Common Wealth Champion, Brian Kerr sharing some Hot Tips on fishing Boobies in Still waters.

International Gold medals in the sport of fly fishing are a rarity on the Island of Ireland North and South. As a competitive angler I have fish many internationals for my country and a medal of any colour has still alluded me, as the same is for the majority of anglers that have represent there Country at the highest level. This very achievement was accomplished during last summer by Northern Ireland's Team Member Brian Kerr who was the first ever Northern Ireland Angler to pick up the individual Gold, with his Team also taking the Gold at the 2018 Common Wealth championships. Well done to the entire team it was a great achievement.  

I had the pleasure to have Brian on the Ireland Team I captained which went to the World finals last September in Italy just after his big win and trust me his achievement in the Common Wealth's was well deserved. Brian is an outstanding angler on rivers and lake who's attention to detail puts him right up there as one of the best anglers I have ever had the pleasure to fish with. 

Now it was long before last summer that I had heard of the Northern Ireland angler Brian Kerr and it was during the winter months on still water venues over the last number of years where his name was mentioned in many discussions on tactics and tying's. Brian is renowned for his still water ability and for his booby tying; and when it come to catching fish on these lures there is few better than him. So during our time in Italy I had a conversation with Brian in regards to tying effective boobies and how to fish them correctly to maximize takes and getting tying details right. Brian kindly agreed to share some of his hot tops tips for tying and fishing boobies on still water venues right here. 

BRIAN'S TOP TIPS FOR TYING BOOBIES

When tying boobies and making booby eyes, the most important thing for fishing purposes is having them symmetrical and the diameter you want for the job you want them to do. The latest craze is to ‘bake’ them in the oven to round them off neatly and there’s no doubt they look fantastic for a photograph, but I don’t think it matters to the fish. As long as they’re symmetrical this should stop them from spinning and making a mess of your leaders and the fly will also fish correctly in the water.

To form the eyes, you can make your booby eye cutters from a few different things, extending car aerials, mechanics inspection mirrors and selfie sticks to name a few, the last two are handy if you want a bigger diameter and don’t forget to sharpen the end of each cutter with a needle file. I like to put my chosen cutter into a cordless drill and drill a load of tubes from a plastazote block at one time. 

I then cut each booby tube into suitable lengths, for example when I drill out 6mm tubes I try to cut them into lengths of about 10mm, you get two out of one tube with a little bit of waste, for smaller eyes of 3 or 4mm diameter cutting them so you get 3 lengths out of one tube makes them about the right length. I then put a medium thickness darning needle into the vice and push a pre-cut tube onto the needle trying to make sure it goes on straight and dead center. Then I take my bobbin holder and make one loose turn of thread around the tube making sure its as close to dead center as possible and then pull tight, the Super Fine & Strong Kevlar tying thread is perfect for this job, its strong enough to tighten down into the foam without cutting into it,  do about five tight turns of thread and then whip finish and trim the thread. Slide the eyes off the needle and repeat with the next one.

Cut one, two and three

The next step is trimming the eyes, this is the part a lot of people either have trouble with or just plain hate doing, it can be a tedious job and best done when you’re in the mood for it or in front of the TV, as with anything the more you do the better and faster you get at them. I’ve tried lots of different pairs of scissors for this, cheap, expensive, straight and curved and the ones I keep going back to are the Veniards Fine Point straight scissors, they have one edge slightly serrated and it seems to just catch a grip of the foam, they work perfectly for me anyway. I always think of each side of the eyes as 3 cuts, the first cut around the circumference is across the edge at 45 degrees. This then leaves you with two ‘edges’ which you then trim in the same way (not as deep a cut as the first) and hopefully this will leave you with a nice round booby eye.

The Rotary Tool or Dremel as it’s mostly known is another good method for shaping the booby eyes. You need the aluminium oxide grinding stone, Dremel code all of their stones and attachments so if you’re looking for it the code for this particular stone is ‘932’. This is a 9.5mm cylindrical shape with an inverted cone in the end of it which a booby tube fits perfectly into. I find going round the booby tube first and taking the edge off and then using the Dremel to round it off works best for me but having done them so long with the scissors now I tend to just stick with that.

When I tie boobies I like to tie the full fly first, leaving a slightly longer than usual head and add the booby eyes last. The main reasons for this are firstly that I like to have the booby eyes all pre-formed. When tying flies for International Rules tying the eyes on last and making them level with the eye of the hook ensures they will fit in the gauge without losing anything in the length of the wing or tail maximising movement in the fly. Lastly, I find tying them on when the fly is finished makes the eyes sit a bit higher on the shank of the hook ensuring you have more clearance at the gape of the hook giving better hook ups.

Don’t forget when tying your boobies to consider the size of the booby eyes allowing for the different gauges and weights of hooks, its no-good putting 2mm booby eyes on a size 10 heavy wire hook and expecting it to sit in the top few inches.

When adding the eyes to the flies, I like to sit them on top of the hook in the position they will be when the fly is completed, take the thread between them once loosely and draw it down tight, from there tie them in using a figure of eight motion and this will ensure they stay straight on the fly, once you’re satisfied they’re secured you can whip finish at the eye of the hook. I then check they’re straight and sitting right, adjusting them if need be. From there I take my dubbing needle and some superglue gel, I find the gel so much easier to work with because you can leave it sitting on the table, squeeze the sides and take a drop from the nozzle of the

bottle, the first drop goes between the booby eyes on the top of the fly, I then turn the fly over and put a drop between each booby eye and the eye of the hook, once that’s dry it ensures the eyes stay firm and the fly fishes straight and doesn’t spin. Now your boobies are ready for fishing.

Brian's TOP TIPS for Fishing Boobies.

When fishing boobies there’s a few important factors to consider, sometimes the small things can make a big difference. During the winter months when I’m bank fishing although, there will still be trout up and about, I also expect some of the trout to be down near the lake bed feeding due to lack of flies hatching. The first important factor will be line choice, you can fish boobies on a fast glass, or a Di3 and eventually it will get down to the lake bed and you will catch fish but that time it takes for those lines to sink is time wasted, far better to reach for the Di7, Di8 or Booby Basher line, get down there quick and get fishing.

Tippet choice and speed of retrieve will also make a difference. If say you’re fishing two flies on a short leader on a fast sinking line and you count the line down to the lake bed and  then start retrieving fairly quickly your flies will be pretty much scraping the lake bed and under the fish, whereas a slow retrieve will keep them just up off the bottom and in the feeding zone covering the bottom few feet. Alternatively, during the warmer months when the fish are very high in the water and I’m fishing the ‘washing line’ method again the tippet, booby eyes and even hook choice can make a big difference. Fluorocarbon sinks faster than copolymer or monofilament so if I’m looking to fish covering the top few feet I will fish a fluorocarbon tippet, with

3mm booby eyes, but if the fish are very high in the water I would change from a fluorocarbon leader with 6-8 inch droppers to a copolymer leader with 4 inch droppers, medium or light wire hooks and 4mm booby eyes to keep the flies very high up in the water without having to retrieve any faster making the flies look unnatural.

During our trip to Italy for the World Championships the team fished a crystal-clear lake during practice. We could see the fish cruising in front of us and it quickly became apparent that these fish were spooked by the shadow of a fly line and even the tippet above them. By changing to a fast sinking line and boobies we could fish the contours of the lake with the fly line below the fish but the flies a few feet off the bottom and no line or tippet spooking the fish, the difference was instant and the fish that had been turning away from the flies on the floating line would now grab the booby without hesitation. This is a great example of the importance of choosing the right lines and tippet for the job. 

Brian Kerr is a renowned top bank angler and some of these simple but highly important tips can make all the difference in catching or struggling to catch on still waters this winter. I would like to thank Brian for sharing his information on the blog and wish him a successful 2019. But it will be hard for him to TOP an amazing 2018. Well done Brain !
I hope you have enjoyed reading this post and thanks for checking out my blog.If you would like to stock up your boxes for this coming year make sure and contact me through Facebook or email. If you have any questions or queries please feel free to contact me. Also make sure and check out my website www.piscari-fly.com for all your tungsten beads, Dohiku barbless hooks, Tommi-fly products,the amazing Syndicate Fly Rods, Reels, leaders and much more. Thanks for reading.

Pulling the Minky: Chasing Winter Rainbows

Pulling lures or streamers can be an effective approach that an angler can take to catching winter rainbows. This blog post is some of my thoughts and tips to catching fish using this approach. The choice of flies here that you can choose from for this method is a very extensive list. It includes Minkies, Damsels, Leeches, Cat Whiskers, large wet fly’s, and a host of flies beaded or not with Marabou or Zonkers tails in every colour under the sun. 
However, for the purpose of this post we will focus on fry imitating Minkies. In the majority of ponds around the country small fry and minnow make up a fair proportion of the fishes diet. Correctly fished this method can be devastating, but there are some key points to note when choosing to pull fry patterns. One of the most important aspects to good a good fry pattern is it must have movement. Not just how you move the fly through the water with your retrieve but also it must wiggle or pulse because of long loose tails or fibers that make up the fly. 

For this reason the most popular materials used to dress these flies is rabbit zonker strips. The soft long hair fibers when wet will move and pulse through the water as you retrieve it, giving it the look of natural bait making its way along. This movement also acts as a trigger for the fish and may entice an attack when it is following the fly. The soft skin that holds the fibers together is also strong enough so that when the fish pluck at the end of the fly it will last for more than one attack. 

Once again, finding the fishes depth is crucial and the speed of retrieve will also be the difference between catching and perhaps not. So to begin start at a chosen point or depth and work from there till you find the right speed and movement. Mixing up your retrieve will not only get the speed right but it will also affect the movement of your fly.
Once you feel you have discovered the right depth and speed, fan out your casts to cover all the areas of the lake in from of you, starting by the bank to your left or right. This location is popular for roaming fish looking for this type of food and stripping along the margins can be very successful. Remember to remain low and out of sight sometimes the fish will follow the fly right in to you position and if you are standing up you will spoke them before they have the chance to attack. Another good feature to watch out for is shelves under the surface on the bed of the lake, where it drops off to deeper water. This location is again a good spot for roaming and feeding fish and a well presented minkey can have good results here also.

There is however a constant issue some anglers have with fishing minke's and that is, tail bites. This is when the fish follow the fly in and nip at the long fibers of the tail not resulting in a hook up when the angler strikes. To remedy this problem, we see the introduction of what is now known as the snake design, this is a long minkey pattern with initially two hooks in the tying. The two hooks are connected with either fine braid or strong monofilament, the tyer’s choice. The long zonker strip is then attached to both hooks and the hook nearest the head of the fly has its bend and point cut off. So now when stripping in the long minkey and the fish tail bites the second hook is right at the rear of the fly and this will result in more hook ups for the angler. Unfortunately in a lot of competitions this fly is not allowed, so when fishing long minkey's you must remember to keep retrieving when you are getting tail plucks and only lift into the fish when you feel the weight of the fish solidly on the line. Sometimes I can get 3 to 4 plucks on one cast before hooking the fish, but I never strike I keep retrieving at either the same pace or faster waiting till the fish chasing it has had enough and decides to attack.

When tying your fry patterns it is a good tip also to use bright cheeks or glob brite heads as this shifts the attack point of the fish to higher up the body of the fly and will result in more hook ups. We also have variations of the standard style of minkey that is worth a try. 
Bunny leaches are of the same concept but have a bright plastic floating bead threaded up on the zonker strip in the tail to give a different movement to the tail of the fly as it swims through the water. Also you can add in double tail side by side to creates even greater disturbances in the water. Again you can add bead heads, twin eyes and booby eyes to the head of the fly which in turn will give different effects to how the fly will fish.
Like any discipline in fly fishing you must find what you are confident in using and doing, once you have that your flies will always have a chance of a fish. But remember when you find yourself wading through boxes of colours, fritz’s, marabou, zonkers strips, nymphs, lures, booby’s and god know what in all of our fly boxes looking for the answer to catching a fish. Always choose what you have confidence in and you will never be too far off.  

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and trying out some of these fly's and enjoy catching fish with it even more. If you have any questions please feel free to give me a shout on my contact details and if you are interested in Dohiku hooks, top quality tungsten beads, or Syndicate competition Fly Rods drop me a line or check them out on my website. Thanks for reading.

Bank Fishing The Blob

It is over the last decade or so that we have seen winter fly fishing becoming more prominent in Ireland. When I was growing up, the dreaded end of September meant the fly fishing gear was put away and I would spend the winter months tying flies that would have aspirations of emptying rivers come the following March. Thankfully the case these days is the river gear is packed away and we swap the light weight nymphing rods for our 6,7 and 8 weight bank rods. We have seen in recent years the emergence of plenty man-made fisheries that offer the angler great winter sport at reasonable costs. 

Also there is plenty of choice as the different fisheries present different fishing challenges, from natural environments that test our casting ability to well wintered fish that test our skill and nerves. The methods used generally in this field of fly fishing is ever evolving, there are new approaches and developments in materials regularly, each being hailed as the next best thing. Sometimes to be honest it is hard to keep up with it all.
As I have found over the last couple of winter seasons it sometimes is just as effective to stick to the basics and do the simple things right rather than get wrapped up in all the new developments, tackle and fly tying materials. So for the rest of this article I hope to give you some simple and still very effective methods and patterns to tempt the rainbows from their winter ponds. It is always important to check the fisheries rules when you arrive to see what is and is not allowed to be fished. While a few fisheries have rules regarding the fishing of Blobs in certain ways, it has to be said that they are the stable diet of the bank angler. Love them or hate them they are simple as simple gets to tie and fish correctly can be deadly.

There are a couple of ways you can fish the blob; firstly they can be presented through stripping or retrieving on sinking lines. Fished alone or as part of a team the trick here is to get the depths right and the retrieve, just the way the fish want it. So it is good practice once you cast out your flies to count down to a chosen depth, depending on the sink rate of your line and then begin stripping back the flies at various speeds until you get the depth rights and the speed. Another popular presentation method would be stagnant fishing the blob; this can be done either from the top down or the bottom up. Again the key here get your depth right. From the top down, can be achieved one way by using a floating line which will suspend the blob at the depth of your leader length, or the depth you allow it to sink to before beginning to figure of eight it back to you.

A contemporary practice of anglers is now to suspend the blob under what is called a bung, a this floating device can be made of plastic foam or a tied bung with buoyant materials used to support the fly often dipped in watershed to make it float endlessly. With this method you can now leave the blob or blobs at the required depth for longer until a fish takes it. Through bunging the fly will remain completely stagnant which is required sometimes by the fish before they will bite. The hi-visibility of the bung allows the angler to witness the takes quite easy on those dark wintery days. This presentation method can be used for several other patterns such as squrmies, buzzers, stalking bugs and the like. One key factor to fishing blobs under the bung I find important is to add a little flat lead to the under body of the fly and this allows it to reach its depth faster.

Fishing from the bottom up can be very effective during the colder days when fish are sitting deeper and feeding among the last of the summer vegetation on the lake bed. Here we would use fast sinking lines say a DI 3,5 or 7 sink rate depending on the depths of the lake you are fishing. We often add something to the blob for this method to be most productive; by putting some foam in the back of the fly we now have what is called a FAB (floating assed blob). This now allows us to sink the line to the lake bed and slowly retrieve the blob, which is suspended above the line path and the weeds or other snags that offer the fish food and protection. Again changing length of leaders from the fly line will allow your FAB to fish at different depths, and the most important aspect to catching fish in a stocked fishery is you must find the depth of the fish for any method to be effective.

There is a large variety of colours and textures to modern day blob materials, for the basic blob pattern use simple blob fritz, tie the core of the fritz on the hook above the bend and as you wind up the fritz in touching turns make sure and to pull back the fibres as you go so the finished fly has all the fibres leaning back away from the eye of the hook. I also find that using a nice bright thread for the head adds an extra hot spot for the fish to attack. You can also add in a second colour fritz to your fly, a tail of your choice or a pair of booby eyes, all giving you a variety of looks, shapes and colours that may attract feeding fish.
For me, the tackle generally I use is either 6,7 or 8 weight, ten foot rod by Syndicate, I find them great rods. The rod I choose at any time will depend on the wind, the line I wish to fish, the method I am fishing and even the size of tippet I need to use. Another aspect is how far out are the fish in the lake and how far do I need to cast. One piece of advice I give all bank anglers would be to get a lesson or two on casting, it will increase your catch rate, enjoyment of a day on the lake and save your arms from a lot of punishment, it is well worth it. Tippet wise, Grand max Soft Plus is a huge

favorite among bank anglers, expensive but as fluorocarbon goes it is good. Yet I have often seen the low cost monofilaments do the job also, my advice here is use what you are confident in using to begin with. A good pair of glasses to protect the eyes, warm clothes and a flask of tea and your all set. Oh a towel is a nice comfort, so when you have released a fish back into the water on cold days to dry your hands and save the cold setting into the bones.

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and trying out some of these fly's and enjoy catching fish with it even more. If you have any questions please feel free to give me a shout on my contact details and if you are interested in Dohiku hooks, top quality tungsten beads, or Syndicate competition Fly Rods drop me a line or check them out on my website. Thanks for reading. 

Egg Yarn Streamers

With some Autumn river trips recently, my bank season for rainbows is a bit later starting than most.So over the last few days I have been stocking up on some old trustworthy patterns. Here is a neat little fly that has always produced fish for me and one worth having in the box for the season. 
I always try out different ways to work with materials and this was a good discovery. I find the body is highly UV reflective and has a lovely meaty look to it as it puffs a little when wet. The hot collar is also Egg yarn and is a great hot spot on any fly. 

Hook: Dohiku 302 size 12-10 
Bead: 2.5 - 3mm sliver bead 
Thread: Kevlar 50D thread 
Tail: Dave Downie white Marabou 
Body: Yellow egg yard (tie in a fraction of the yarn and spin it to form a floss like look, this gives it extra strength). 
Wing: Dave Downie white Marabou 
Collar: Hot red egg yarn (cut up small chunks of yarn and pull apart to make a dubbing)
I find this fly fished best on a fast or slow intermediate line and vary the retrieves till you find what the fish want. A very slow retrieve is often most effective on a long leader.
  

Another good fly that I use this hot collar on is one of my top nymphs on the river. Egg yarn is a very versatile material that can add to many of your fly's. As dose a lot of other materials so it is worth messing around with some and you never know what little things you might discover that make a huge difference to your flies. 
I hope you enjoy tying these fly's and enjoy catching fish with it even more. If you have any questions please feel free to give me a shout on my contact details and if you are interested in Dohiku hooks, top quality tungsten beads, or Syndicate competition Fly Rods drop me a line or check them out on my website. Thanks for reading. 

Bank Fishing in Lough Doire Bhile, Glengoole

Toady myself and a pair of angling buddies decided to give this venue a go bank fishing for rainbows and we were not disappointed. Lough Doire Bhile is situated two miles north of Glengoole, just off the Littleton-Glengoole bog road beside the Bord na Móna Lanespark bog. The lake is approximately six acres on a 70 acre wildlife sanctuary, which also contains two wetland areas.
Nestled under the picturesque Slieveardagh Hills, a mile from the village of new Birmingham better known as Glengoole this lake has an abundance of sizable brown and rainbow trout ranging from two pound upwards . The water quality of this remote unspoiled spring fed lake is exceptional, it is crystal clear but dose have some weed issues around the margins in certain areas . With depths of up to 12ft, an island feature and a naturalized shoreline, it gives the angler a very natural fishery to try his ability on. 

We began our day just in front of the car-park and made our way around the lake moving clockwise, there was a stiff breeze in our faces for the first few pegs but this had blown some  rainbows to the shore line to feed and it was not long before we started meeting fish and plenty of them, catching several good quality fish in a few casts pulling lures. 

Some locations around the lake had pontoons and these are quite well built with lots of space but do be careful as in wet weather they can become slippy under foot (Dave). Gradually moving up along the left hand shore we had the best of fishing meeting good chasing rainbows on several different colours and types of lures and streamers, black and orange being the two most prominent colours, the fish were attacking the flies once you gave them the first pull near the surface .

At the top of the lake we did find that the weed growth made it a bit more difficult in catching and landing fish as they would get buried in it as we played them. Dave did managed a couple of nice browns in this part of the lake on smaller black leech type lures retrieved very slow on a slow sinker.

Coming down the other shore line was not as productive as the left except for one mark that produced fish after fish, perhaps there was a hole or clearing in the weeds here but it was stuffed with fish. We found that finding these locations on the lake was a must if you are to have a good rate of takes.  The cost of a day here is 15 euro which is pretty reasonable and today we got value for our money. Permits are available from the local club and contact details can be found in the local village near the lake. 

We had a lot of fish today between the three of us and a multitude of stuff worked for us from bunging to slow fishing blobs on the bottom, the most prolific colours were black, orange and green. If you are fishing medium size lures on slow sinkers you wont go to far wrong here. There is a nice walkway around the lake, with plenty of casting room and it is also wheel chair accessible, with some nice seats and benches to relax on and have the tea. 

This lake is well worth the visit and the fish are of good quality, however with two competitions here over the next few weeks fishing might get a bit tougher that we had today but still well worth the trip over. 

I hope you enjoy reading this post and if you have any comments or questions just drop me a line below, also if you would like to see whats coming next just sign in and follow us. Thanks for reading.