I saw one dying in my back yard last night, and a dead one at the river when I went fishing this morning. As big as they are, I bet some fish would love to slurp them down.
Anyone have a pattern to match a Sphinx Moth?
I saw one dying in my back yard last night, and a dead one at the river when I went fishing this morning. As big as they are, I bet some fish would love to slurp them down.
Dead drifting something like a Dahlberg diver might be a good start. That is a big bug.
The Green Hornet strikes again!!!
Go to Bing (images) and put in cicada fly pattern and you will come across many that look something like this. these should do well as sphinx moth substitutes. The important thing to remember is that you will have all sorts of casting issues is you try to tie a fly with extended wings.
If you take the Doug Korn's Spruce Moth pattern, tied it larger and a little darker wouldn't you be in the right spectrum as the sphinx moth?
Want to hear God laugh? Tell him Your plans!!!
Here is the link to the Korns Spruce Wing Moth and maybe you can adapt some colors of your own or use a marker
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/s...ng-Spruce-Moth
I'll have to watch that video when I have a little more time.
My thoughts right now are:
Sphinx Moths are huge. A little smaller than a hummingbird. I'm probably going to need a huge bass bug hook, I'm thinking somewhere between size 2 and 2/0.
As far as body construction, I was thinking about wrapping the hook shank with foam for floatation, then doing a weave with embroidery yarn. I wasn't sure about the wings. Natural or spent-wing. Now I'm thinking spinning deer hair might be a better bet, and maybe a hair wing as well.
My strong recommendation is that you use a Mustad 37187 stinger hook. It will allow you to put a lot of material on the shaft and still have plenty of hook gap.
Wing materials for large flies I have discovered which do NOT work: zip lock bag plastic or the like, flashabou, krystal flash, packing plastic foam from electronics (but this works great for hopper wings), foam sheets (although 1.5mm looks great for the first few casts), stiff plastic from hook boxes or water bottles, any vinyl, feathers.
Hair works for short wings (longer wings make the fly into a kite) and monofilament works perfectly for dragon flies.
Which brings us to: what will work?
In the case of a sphinx moth probably the best bet is bucktail knowing in advance that it will be difficult to cast.
Good Luck.
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