WOVEN FUN
I have been playing with some woven flies, and they work well for me on bluegills in this area. I had tied on some legs, and then wove around the legs to add action to the fly. Then a very dangerous thing happened, my mind went in a few weird directions. I decided to run the rubber legs through the loops on the material being woven. I did that and the legs stayed in place but were pointed down. I tied up five variations of body colors with four colors of legs.
Then it was time to head for a pond and see if they worked. It was a warm Thursday afternoon in May and I had my 5 weight graphite and the Tenkara rod with me. I tied on a white woven fly with white legs on the Tenkara rod. I already had a black boa yarn fly on the other rod.
As it turned out this fly worked just fine, and on the first five casts with the Tenkara rod I caught two gills, a crappie and a small bass. I was fishing a little bay on the east end of the dam. There were a couple of other folks fishing of a dock that was been built on this pond, and they were not doing as well. They asked what I was using so went over and showed them. I gave them each a fly and they caught a few fish, so I dug out the box the flies were in and gave them two of them. One was a red-yellow combination and the other a brown-green combination. The both began to catch some fish.
The other couple fishing on the pond started to pack up. I knew them well so went over to see how they had done. They had just two gills in their bucket. I know that they like fish and can rarely get out due to health problems, so all the fish in my basket went into their bucket.
I headed back on to the dam and fished across it. I hooked a lot of fish and landed some of them. There was just enough wind to make it hard to tell when the fish where hitting, and thus I lost many when I raised the rod to cast again near shore.
I got to the east side of the pond and gave up on the Tenkara rod. I needed to practice casting in the wind. I tried the 5 weight with the black boa yarn fly, and found that doing a slow retrieve was what the doctor ordered. Immediately I got some very nice gills and crappie on the fly. The fish were taking it very deep, and I had to use the forceps to get it out of the gills.
Then curiosity got me. I tied one of the woven flies on. The one I chose was purple and orange with red legs. I wanted to know how this fly would work with a regular rod. Even with this weird color combo I was getting fish. The fish were taking it deep again.
When I lifted the basket to move it I discovered that it weighed more than I thought it would. There were quite a few fish in it. I decided it might be a good time to head home and take care of them. As I was getting back to the pickup I ran into a young couple that I have become acquainted with. They are a college age couple on a limited budget. They are fun to be around, and I asked if they might like a few of the fish. They bit harder on that offer than any of the fish did. I went to their apartment and gave them 25 fish out of the basket; a nice mix of crappie and gills.
When I arrived at home and found that I still had 35 fish in the basket. There were plenty of fillets to eat and share. Later I found out from the old couple I gave fish to that they had taken care of 37 fish. It was a really good day on the pond.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick