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.

Early Season River Nymphs

It wont be too long now till the months of February and March when we begin to see the return of the nymphing anglers back on the water after a long winter. Eager to wet the winter tying's and see if the new patterns will tempt fish from the runs of their favorite rivers and streams. The enthusiasm of the angler can be quickly dampened as the cold waters prove it quite difficult to entice a trout to take. At this time of the year brown trout’s metabolism is low and they are still lying in their winter protective lies. So, fishing the typical runs and spring/ summer lies will often lead to disappointment and poor catch rates. 

However, searching through the waters you can discover the more protective places that there could be a chance of a fish or two. These are usually along the margins, in deeper pockets, or places where the fish would remain safe from the winter high waters and cold weather. It is often the case also that you will come across pods of trout in these places, moving from pod to pod will result in a productive day during early spring for the fly angler.
So once you find the fish the next question is what you are going to throw at them to get them to open there mouths. The fish are on the border line from being in their winter feeding mode and their spring hunger encouraging them to snap at anything going by. Selecting the right pattern could be the key to catching rather than blanking.
Here are a few nymphs that I have found to be attractive enough to hook up some early season trout. 

1.Hare’s Ear Grub

Hook: Dohiku 644 or 622
Bead: Copper 3mm-4mm
Thread: Olive tying Thread
Rib: Flat Copper Tinsel
Body: Natural Hares Ear dubbing
Thorax: Mixed Hot Red Dubbing and UV Ice Dubbing

This is a great fly for early season nymphing but will also produce fish throughout the season. I find it best on the point and you could also add some flat lead in the under body to give it that extra weight to get down to the deeper fish.

2.Leggy Caddis

Hook: Dohiku 18-16 Jig
Bead: Slotted Gold or Copper 3mm-4mm
Thread: Olive Tying Thread
Tag: Glo Brite No 12
Tail: Natural Partridge Fibres 
Rib: Gold or Copper Wire
Body: Natural Hares Ear Dubbing
Thorax: Hends Peacock Dubbing
Legs: Speckled Rubber legs
Great Jig nymph and aa great attractor pattern for getting fish to open there mouths. This nymph can be successful on either the point fly or on a dropper. By jigging the rod tip up and down you get those legs moving and they can be a real trigger point for the fish.

3.Black & Orange

Hook: Dohiku 18-16 Jig
Bead: Slotted Gold or Copper 3mm-4mm
Thread: Black Tying Thread
Tail: Glo Brite No 9
Rib: Copper Wire
Body: Root Beer flat tinsel
Hackle: Black CDC Spun and Brushed Back
Thorax: Hends Peacock Dubbing

Another favourite for early season, black can be a good colour if the waters are a bit mucky at this time of the year. The CDC has lovely movement in it when it’s swimming through the runs and the little orange tail peeping through is just enough to entice the fish to have a taste. This fly is one of my go to fly’s no matter where I go.

At this time of year I like to have some movement or bushiness to my nymphs. I tend to stick to more natural colours and materials and use larger beads with smaller bodies to get the nymphs down right where I want them. But a key to successful fishing trips in the early parts of the season is your work rate. You must search the rivers for the fish and don’t be afraid to look in the unlikely spots, you may be surprised, Tight Lines.
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.