool or know someone who doesn’t mind you fishing in theirs.
You can also test your flies in a nearby creek or pond. One advantage of testing in a clear creek is seeing how the fly responds to complex currents. A simple wet fly swing can reveal changes in material movement and fly orientation as the fly encounters water moving at different speeds. You’ll also be able to evaluate how natural water conditions, such as depth, tint, and turbidity, affect the visibility of your flies. Some materials will stand out, while others will quickly fade from view. Another big advantage of testing in a natural waterbody is seeing nymphs, bugs, and baitfish in their natural habitat. Knowing how these critters look and move can help you improve your flies and fine-tune your retrieves.
While you can learn plenty from looking at flies moving through the water, subsurface videos can reveal things your eyes may not notice. There are all kinds of action cameras designed for use underwater and plenty of smartphones can handle submersion for up to 30 minutes. A waterproof pouch solves the problem for phones that can’t get wet. Attach your camera to a selfie stick or a length of plastic pipe, and you can record video at various depths and orientations. This provides a complete, three-dimensional evaluation of the fly without the need to don scuba gear.
JIGGLY NYMPHS
Fishing nymphs below an indicator is a popular and effective lake fishing setup. You place the fly at the depth the trout are feeding (two feet from the bottom is often recommended), and the indicator tells you when a fish has taken it. If there is a light breeze, the resulting ripple causes the indicator to bob up and down. Some folks have stated the bobbing indicator imparts a jigging motion to the fly, mimicking the movements of nymphs and pupae. Some have recommended using a loop knot to enhance the action. Ever curious, I wanted to see if the loop knot really made any difference.
An indicator was attached to a leader with a beadhead chironomid loop-knotted to some 5X tippet. A mid-afternoon breeze was blowing across the lake, producing a nice ripple. The setup was dropped into rippled water alongside a boat dock and a GoPro camera was lowered into the water to record the action. The fly had a barely perceptible jigging motion at two feet, but this completely disappeared at four feet. Presumably, slight curves in the tippet and leader act as shock absorbers, eliminating the jigging movement. Since most indicator fishing in lakes is conducted at more than a couple of feet, it seems unlikely the fly will jiggle. As such, the type of knot you use is irrelevant.
Normally, this sort of result would leave me slightly disappointed, but the video showed something else was going on. The fly moved horizontally through the water at about an inch per second, similar to the speed of living mayfly nymphs. So instead of jigging the fly, the indicator towed it at a speed that closely matched the natural, which seems a plausible reason for the technique’s effectiveness.
TAIL DRAGGERS
I recently spent a few hours with my friend and neighbor, Jim, shooting videos of our latest fly creations in a nearby river. Jim, who has developed a rather bad steelhead “habit”, was eager to see how his new tube flies looked on the swing. The tests were conducted in smooth-flowing water approximately three feet deep, with a walking pace current. Jim cast the flies out about fifteen feet and swung them through the current, and I followed them with a GoPro mounted on a long DIY selfie stick.
Things looked normal from above the waterline, and we assumed the videos wouldn’t show much. Later that day, I checked out the videos and most of the flies looked good in the water. Variations in tying style did not seem to make much difference. However, the hook on one fly was hanging down so far that a fish might miss it. This is called hook hang down, a well-known headache with tube flies. Fly fishing for steelhead can be expensive, and the odds of catching them are already pretty low. They go to zero if your fly can’t hook.
SLIM FAST
While most fly fishers consider a four-inch streamer a big fly, it can be on the small side for folks targeting largemouth bass, big stripers, and muskies. These fish will happily chow down on flies that measure a full foot. This is fly fishing on serious steroids.
Back in the late 90s, a nearby lake used to receive regular deliveries of planted trout, which were popular with local kids and the resident largemouth bass. I had fished for the largemouth for several years, but only with “dinky” little flies measuring six inches or less. I decided it was time to match the planter hatch. A fly about ten inches long seemed like it would do the trick.
I kept things simple by making a scaled-up version of a typical feathered streamer, using a combination of saddle and schlappen hackles to provide the necessary length and bulk. The webby parts of the schlappen hackles gave the fly a nice thick shoulder section, which helped to mask most of the 4/0 hook. The body tapered down to a slim saddle hackle tail that moved nicely when flipped from side to side. A pair of half-inch doll’s eyes gave the fly a frightened look. This was a fly that no self-respecting largemouth could resist!
A few weeks later, a truck unloaded hundreds of trout into the lake. I gave the fish a few days to introduce themselves to the bass. My trusty float tube was slipped into the water and paddled about a hundred yards to a downed tree that usually held some good fish. The first cast went out smoothly, and the fly was given a few seconds to sink before the retrieve began. As it came back, I noticed it looked kind of skinny. The feathers shrunk with every pull on the line, making the fly look more pulsating tapeworm than plump trout. I kept fishing for about an hour, but the bass showed no interest in the intestinal parasite pattern. This shrinking problem would have been obvious had I bothered to test the fly in the bathtub.
GLIDE TIME
If you pay attention to the conventional bass angling world, you’ll no doubt be aware of glide baits. These large lures are crafted to swim with a side-to-side action and can be deadly on big largemouths. Getting that action requires a precise body shape and near-perfect balance. Not surprisingly, folks are willing to spend over a hundred bucks on the better ones.
I had been trying to develop a fly version of the glide bait, with marginal success. A prototype provided the necessary action but absorbed so much water that it was an absolute pig to cast. Frustrated, I set the project aside and focused on developing a fly version of another bass lure, the giant swimbait.
Regular readers may recall reading about Ketley’s Swimbait in a prior “Catchy Ideas” column. The fly uses a Tulle mesh body to create a super-light pattern that absorbs very little water and has a lifelike swimming motion. The fly has become my go-to pattern when largemouth bass and stripers feed on chunky baitfish.
Some swimming pool tests were conducted to see if the live bait would swim just above the bottom when fished on a fast sinking line. This would allow the fly to be fished through debris-laden areas without fear of snagging every few feet. To achieve the necessary buoyancy, a piece of sheet foam was glued to the head of the fly and carefully trimmed until the fly barely floated.
The fly was cast out and followed the line down to about a foot above the bottom, where it hovered motionless. A simple retrieve got the fly moving, but the view from above suggested that the fly wasn’t moving in a straight path. Underwater video showed that the fly was moving from side to side. Quite by accident, I had created a glide bait fly!
THE GREAT ATTRACTOR
If you fish in really big waters, such as large lakes or saltwater, you’ll know there are times when you need to cover a lot of water to find fish. Under these circumstances, it helps to use an attractor pattern that fish can see from a long distance. This isn’t uncommon in the surf when striped bass or halibut can be spread out over miles of beachfront.
A baitfish pattern made entirely from flashabou-like material seemed like it would reflect a lot of light and help roving stripers find my fly. A six-inch version was taken to the surf for an underwater assessment. The resulting video showed that the fly swam nicely and produced some sparkles, but most of the time it blended in with its surroundings. Doh!
Baitfish such as anchovies, smelt, and shad have silvery sides, which you’d think would reflect a lot of light and make them very visible. The reality is quite different. Most of the time, the fish blend into the background because their silver sides reflect the color of the surrounding water. Take a close look at videos of schools of these fish and you’ll notice how they are well camouflaged. They only produce bright light flashes when they change direction or are injured and can’t swim properly. My fly swam in a nice straight path, like a healthy fish.
Underwater testing has proven so effective that it’s become a critical element in my fly-tying process. Weeding out design and rigging problems is the most useful asset, but it’s the serendipitous discoveries that lead to completely new ways to tie, rig, or fish flies that make it so rewarding. Creating a fly that does something radically different is one of the coolest things in fly fishing. Don’t deny yourself that pleasure. Test!
