Trout flies for Blugill

I have been tying some " trout " flies, like a Wulff type fly without the wing, I just leave out the two feathers out of the collar because they don't last long with the bluegill. But they sure seem to work well down here for the gills when using the 4wt.
One question I have is that I seem to be putting too much palmered hackle on the fly as they seem to want to twist when casting. I am having to use 5X tippet in order to be able to tie the #14-16 size and after a few casts, the tippet is twisted up pretty badly.
How many wraps do you folks use when tying these flys? They work pretty well and I would like to use them more. Thanks and stay warm!!

Go to 6lb Seaguar flourocarbon. Gills dont care and it doesn't twist.

Really, size 14 16 flies for bluegills? They will take anything that they think will fit into their mouths. I was bass fishing with a buddy a few years back. He was using 7-inch plastic worms, I was using streamers. He thought he felt a tap on his line but there were no follow-up taps so he retrieved it back to the boat for another cast. He found out that light tap was a 4-inch bluegill that had about an inch of the plastic worm stuffed in its mouth and couldn't spit it out. He was still at least six inches from the 2/0 hook. I use size 10 and sometimes size 8 hooks for all my bluegill flies and they still manage to get them deep into their mouths about 25 percent the time. Consider sizing up to size 10 and 12 hooks and you don't need to tie fancy flies with palmered hackle for bluegills. Just a thought...

Jim Smith

Most often dinks will eat anything. But not always so for the slabs. :)

Sometimes its not how heavy the hackle is palmered, its the size of the hackle. Try going a size smaller than the hook for palmering.

One of the beautiful thing about flip-flop and foam bugs for bream is their durability. Trout style dries can be fun to fly but their will be destroyed on a good day bream fishing. I have heard, and believe, that about 80% of what a fish eats lives in the water, not one the water. Leech patterns, rubber legged dragons, wooly buggers, bream killers fished under a foam hopper, frogs, stleath bombers, produce well and doubles area lot of fun. I tye a lot of bream flies on No. 8 Aberdeen hooks, which is about the size of a XL or XXL 14 nymph hook on a softer wire, but I have never had on straighten on me on fish up to 7.5 - 8 lbs. (grass carp & channel cats)

I have caught bluegill on crank baits when bass fishing. Jim Smith is right, bream are the teenage boys of the fish world.

#14-16 flies/nymphs will be taken "deep." You will kill many undersized sunfish and destroy your flies retrieving them, even if you hooks are barbless... You are fishing barbless, right?

I was just trying something different for the bluegills, wanted to see if I could tie the smaller flys and see how well they worked. They work fine, and yes, I fish barbless, and have not gut hooked one yet. As far as the foam poppers go, I make my own by turning soft foam bodies on a dremel...
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps54baedf7.jpg

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Originally Posted by RHenn

I have been tying some " trout " flies, like a Wulff type fly without the wing, I just leave out the two feathers out of the collar because they don't last long with the bluegill. But they sure seem to work well down here for the gills when using the 4wt.
One question I have is that I seem to be putting too much palmered hackle on the fly as they seem to want to twist when casting. I am having to use 5X tippet in order to be able to tie the #14-16 size and after a few casts, the tippet is twisted up pretty badly.
How many wraps do you folks use when tying these flys? They work pretty well and I would like to use them more. Thanks and stay warm!!

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Heavily hackled flies can cause twisting. Over 10 years ago, A.K. Best wrote that stiffer, genetic saddle hackles could twist leaders, even on standard patterns that didn't twist before. He found that each tiny feather barb acted like a propeller. Newer hackles had more and stiffer propellers per wrap. He did not see this problem older, less stiff saddles or with necks/capes.

His solution was to wrap saddle hackle forward then back. The reverse wrap tilted the barbs in the opposite way and so the propellers offset each other. I can't find an online quote, but Best wrote about this in Advanced Fly Tying.

Here's a similar thread on another forum:
http://littleriveroutfitters.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-15169.html

FWIW, I've only had this problem on a few flies in over twenty years of tying and using 5x or smaller tippet. But I use necks almost exclusively.

I think you can limit twisting by using fewer wraps or wrapping backwards then forwards or using softer hackle. Wulff's are designed for turbulent rivers and feature a pretty heavy hackle. You can get away with a lot less hackle on lakes.

Hope this helps,

Thanks Bruce, I will try that method and see if it works out for me.

Are you using saddle hackle? If so, try fewer wraps. New saddles are so stiff and dense that they don't need as much as classic style, especially for lakes.

Hope this works, I hate twisted leaders, and once you're on the water, the only thing you can try is stiffer tippet or a different fly.

Yes, I am using saddles.