Nancy and I have been camping, spending some great time together in the wonderful forest lands of the U.S. In addition to the usual “camp chores,” there’s time for some needed reading, writing, lounging, fishing or course, and generally resetting one’s self. I also took some time to dress flies for a soon-upcoming trip to […]
Striper fishing is picking up along the Jersey coast, and our friend, Theo Bakelaar, has been tying his Eel Skin Sand Eels for a shop in Ocean City. These flies really are tied with freshwater eel skin, and they are extremely effective, as our past fishing experiences have shown. Eel skin is very tough and […]
My good friend, Theo Bakelaar, from Holland, has been tying a great selection of foam flies: beetles, ants, caddises, and on. He sent the tying steps for a really great foam caddis. It is profile fly, and a really good one. Have a look.
My friend, Theo Bakelaar, from Holland, sent me photos of some house flies that he is tying for the coming season. Scary good! He notes that the trout and other fish sip them off the surface with absolute confidence. This design would make a great cicada imitation in larger sizes. He will send tying instructions […]
Those who use the various long-leader nymphing tactics will find this fly a very good one to get deep and stay deep. And although Theo ties it in 10 and 12, it is effective down to 18—adjusting the bead size to the hook size, of course. I like to use it as the top fly […]
I first saw this brush-parachute hackle winding style in “Entomologie fur Dliegenfischer” by Walter Reisinger, Ernst Bauerfeind, and Erhard Loidl (2010). It’s a very easily executed tactic, similar to the umbrella hackle technique developed by Tatsuhiro Saido. The brush-parachute technique is useful in many more ways than the umbrella style, however. T.H.E. Fly (Tilted Hackle […]
While at the International Fly Tying Symposium, I had an opportunity to examine Jim Mattson’s new Pulse Disks for the fly fisher. These thin, plastic disks are place on the leader just ahead of the fly, and cause it to swim with a side to side motion that is truly astounding. There are seven sizes […]
A couple of days before the International Fly Tying Symposium (held Nov. 23, 24) Theo Bakellar, Ben Furimski, and I spent a day fishing for stripers. Theo fished with a variety of his eelskin flies. These are tied with a strip of freshwater eelskin. The skin is very thin and flexible, and so, swims very […]
I added this fly to the end of my last post on the International Fly Tying Symposium, but I wanted to do a separate post on it just to call everyone’s attention to this novel, and very effective technique. Rattle flies always rattled me a bit as a tier because they required a rattle chamber […]
Give a man a set of rubber legs and he will go wild. Theo is at it again. If anyone wants to watch him tie some of these easily done, and highly creative imitations, come to the International Fly Tying Symposium, November 23-24, at the Garden State Convention Center in Somerset New Jersey. I’ll be […]