Check your fly

In a recent topic Castwell confessed to having fished for a great while with a white fly that produced no fish and then discovering that the end of the hook had been broke off earlier. This confirms the notion of check your fly. I, like all experienced fly fishermen can verify the value of this addage. When I find The fish have suddenly stopped biting or I just can’t seem to hook them I’ve learned to check the fly. Almost invariably there is something wrong with the fly - its been wound up in a knot, missing, the hooks end is broken, or its just mangled beyond recognition. I’m sure most of you figured this out more quickly than I did but eventually I did catch on.

Been there, done that.
Had many hits on a fly and didn’t get any fish hooked up. I took a look at the fly and the tippet had wrapped around the barb(one I didn’t mash down), effectively making a “weedless loop”.

I once fished an elk hair caddis in the lower Owens missing fish after fish. Yep. When I checked it the hook was gone. Probably left it in a branch. Jim

I have a funny story about this.

My dad and I were fishing a lake in Colorado one day, and after a few minutes of fishing, my dad realized that he no longer had a fly on the his leader. Tied a new one on and didn’t think about it. Then later that night around that camp fire he took his hat off and to his surprise found they fly he lost hooked into the back of the hat, just above the opening.

Had a friend NOT check his fly once :shock: and probably still regrets it !!

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/canada/can386.php

I was fishing bedding bluegill on a lake near my house, catching fish on most every cast. I was using a No. 10 white popper and all you had to do was cast it out, pop it once and you’d have a fish.

But I started missing fish. I missed 12 in row before it dawned on me to check the fly. The hook had broken off.

A buddy of mine was in a boat spin-fishing with 2 other guys for bass. My buddy loaned a lure to the guy in the middle of the boat. He had a number of good hits, but couldn’t hook up with any of them. At the end of the day, the guy took the lure off his line and handed it back to my buddy.
When my buddy looked down at the lure now in his hand, he saw that there was a chunk of wood firmly planted on the point of the hook. :stuck_out_tongue:

get lazy about checking my fly and knots. Of course that is when THE fish of the day…
Paul

“aka gardenfish”

On a local river there’s a concrete wheelchair ramp that leads down to a very popular, heavily stocked, “fly fish only” pool
Along the ramp there’s some low wooden ‘guardrails’ to keep wheelchairs upright.
On any given day, you can run your hand along these ‘guardrails’ and find yourself a half-a-dozen flies
:stuck_out_tongue:

Then there’s cheap hooks. I had a whole series of flies tied on a particular brand hook I was testing. A couple of shops here had been selling them in place of my favorite Mustads.

Some broke in the vice. (first clue). On the river, the hooks would break just casting them. Some on fish. Tap a rock and kiss it good bye. The whole hook bend would break off or the eye would break off. Talk about crrrrrrap.

Needless to say I stick with the name brands I know and love. No more “try our new economy hooks”.

I’m guilty of this myself. Couple seasons ago I was fishing a nice run w/ an eporeous emerger pattern on the madison. Caught 4-5 fish and after that it slowed down. I knew I was getting bites but I would have the fish on for a couple seconds then it would just come off. Fished this way for bout an hour and after another 4-5 hooked and missed fish I checked my fly. Sure enouph the hook was broken off about mid bend! Learned my lesson the hard way that day.

Hi,

Seven or eight years ago, I was fishing the Clutha River just below where it exits Lake Wanaka. I used to go down that way every winter (NZ winter) to a conference in Queenstown, and a few of us would stay near Wanaka at a friends parent’s cottage. Anyway, I’ve never caught a fish there. There’s tons of them, but it’s always skunked me. The year before I had noticed small white flies that seemed to be everywhere. So, I tied up a fairly generic size 18 white dry fly. I remembered it, and dug it out of the fly box. I cast it out, and, after awhile, started getting all sorts of hits. Nothing hooked up though. I couldn’t believe it. Small ones, a few good sized, all sorts of fish were lining up for it. I finally checked the fly, and sure enough, I must have snaped it on a rock behind me on a backcast early one because the hook was broken off at the bend.

And of course, I didn’t have any more of those little white flies. I tried a small olive one, but they shunned that with contempt. Sigh.

  • Jeff

I was fishing with a McMurry Ant (See: http://flyfisherman.com/south/hmshenandoah/index3.html) and catching brook trout on a Shenandoah National Park stream but then I started getting hits but no hookups; talk about frustration! Checked my fly, the cork body had twisted around on the hook so that the bend of the hook lay alongside the rear cork body part. Guess I didn’t tie the body on tight enough? I later added some glue to keep the body in place; that worked.
Don’t know why trout and other fish think this fly is food but it is one of my favorite summer time flies. The fly is fun to make. First buy a bottle of wine, one with a real cork. Drink the wine. Wait until you sober up before proceeding to the next step. Cut the cork into 1/4 inch slices and then use a hole punch to make the barrel shape body pieces. Use your bodkin to punch a hole through the body pieces then string all the body pieces onto a 20# nylon line about 1/4" apart, paint with black enamel (model paint). I generally use the smaller body pieces for the head and the larger for the abdomen. Cut bodies off as you need them to tie onto hooks and wrap on black hackle. Hint: apply a drop of glue to the hook before wrapping on the thread base. Bingo, go fishing!
John

yeah jsmartt, when I started that thread on size and color thats what got me to thinking, JC’s
broken hook, whats wrong with my fly, color white making it look larger, cause I’v hadmy fly twisted up in a tippet lust a wrap, enought to create a kinda weed guard. tob catching fish and then uable to hook up, with all the excitement,I’ll check my fly with a quick glance on a back cast to make sure the fly is still there, i guess patience and take time to check your fly is
very good advice that should be done more often…:slight_smile: