Smelt patterns

Tied a few Smelt patterns on an old Mustad 3576 #2 hook. (12x long ?) Thinking of trolling the fingerlakes with them in the pontoon.Attachment 7569Attachment 7570Attachment 7571Attachment 7572Attachment 7573

sandfly,

Yoowwsa, those are some long flies!! Like em - A LOT! I have a few Carrie Stevens hooks that are 10X long. Have you ever tried them? The next longest hooks I have are the Mustad 94720 which are 8X long. This is the first I've seen the Mustad 3576s. I'm almost drooling on my puter, just looking at them! LOL!!! In one of your photos you have a couple of bare streamer hooks for comparison(?), what hooks are they? My favorite (so far) smelt pattern is the Nine-Three. I like the stuff you have tied up! Thanks - you've made my day! I'm really excited about that 3576 - can you tell! LOL!!!

Best regards, Dave S.

The 3576 is reversed and may create balance and twirling issues when trolled. I have been tying Carrie Stevens patterns on Mustad 3907A and B hooks for a couple years for an annual lake trout trip. The lakers are lined up in a river mouth hammering downbound salmon smolts. It is the most incredible fishing situation I have ever seen and I have fished here in AK since '64... Long about twilight, as dark as it gets, the schools of smolts start making breaks for the river. Schools of lake trout ambush them and the water very literally boils all around! Two years ago I hooked and landed 8 lake trout on 8 casts. My wife and I were the only two still fishing at 2AM.

Problem with the 3907A and 3907B hooks is the 10x long shank makes it hard to land tough fighting fish. Articulated stuff works much better as the short shank hooks do not provide the leverage of the originals... But I want the "look" of the longer hooks for photos... it ain't easy... ;)
art

The 2 bare hooks are a size 2 8x long and a size 2 9672 for comparison. Hap what do you mean by reversed ?? the hook has a bend in the curve which I straighten before tying so they ride straight. Whats nice is I can cast these as well as troll. Plan to use them on the finger lakes for land lock salmon.

Typical fly hooks lay flat on the table, except for the eye... reversed simply means they are curved as you note and the point would stick up at an angle when laid flat on the bench. It is hard to bend them without creating hard spots which will lead to straightened hooks if you put much stress on them.

It is also tough to get them dead straight...

Casting those big noisey ones can be "interesting" if you are having an off day... or the wind kicks up... or... ;)

wanna see the scars? ;)

Very nice looking and classy patterns. That being said, I've always shied away from the super XL hooks because I understood that the extended distance between the eye of the hook and the bend of the hook creates a fulcrum that either increases the likelhood of levering the hook out of the flesh or in some cases bends the shank of the hook causing you to probably lose the fish and ruin the fly. This may be an old Alewives tale (pun intended), but it seems to make sense just based on the physics of leverage. It looks like these patterns would lend themselves to tube flies very nicely which would allow for the extra long pattern but eliminate the potential problems associated with using the 8 or 10XL hooks. Just a thought...

Jim Smith

Nice ties, have you considered tying those smelt patterns as a tandem fly? There is a video on you tube that shows one very well, I believe the video is titled "New England Tandem Streamer". But I usually use a piece of wire and tie the rear hook in with it facing up.

James Smith,

Yep - I have lost a number of fish that I attribute to the "fulcrum" factor, but I live with it. I just love the classic streamers and the whole "look" of the fly tied on one long hook, especially for trolling. When I want a larger and longer wing, and not have it wrap around the hook bend, I have to use a longer hook, especially with maribou and feather type wings. Plus, I've already invested a small fortune in streamer hooks! LOL!

Best regards, Dave S.