Jigs For Trout

 

     Do you like to catch big trout? I do! And a great way to do that is with a jig. Why? Well two reasons off the top of my head are first its a big lure. Big lure = big fish. Second is nobody is throwing them. I have never ran across another angler throwing jigs for trout. Now most people know about the magic of a marabou jig. The world record brown trout was caught on a tiny marabou jig and for good reason, they work! I like to fish Marabou jigs. They work great for trout, and they especially work good for steelhead under a float. But as you'll notice in the picture above, there isn't any marabou on that jig. The above jig is made from a rabbit strip, fox hair, schlappen and some polar chenille with UV properties.

     Marabou moves great in the water, but rabbit fur moves even better. Just google trout streamers and you will find a host of rabbit fur streamers for fly fishing. Now you can use tiny marabou or rabbit fur jigs and catch trout. But if you're after the big dogs, you need something with substance. The above jig is about 4 1/2 inches in length. Large trout eat small bugs, but once they get to a certain size their main diet shifts to larger prey.  If you want to consistently catch large trout you have to throw some meat whether that be a large jig or large streamer. Its the same principal that fly fisherman have. Large streamers = large trout! The same is true with jigs.

     This style of jig I have created is inspired after the large rabbit fur twitching jigs used to catch Coho and Chinook salmon. But I added a little steelhead intruder fly style to it as well. The body of the jig is flashabou wrapped around the hook shank with a dubbing ball toward the head of the jig to help flare out the collar. 

     Then what you see as the body in the picture at the beginning of the blog post is three tier collar of fox hair, UV polar chenille and schlappen with some rubber legs added for movement. This creates a translucent look to the jig, similar to the translucent look a bait fish has in the water. I believe this make for a better jig. After all we are trying to imitate a bait fish of some kind along with the fact its a large jig to attract attention. I tied the above jig on a pink jig head just for that purpose. Plus it adds great color contrast which I believe is another import factor to have in a jig. Color contrast attracts attention.

     How do I fish the jig?  Well that depends on alot of factors. One way is to dead drift the jig under a float. This can be effective in extremely cold water when trout are not in the mood to chase. Fly fisherman drift streamers sometimes in the same fashion. 

     Another option is to cast out the jig and jerk it similar to a jerk bait across the current. This imitates a small fish swimming across the current trying to reach shore and slower water.

     A third option, and how I fished this jig is to cast straight out across the current. Let the jig sink to bottom. Then impart slow large hops to keep the jig off the bottom and add movement as it drifts down river. Then as the jig drifts down river and gets to a 45 degree angle down stream from your position, let it swing around to directly below you. This imparts two things to the jig. First it gives the illusion that the prey is heading toward shore to escape. Second it will cause the jig to rise in the water column as it swings around below your position which is another trigger for trout to bite. This technique is very similar to how fly fisherman swing flies or large streamers. The evidence for the effectiveness of this techniques is in the picture below.

     The key is to let the fish tell you how they want it. Bass fisherman do this all the time with retrieve speed and the amount of action they impart on their lures. So try all methods and the fish will tell you how they want it.  On the day I caught this fish, I knew the water was fairly warm still so I probably could get away with not using a float and dead drifting the jig. So I first tried hopping the jig across current like a jerk bait then I tried swinging the jig. I would alternate techniques about every two or three casts. Then once I get a strike or catch a fish, I know how they want it and will continue to use that method.

     Now something to note when using big jigs. Your numbers will go down. So if you're into numbers of fish or are fishing in a location with smaller fish then use a smaller jig. You will catch a lot more fish. But if you are after true trophies, throw a big jig and cover water. Covering water is a big factor to success. In a given hole, there may only be one trout big enough to take your jig. So to up your numbers you need to cover as many holes as you can. In a given day you may only catch one, two or four trout if your on foot. But they will all be large fish. If you have a boat even better. In my drift boat I can cover miles of river in a day and can get my jig in front of many large fish which in turn ups my numbers. So if you were thinking about giving jigs a try I hope this post inspires you and gives you an idea of where to start.  If you want to get your hand on some of my custom tied jigs check out our shop. Esty.com/shop/DesertFoxAnglers               Tight lines!

Designing Your Own Fly

 

     Designing your own fly can be an awesome project! But it can also be nerve racking as well. I have tied up many flies in my day only to get on the water and realize they don't swim or perform in the water the way I have planned or imagined. But then there are days like I experienced last week where I get to the water, test my new fly, it swims great, and after a couple hours of fishing it I am rewarded with the success of a really nice fish! The feeling of catching a fish on a fly or jig you tied is a rewarding ordeal in itself and it's one of the reasons I make my own flies and jigs. But the feeling of making something your own way that you thought of and catching a fish on it gives you a huge amount of satisfaction that is hard to match in the fishing world.

     So when designing your own fly where do you start? Well honestly I would say 90% of the time you are using another already established pattern as your base. For me, designing flies can be broken down into two categories. Altering/improving an already established pattern and creating something new from scratch. The clouser minnow is a great example of altering/improving an established pattern. I like to tie mine with craft fur, and sometimes I add rubber legs to them. It still has the same basic principals in construction and tying as the original that Bob Clouser designed, but I change out materials and add in extra materials to create a unique version. It's not my fly, Bob Clouser created it. But it's my rendition of it. And it's something unique to the fish. 

     Creating a fly from scratch is a whole different ball game. When altering a pattern, some one else has already ironed out the kinks for you of how the fly swims, how much material to use, weight or no weight and so on. When you create something from scratch you have a large trial and error period of testing that pattern not only to see if it performs like you want it to, but to see if it catches fish. I can honestly say, I don't think I have ever created something new from scratch. I always have some sort of a base pattern already created that I am starting from. Have I tried? Sure. But I haven't really been successful yet. But that is the fun of tying, its a blank canvas for you to go crazy with imagination.

     So lets cover my development of this fly. I don't even have a name for it yet. And I'm sure if you searched the web long enough you could find another fly very similar. But it wont be the same. So where did I start? Well I wanted a fly I could swing for trout. I wanted the fly to be larger than the standard nymph or dry fly but not as big as a streamer. So I chose a number 8 hook. I chose a 2x long number 8 hook so I had enough room to add the materials I wanted.

     After choosing the hook, I thought of some kind of base pattern to go off of. For this fly I was thinking about some of the various emerger patterns out there for trout because at the end of the swing the fly will rise like an emerging insect. I also wanted a fly that looked the same from all angles so that way if my swing wasn't perfect the fly would still fish. Nothing is more frustrating than tying a beautiful baitfish pattern and then get to the water to realize it rolls over and doesn't ride right. So I wanted a fly that would fish even if it wasn't riding upright.

     Next I had to decide on what materials to use. I knew I wanted it to be a soft hackle and my favorite soft hackle is partridge. Then I wanted to incorporate something to the fly to make it stand out from the many various soft hackles that trout see go by their face on a daily basis. So for that I chose UV copper polar chenille. But the standard length of the polar chenille I had was too long, so I cut it down because I wanted it to blend with the hackle.

     Now I needed a body material. With this whole fly I wanted a natural color theme, so I opted for pheasant tail. The tail of the fly is pheasant tail with some UV copper chenille in it for high lights and I used pheasant tail to rap around the hook to form the body. I also added some copper ribbing to reinforce the body and increase durability. 

     Ok, now we're cooking! On to the hackle. I didn't want the hackle to collapse too bad around the hook. I wanted it to puff out a little and make for a bigger silhouette. So before adding any hackle I built a thorax with dubbing (black metallic UV dub) to help prop up my hackle. Then after the dubbing I added about 1 1/2 to 2 turns of the trimmed polar chenille. Just enough to get the flash effect I wanted. Then I added my hackle over the chenille. Now how many turns of hackle is completely depended on what effect you are trying to achieve. I wanted enough hackle on there to cover around the hook 360 degrees, but still be sparse so the fly had that "see through" translucent effect. Another factor to the hackle was also that I wanted enough to also have great movement in the water. Even when just dead drifting. I ended up using about three turns of the partridge. 

     The final little touch I wanted to add to the fly was color contrast. Even though I wanted a natural colored fly for clearer water, I still wanted some color contrast to make it easier to see. So I opted for a white nose. I did this by simply tying off my black thread and tying on white and creating a white nose on the fly to finish it.

     Performance, how did the fly work? The fly swam exactly how I wanted it to. And the UV polar chenille had awesome flash in the sunlight. I fished the fly on my 5 weight, with a 10ft type III sink tip line. As you can see from the picture below, the fish liked the fly! Success! Well sort of. The fly worked in that specific situation. But I would still like to try it in other situations/water types to see how it performs. But overall I am happy with it and think I'm on to something.

I hope this helps you out if you want to design something new or unique. Sometimes having something different, even just a little different can be the difference in getting bit or logging a 0. And I, by no means know everything about designing flies. But I do know just enough to be dangerous! Tight lines and good luck. 

Craft Fur Bass Fly

 

    This is a pattern I came up with for smallmouth bass on the John Day river. We were catching tons of bass in the 10"-12" range with pink and chartreuse clouser minnows made of craft fur, but I wanted a minnow pattern that was bigger and would suspend a little. So based off other patterns I know how to tie and some new materials I wanted to mess around with this is what I came up with. It has a bigger profile than the clouser's we had success with and will somewhat suspend on the strip depending on how much weight is added. The pink dubbing body under the craft fur brush creates an inner glow to the fly which I think is appealing as well. Plus craft fur moves awesome in the water! We fish these on sink tip lines, stripping across the current or swinging, but you could fish it on a floating line as well it just depends on how deep you want or need to get the fly to reach the fish.

Hook: Gamakastu B10S #4

Thread: Chartreuse 70 Ultra Thread

Tail: Chartreuse Extra Select Craft Fur

Weight: .027 Lead

Hackle: Grizzly Cape

Dubbing: Hot Pink STS Dub

Brush: 3" EP Craft Fur Brush

Eyes: Red Stick on Eyes

Insert your hook in the vice. For this tutorial I used a Gamakatsu B10S size 4. But feel free to use any type of hook you have or need for your fishery. I prefer a normal or shorter shank hook for this fly though.

Wrap tightly some lead wire around the shank. For this fly I used .027 lead wire, but any size will work. For the amount of lead wire, on this fly I kept it a little shorter than the hook gap. But you can use more or less wire depending on your needs and how much you want the fly to sink.

Slide the wrapped wire down over the bend of the hook. I do this so it acts as a keel and keeps the fly upright when fishing. Attach your thread and secure the wire in place. I used red on this fly to add the illusion of blood or gills, but the color choice is up to you. I used black on the flies we used on the river and it worked just fine. Just be sure to not secure your wire too far down the bend of the hook so it doesn't interfere with hook sets and keeping fish hooked. My rule of thumb is no farther down than half the bend.

Once your lead wire is fully covered add a little glue for durability and whip finish. I like to use brush on lock tight super glue. But once again any super glue would work.

Attach new tying thread. Use what ever color you want the nose of your fly to be. I used chartreuse on this pattern. Once your thread is attached wrap back to the lead wire.

Select a generous clump of craft fur. I use a clump about as thick as my finger. Remove all the under fur and attach to the hook. I like to wrap all the way up to about an eye length distance from the hook eye to add a little more bulk to the body of the fly.

Select two small hackles from a cape, I prefer grizzly for a barring effect. I used chartreuse on this pattern. But choose your feathers to match your fly however you would like. Secure each hackle on the sides of the fly slightly shorter than the craft fur tail. Tie them in so the curvature of the feather faces in toward the craft fur.

Wrap your thread back to the tie in point of the craft fur. Create a dubbing loop and insert your dubbing. I prefer to keep my bodies on the thinner side and when I spin my loop, I don't spin it too tight because I like the dubbing to be kinda scraggly. Color is up to you, I prefer a brighter color of some kind to create that inner glow to the fly.

Wrap your dubbing noodle forward to form the body. Stroke the fibers back with each wrap and be sure not to leave gaps between wraps. Be sure to leave enough room at the head of the fly to wrap your craft fur brush. The craft fur brushes will have a wire core so room is needed.

Attach your craft fur brush and secure with thread wraps.  

Wrap your craft fur brush forward to the eye of the hook. Be sure to stroke the fibers back toward the tail of the fly as your wrap. The number of wraps will determine how thick and full your fly is. About 6-7 wraps is usually enough for my needs. Secure with thread wraps and cut off any excess brush.

Pick out the craft fur brush with your bodkin to release any trapped fibers. Then stroke all the fibers reward. I use an old tooth brush to comb my fibers rearward. Whip finish and remove your thread.

Glue on eyes of your choice. I used red on this fly. But size and color are up to you. I used a bigger size eye on this fly for more of a shad look. For glue, a gel glue works the best for attaching eyes. I use lock tight gel super glue. For durability I also either put a drop of glue on top of the fly between the eyes or I put some UV Loon Thick resin on the top between the eyes. Now your done, go fish! Good luck!

Maxcatch Gaze Fly Reel Review

 

    I ordered the Maxcatch Gaze fly reel about two months ago having never used any of their products. I wasn't really sure what to expect. But my initial impressions are good. So far I like the reel quite a bit. It is a budget fly reel, it sells for regularly $59.00. I got mine on sale for $53.00 off the Maxcatch website.

    First lets start with the reels specifications. I ordered the 6seven model. It comes in black only. Is rated for use on a 6/7 wt rod and has a spool capacity of 100 yards of 20lb fly line backing. The drag system is the MAX LDS which Maxcatch touts as a maintenance-free, fully sealed light weight drag system.

    The reel is made from a precision CNC and diecasting combined processing. It sports a large arbor design for quick line retrieval. The drag system has a stacked teflon drag disc that Maxcatch says offers big power with smooth performance. The drag system also offers quick opening for easy changes from left to right hand retrieve. 

    The outside diameter of the reel is 94 mm with an inside diameter of 52 mm and a weight of 139 grams. It is also listed a a fully waterproof reel and came with the nice carrying case seen below.

    So like I said earlier, my initial impressions are great! The reel is extremely light weight and reels very smoothly. The drag system is smooth and operates as advertised. I tested it on the river fishing for smallmouth bass. With some of the larger smallmouth I caught I got them on the reel for the fight to see how the drag system performed and it performed great! I had no worries about it sticking or maybe breaking my leader. The drag also ratchets up very tightly if you were going to use heavy leaders for big fish.

    The spool comes off and on with ease. And the reel seems very tight. Nothing, including the turning knob is loose at all. I have used other budge fly reels and they always seem a little loose in operation. Kind of how a new car seems tighter to drive than an old one. I also dunked the reel in the river many times throughout the day and found it to still operate smoothly.

    Now the one thing I cannot attest to is durability. I haven't used the reel enough to have an educated opinion on that. But I did fish it hard for about 7 hours the day I tested it. Stripping of line at many new holes and reeling in to change spots and it still stayed tight and smooth in operation throughout the day.

    Overall I really like the reel. I plan on using it as my primary reel for one of my sink tip lines. I think the reel is perfect size for any bass or trout fishing applications. And if you are in the market for a budget minded back up reel I think this reel would perform fantastic in that roll. So if you are in the market for a new reel, check out Maxcatch's website. I think they have good quality reels for the price. They also offer some of their other models of reels in some really cool colors if you are into that kind of thing. I hope this review helps out anyone considering purchasing a new reel. Or if you had seen some of Maxcatch's stuff and were wondering about the quality. Tight lines!

Spinning Gear vs Fly Rod

 

    There is a question out there in the fishing world, is spinning gear more effective than a fly rod or is it the other way around. Well, the honest answer to that question is it depends. It depends on a multitude of factors from the type of water being fished, depth the fish are at, water clarity, what are the fish feeding on, what type of fish are you after and the list goes on. But in my opinion as to which method is more effective is it depends on a day to day basis. Conditions and fish mood are always changing. I grew up lure fishing, and about 16 years ago I picked up fly fishing. And while I almost exclusively fly fish now, I do pick up the spinning rod every now and then

    Something I have often been asked is, "isn't it easier and more effective to fish nymphs on a spinning rod under a float vs a fly rod and indicator set up"? So having thought about this a lot and coming up with ideas in my head I finally decided to test it out and see for myself. My wife and I both fly fish and for this little experiment I had her spin fishing with me to get another point of view as well. We went to a river I had not fished in years, and I really did no research prior to going about what patterns are effective on this particular river. I just took the whole fly box and we went through them.

    First and foremost, does it work? Well as you can see from the picture above it does work. That fish was one of three rainbow trout we caught in about four hours of fishing along with a small bull trout. We were bouncing through various fly patterns though and had we went with prior knowledge of the hot patterns I think we could have caught more. But even though this method worked, it wasn't without its pitfalls and head aches.

    Our setup was fairly simple. We used 8ft ultra light trout rods with 8lb braided line.  A fixed float, the kind you use for steelhead fishing only down sized a bit. The float was attached to our braided main line. At the end of the braid was a barrel swivel (a barrel swivel prevents you from losing your float should you hang up). Under the barrel swivel we had 3ft of fluorocarbon leader (6-8 lb). On the business end of our leader we experimented with single and double fly set ups as well as a small split shot about 8 inches above the fly on a single fly rig and the top fly on a double.

    The first and really main issue was split shot placement. I tie my flies with tungsten bead heads, but to still get the flies down in a timely manner we used a split shot weight, similar to a fly fishing nymph rig. (It should be noted that the split shot also served to ensure our float rode upright). We started with the weight being placed directly under the barrel swivel. This kept our float upright, but depending on the depth we were fishing it didn't get our flies down quick enough and it tangled a great deal when casting! We finally found that placing the weight 6-8 inches above the fly worked better on all aspects of the rig including the tangling when casting. But it didn't eliminate it. We still got tangled about every fifth cast it seemed like.

    A pro to this set up was, if I wasn't tangling up I felt I could make more casts, more drifts and cover more water than with a fly rod and nymph rig. But again there are factors to this as well. A great fly caster could have covered almost as much water. However, he wouldn't have been able to fish the far side of the run or river like I could with the spinning rod.

    The second issue we encountered was the double fly set up. I tied them on the leader the same way I would when fly fishing. With two flies we seemed to get tangled up more casting than with just one. Where as fly fishing, this doesn't happen too often unless its a horrible cast. So the one fly set up was definitely the way to go and led to more time fishing.

    The third and last issue we found, was even though we were using ultra light floats made for small jigs in the 1/64 oz range, I still felt that we were missing bites. I think when fishing a fly rod with an indicator, you detect the more subtle bites and I don't think we were getting that with our float set up. Not every bite will sink the hole float or indicator.  I also felt I had to mend my line more with the braid and spinning rod then I do with fly line.

    So the conclusion to the experiment. Does it work? Absolutely! If you don't know how to fly fish but wanted to fish with nymphs this set up would be just what you want. However you will get tangled when casting. You can't whip it out there like if you were casting a spinner. You have to kind of lob it to keep the rig from tangling. Honestly this became a head ache after a while. So for me, it wasn't more effective than nymphing with a fly rod. If I had to fish this way in the future I would probably use tiny marabou jigs instead of flies. I think this would lead to less tangles and a more enjoyable experience.

    I hope this helps you guys out, or maybe even shorten the learning curve if you want to try it yourself. It did work, and even though it was a pain tangling up, it was still fishing and we were still catching fish which is always great! Tight lines!

John Day River Smallmouth

 

    The John Day River starts in eastern Oregon and runs northwest through the east side of central Oregon then turns north and flows all the way to the Columbia River. Steelhead fisherman know the John Day for it's steelhead runs, the river has one of the last remaining wild runs of steelhead not supplemented by hatchery fish in the lower 48. But once the temps rise in summer, the John Day is all about smallmouth bass. I grew up fishing the river for both steelhead and bass, but after a career in the military it had been quite a while since I prowled its waters. Good news is, the fishing seems as strong if not better than ever for bass. In most fly fishing circles, the John Day is a pretty well know bass fishery, especially to west coast guys. Its celebrity even reaches back east to the more famous smallmouth locations such as Virginia and New York. But you would be surprised how many people have no idea how good the fishing really is.

    Another thing not well known is that its more than just a fly fishing river. Sure in the summer its low and warm with large clear flat river rock banks so it sets up perfect for fly fishing, which is what we were doing on this day. But its a great fishery for gear guys as well. Hair jigs and small plastic grubs will net you a ton of fish in a day.

    Most people like to float the river. The standard float trip used to be around five days. But the BLM has recently purchased some new land thanks to a private fishing/conservation club so shorter trips are available now. Be aware though, a float permit is required through the BLM. But if a float trip in not in the cards, there are plenty of places to access the river by foot. The John Day is considered navigable as well, so can walk up and down the river to your hearts content and be legal. There are some deeper spots you would have to swim to cross, but its usually not to hard to find a riffle shallow enough to keep you dry above the knees.

    The fly fishing was excellent the day we were there. Mostly shallow water 5ft or less, so depending on what type of pattern you are using you can easily get away with a floating line, or intermediate. Although a sink tip of 10ft or less is very handy. I prefer to use a sink tip with either unweighted flies or ones that are slightly weighted. But I did fish alot this past trip with a floating line and a clouser minnow with medium size dumbbell eyes and could get down in pretty much all of the holes we fished.

    For patterns, we caught fish on just about everything. There was some cloud cover, so poppers worked most of the day. Various styles of woolly buggers and clouser minnows were our other go to patterns. I prefer to tie my patterns with a twist of some kind. So whether its a bugger or a clouser I always put my own twist on it. 

    As far as colors, the old standard chartreuse is hard to beat. Or any other color mixed with chartreuse for that matter. We also had success with pink and white and chartreuse and pink, or as its better known to salt water fisherman as "electric chicken". I experimented with olives, blacks and crawdad colors and caught fish on them all. But the brighter colors were by far more productive.

    Nymphing under an indicator and swinging flies will both catch you fish. But we found that stripping flies was far more productive. And the faster we stripped, the better it was. Most of the fish we caught were between 8-12 inches. But we did get into a few bigger guys in the deeper holes and there are plenty of trophy 20+ inch fish to be had. It just takes covering a lot of water to find the bigger guys. As far as number go, the John Day is know for 100 fish days! No really, its true. Now it wont be 100 fish 16 inches or bigger. Most are around 10 inches. But its hard to beat a fish almost every cast. I think my wife and I caught around 60 between the two of us on our last trip.

  The John Day is a great bass river and it fly fishes very well. So if you are ever in central or eastern Oregon and have a hankering for a bent rod and a 60 fish day, give it a try. Its not a technical river as far as the bass fishing goes. You wont need a "top secret" pattern in the exact size to get into fish. Its a great river for kids or the beginning fly fisherman or woman, plenty of fish eager to bite and plenty of room for a back cast. One thing to note about the river, its a pretty remote area and gets really hot in the summer. So make sure you have plenty of water and supplies as to stay safe. Good luck and tight lines!