The Generic fly pattern series is perfect for beginners.
I teach kids all the time using beetle and ant patterns and both work very well for bluegills.
Look under āFeaturesā on the FAOL homepage
Then click on āBob Boeseā
Then at the bottom of the page that appears, click on up āPrevious Articlesā
There you will see the generic series.
Good luck and have fun.
P.S. Closed cell sheet foam is available at Michaelās or Hobby Lobby in 2mm or 3mm for about 79 cents a sheet. At the Dollar Tree they have packs of 6 sheets of 1.5mm foam forā¦$1.
I had another thought. Friend Steveās brother in law has done very well on bluegills in the spring on San Juan Worms in Dark Red, Red, and worm brown.
The San Juan Worm is about as easy to tie as it gets.
A fly I always use in my beginner FT classes is the Gill Buster. Size 10 hook, thread to match about an inch and a half of zonker. Tie down a beadchain with figure 8ās, about a third of the way back from the eye. Lay down the zonker strip and tie it down in front of the bead chain, then continue to wrap down to the hook point and back to the eye. Knot it off. Viola. A Gill Buster. A size 10 black has caught just about every warmwater species in the States, plus a trout or two. White works great for river walleye. Yellow for smallies and crappies. If you need more weight, then use a hourglass weight instead of the bead chain. Kids love these up here because dad usually heads out in his boat for deep water jigging for walleyes, leaving the kids and mom back at the cabin/resort/trailer/tent. Kids can drop a gill buster off the dock and catch anything that swims with 'em. They get a big charge out of out catching dad, too. Simple. Effective. JGW
make some foam beetles for sure. you can fish them for hours and hours before needing to apply any sort of floatant or switching to a new one. iāve caught over 75 gills/bass (almost all gills) one day with one or two of these at a local subdivision pond. these fish love them and i fish these the majority of the time i fish small streams in the summer for trout. i would also tie up a fly i call the bluegill bugger. itās basically a 2x long 10 or 12 streamer pattern that has a brown chenille body and a red hackle tail. bluegills and small bass love them too and theyāre also very very easy to tie. i hope this helped you.
one of my favorite flies to fish is probably called something like a hackle less wooly bugger. i tie it on a #12 streamer hook, 1/8th gold or brass bead. tie in a short marabou tail and peacock herl for the body. i normally tie in 4 strands of herl, twist it together and then wrap forward. looks just like a wooly without the hackle. works great on gills. just saw this thread. sounds like the same fly. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=24778
I think dpenrodās pattern that he lists is virtually identical to the patten shown in Joe Hydeās feature. It is the one that his link is about. It has a picture of the fly shown down the page in the feature, and I am tying in a link which should be:
Well I tried the link but it did not work. To find the article, go to the main page, features, and warmwater. Once the current feature comes up go to the archive of warm water at the bottom of the feature and look for ālate beats neverā by Joe Hyde.
Also, as was mentioned above. The foam for tying the warm water spiders that I mentioned, the beetles that Bluegill 222 mentioned, and the Gurgle pops that rainbowchaser mentioned are just craft foam sheets that are about 1/8 inch thick, (also called fun foam) that can be purchased at Walmart in the craft/sewing sections for less than a buck for a typing paper size sheet. The colors that are the most productive for me are yellow, chartreuse, and peach. Friend Steve also likes black.
That is a fun looking list. I donāt expect to hook the kids right away but have long terms hopes.
I think I will pick up the goodies to tie these patterns and have them close at hand along with a couple of each finished to look at when I sit down and tie other things.
let the kids come to me as they are interested and scoot on when they get bored or something more shinney catches their eye
I will be sure to check that pattern out too. I am making a list of 5-10 patterns that I think will be both fun for the kids and work fine in the water. The Northern Ohio fly show is coming up this coming weekend so I want to have a need list together when I head over there.
