Eye of the Guide

LATE SEASON STREAMER FOR WARM WATERS

Silly Sunfish & Billy Bass- October 19, 2009
Ghostwriter: Tom Travis

As the days grow shorter and the water-temperatures begin to cool from the highs of summer. The denizens of the local lakes and ponds will move out of the deeper water and lay-off the drop-off edges. As the water becomes even a little cooler you can find fish like us in the shallows. (Because water warms up faster in the shallows with the available sunlight) The lakes and ponds in the northern climates will soon be covered with snow and ice so the fall is the last chance for us fish to feed up, to face the long cold waters of winter. This is also the last chance for the angler, to entice these denizens to take a fly. Soon, the ice and snow will make the fly fishing somewhat difficult. Oh, I know that there are those among you that “Ice Fish”.

I have never understood Ice Fishing. First off, cutting a long trench and keeping it open and free of ice is a lot of work. The trench opening is used by fly anglers! Secondly, who wants to catch ICE, it is hard to hook and doesn’t fight very well. Furthermore, it really doesn’t have much taste, unless you mistakenly land that yellow ice! YUCK!!  But we digress. 

The first thing that you anglers should do upon arriving at your favorite pond or lake is take the water temperature. Hopefully, you will have a fair idea of how much the temperature has dropped; this will aid you in figuring out where we may be located. This information will also aid you choosing the proper fly line to use, so you can place your pattern in the proper zone and keep it there for the longest period of time.

We often see anglers using nothing but floating lines, and at times they work very well. But there are other times, when we see the imitations above us in the water column, and we are not willing to leave our comfort zone to chase it. Sometime, we send some of our smaller cousins up to try out those tasty looking imitations. But if it is not in our feeding zone, we really don’t pay it much attention.

However, a couple of years ago an angler showed up who seemed to know what he was about. He took the water temperature, consulted a notebook, selected a rod, rigged up with a Type II Full Sinking Line, slipped into his U-Boat and quietly began moving around the shoreline. He seemed to spend a fair amount of time slowly moving around and watching.  

Then he proceeded to tie on a baitfish imitation, (streamer to you fly fishing types) and he then positioned himself so he was about 10 feet off the drop-off edge and began casting parallel to the shoreline working his baitfish imitation.

His first cast was a major disaster, and we rolled over and over in the water with laughter. After a few minutes of untangling, he proceeded to make reasonable cast of about 40 feet or so, and he allowed the imitation to sink (I believe he was using a countdown method.) Then he proceeded to twitch and move the imitation in the most seductive manner.  Well, some of my Bass cousins went after that imitation like it was strip of free sucker meat. Even a few of the stupid perch and many of the sunfish and bluegills attacked this imitation. I have no idea how many of us he hooked, but it was a lot! We thank the Fish Gods that he was a catch and release angler or many of our friends would have ended up on the dinner table as the main course.

Finally, there was a commotion, a violent strike and for a brief moment a water wolf exploded into the fall air. After a short, hard run and another jump, the angler and the Northern Pike parted company. We saw that devil swim off with the anglers imitation. We could hear the angler laughing, which we found odd, normally when one of us dart around a log or stick and breaks off an imitation we would hear the anglers cursing and complaining, but this guy was laughing!

Soon he had tied on another imitation and was soon casting again. This imitation appeared to be a different color than the previous one, but it did resemble one of our favorite bait fish foods. Soon we were fighting over who was going to eat it.

I kept telling myself that this was a fake, but my friend Silly Sunfish, just could not stay focused and finally fell victim to the alluring manipulations. Even my own brother, Johnny Bass, fell victim and even though he is considerably larger than I am, and tried his famous once around the sunken log trick!  The angler finally brought him to net.

All grew quiet, and suddenly there was a new and different tantalizing morsel in front of me, and even though I knew better I could not help myself. Soon, I was in his hand and he was telling me that I should be more careful of eating Craft-fur Streamers in the future and that I was a plump game little fighter. Before I was released I had a chance to see several different Craft-Fur Streamers stuck in a foam patch on his U-Boat.

Now the ice is thick and snow blows across the top of the pond, but we heard through the underwater fish telegraph that he has moved south into warmer weather and is still fooling our Brim and Bass friends in the South. We have also learned that this style of imitation can be very effective in the saltwater.

Also we heard, from Bugzy the Brown Trout that this style of streamer, when tied in the proper color combinations can be very effective on various species of trout, in both moving and still water situations.

We will now share these patterns with you anglers, in the hope that you will also be primarily catch and release anglers.

This first pattern was a favorite of Silly Sunfish and his Bluegill cousins. I believe it may be classed as an attractor, but I am not sure, as you angler types have so many different names and categories for your imitations.

Silly’s Favorite
White CFS

Notes: Silly says that oh it looks so tasty, but yuck, those white craft-fur fibers can get stuck in your teeth. Craft-fur is handled much like deer hair, spray it with a little static guard when it first come out of the package and use a comb to groom it. By the way, do not try to even the tips!

Johnny’s
Black & Purple (Terror) CFS

Note: Johnny calls it the Terror. Large bass do seem to like it. Just as a point of information this color combination is very effective on Snook and several other saltwater species. However I would switch over to a stainless steel hook for saltwater imitations.

Billy’s
Shad CFS

Silly says: My scales are just itching for a rematch with one of them Craft-fur Streamer.  Next time, well I have a couple of new tricks up my scales, which may well change the out come.

Billy says: Chill out, it took us two years to write this as the pen kept slipping out of our fins. Once, a rather larger Northern Pike ate the almost completed manuscript and we were force to start over. Then, some clown with a power Ice Auger, drilled through the manuscript. Gee the life of underwater fishing author is filled with constant mishaps.

In closing, some might find this style of writing somewhat silly.  Guess what IT IS!  But, remember fly fishing is supposed to fun. Therefore, endeavor to relax, laugh and enjoy what you are doing. By the way the patterns and the information is no less informative regardless of the humorous way it was presented.

Story related to Tom Travis by Silly Sunfish and Billy Bass

Comment on this article

Archive of the Eye of the guide

[ HOME ]

[ Search ] [ Contact FAOL ] [ Media Kit ]

FlyAnglersOnline.com © Notice