Hey! I'm packing for a trip to MO to visit family this coming week and in the process of selecting flies, I thought I might share a few I've been using lately and doing well wtih (with which I'm doing well? Well I'm doing which? whatever).
I am NOT a skilled fly tyer, which will be evident with the poor heads, lack of cement, bits of feather exposed and unsightly, etc. I very much favor spending my time fishing over tying, so that's how I justify tying sloppy patterns. It's a great excuse actually. If a fly takes longer than about 5 minutes to tie, I tend to either give up after tying a few and/or I am unwilling to fish and risk losing something I spent a long time creating (5+ minutes is apparently a long time to me, like a masterpiece...blame television). I like to fish without a care in the world for losing one on the bottom (or a tree).
Anyway -- the MM minnow I've played around with and it's been a great minnow for me -- got my 1st snakefish, several decent bass, etc. on it. Lots of other species too. Note that a couple I've pictured here are tied on very short hooks to prevent fouling -- I've also tried varying the two marabou wings and reducing flash, both amount and length. Actually, I'm tying most stuff flashless at this point. Flash is flimsy and likes to foul around the hook too often for me. More with soft marabou and calf tail than stiff stuff like bucktail. I hate fouling. It wastes time. The white belly, brownish-orange pattern has been my best color combo. The brownish-orange feathers are actually "filoplumes" form a dead rooster my brother-in-law sent me from MO, not marabou. So "MM minnow" might not be technically correct.
The Gartside sparrow is great if you like flies that don't look like anything and you have a lot of dead pheasants around. Beth has caught some decent bass on it and I like tying them. I don't use hare dubbing for the body though, I just literally dub the pheasant "scraps" onto the hook....it seems to work fine. I wish I had met Jack Gartside -- I really like a lot of his patterns and he seems like a guy I would have liked.
Soft hackles? Love fishing those things. I managed a brook trout this weekend on one -- which tickles me to death. There's nothing more enjoyable to me than working those on a swing....or just twitching them for sunfish.
For nymphs I've been tying various sizes and colors of Sawyers killer bug. It's a great, very simple nymph that seems to work well. Sawyer tied his with no thread -- just copper wire. I do a few that way, but I prefer thread. Also, I prefer to tear up wool yarn and dub it onto the hook rather than winding the yarn.
I fish other stuff, but these are the ones I've been using most often.
How about you guys? I really am interested in what the other folks tend to favor around here this time of year. Feel free to add pics/comments! I'll see how the farm pond works out in MO while I'm out there.
Gene
-- http://www.tpfr.org
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