Filed under: How To... — admin @ 9:59 am
Some notes on big bass and pike. They eat tiny bait fish, fish, mice, ducklings, etc. Flies for these fish must be styled to trigger and hold big fish. These fish respond to flash, color, and especially, disturbances in the water. Best flies are large, colorful, flashy, noisy and incorporate some type of artificial eyes.
Bead chain, melted mono, dumb bell, stick on, or doll eyes are all used on flies for large fish. All the best pike flies have some type of eyes.
Most productive patterns seem to be very simple. Deceivers, rabbit strip or Clouser style flies are very popular and catch fish. Rabbit strip patterns with bead chain eyes are very simple and should be tied on very stout, sharp hooks. Poppers, either flat face of divers work well as they create a disturbance and look like food when twitched and gurgled.
My own testing with foam poppers for smallmouth indicates that eyes are not as important as other factors. Other authors claim that eyes can make a great deal of difference. When in doubt, use them. It doesn’t take too long to add eyes if it helps in a rare circumstance - you win.
Anybody out there have experience testing flies with or without eyes? Let me know.
Filed under: Observations — admin @ 7:14 pm
On an outdoor related topic…I have a brother who is a famous wildlife artist: Bruce Miller. He won the 1993 Federal Duck stamp competition with this entry!
He is up for Ducks Unlimited Artist of the Year 2009 and you can help him win this prestigious award! His entry is a beautiful painting of his great black lab Jake. Jake was a licker. He was also one of the most handsome dogs I’ve ever seen. He hunted hard, right up to the very end and went away at the age of 11.
As a tribute to Jake, Bruce created this beautiful rendition of him doing what he loved most in a painting entitled: “Ready At Dawn”. We should all be fortunate enough to honor our lost loved ones in such a cool manner.
For Bruce, Jake will always be his favorite dog. Like most of us, there’s usually one pet or animal that really becomes a part of use and has more true meaning than most of the humans on the planet.
Jake was friendly (he didn’t care for cats, but we can’t hold that against him). He was a fabulous hunting dog, rock solid in the blind - with an excellent nose and instinct for finding and retrieving down birds.
I even wrote a song about him called “Come On, Jake!”. I’ll play it for you on a video someday. In the meantime, if you’ve ever been close to a dog that liked to lick, you know Jake. Just put your head down his way and get ready for a heapin’ helpin’ of sloppy smackers.
You can vote for Bruce and Jake by clicking HERE; or by copying this link in your browser window: http://www.ducks.org/Support_DU/ArtPackage/3515/2009ArtistoftheYear.html
Filed under: Reflections — admin @ 12:02 pm
How about a little evening White Miller footage to make you yearn for the upcoming summer? The camera man was a rookie, as you’ll see, but the footage is kind of cool. It’s basically fighting and landing a 17″ (tape measured) Mississippi smallmouth bass during a fairly heavy hatch of ephemeron leukons.[display_podcast]
I had to brighten the display so it could be seen in the darkness of dusk. Thus it’s somewhat pixelated but you’ll get the picture. Hope you enjoy the amateurish footage. Note the White Millers in the air through out the video.
Some notes on big bass and pike. They eat tiny bait fish, fish, mice, ducklings, etc. Flies for these fish must be styled to trigger and hold big fish. These fish respond to flash, color, and especially, disturbances in the water. Best flies are large, colorful, flashy, noisy and incorporate some type of artificial eyes.