Of Sleeping Late and Fuzzy Nymphs

Of Sleeping Late and Fuzzy Nymphs

The air is muggy; a weeks worth of rain has left the ground soaked and spongy. 
What's worse, weathermen and facebook pundits say we're in for more of the same. 

And after the work week I had, sleeping til noon on a rainy morning sounds like a good plan. But, my eyes pop open, and 7:00 am will have to do. 
I look at the clock and groan; hey, it beats my usual 5 o'clock in the morning.

After making the coffee, I look outside and see it ISN'T raining right now. Seems like a perfect time to mosey down to the neighbors pond, aka, "Fly Lab II," and wet a line.

Yes, I really do mosey. This is South Carolina, after all. 
People here mosey.

The Season is Here
Approaching the pond, its obvious Spring is well underway. The surrounding grass is high and lush, the underbrush has grown to choking fullness, and the pond is sporting a fringe of green algae weed. The tadpoles of a few weeks ago are now conspicuous by their absence.

However, dragonflies are out in force. Their darting flight and swooping moves create a flying circus all around. I count a number of types I recognize, and one or two that are new to me.

The big boys of the bunch are the Rusty Dragonflies. These guys span your hand with their wings and you can hear their humming as they power by your head.
Small blue damselflies flit here, and there, their black, helicopter wings beating the air.
Swarms of very small dragonflies, the size of a thumbnail, well, they're new to me. 
My favorite, the Eastern Whitetail Dragonfly, makes a welcome appearance. 
And I watched, fascinated, as a 2" green female dips her abdomen and deposits eggs among the algae weed.  

Warmth and a lot of rain have transformed the pond and its environs into a new place, and I wonder if the fish are still here. 
As if in answer, a large, "KERSPLASH"  is heard from across the pond. Something has blown up the water in the far shallows; something is chasing something else, over there, and I mutter to myself, "Well, well, and hello. Lets get to it!"

The Business At Hand
Today I'm fly fishing. I've brought an assortment of flies, seen here

They are, from top to bottom:

1. Flip Flop Popper (black)
2. Old Faithful Popper (green)
3. Moodah Poodah (tan)
4. Casual Dress nymph (left)
5. Mink and Pheasant (a Casual Dress variation, right)
6. Bullys Bluegill Spider
7. Reverse Tied Black and White Soft Hackle

I tie on "Old Faithful," a small, #10 popper I've had for, well..., come to think of it, I don't really know how long I've had it.
It has been repaired a few times, has had a couple of color changes and dressing versions, and it keeps on popping along. Today it is chartreuse, with a faded red mouth, leering eyes and a jaunty feather tail of tan Indian neck hackle. 

I un-spool some line about the length of my 9 foot, 5 wt. fly rod and prepare to cast the fly. 
Ready....set.... and.... STOP!
I'm tangled up in the leader. I have to put casting on hold while I first sort out the mess. 

Its like that in fly fishing.

You get all ready, everything is set, but you lose just a split second control of the line. 
Then, it's BAM! and you've got a mess on your hands. 
Something they don't tell you about in fly fishing is you need patience and a cool head. 
Don't do anything in a hurry with the long rod. 
I suppose this is why only a few people do it well, and for very long. To coin a phrase; "if it was easy, everyone would do it." 

Back To The Business At Hand
It was just a minor tangle (as tangles go), so I was soon sorted and back at it. A swirl of the rod tip, a few flicks of the wrist and voila! the line was stretching toward the far corner of the pond and Old Faithful was back on the water where it belongs.

And that's pretty much were it stayed.
Untouched by fishy mouths.

Its also like that in fly fishing. What you think is gonna work, well,... it doesn't.

Over there, look - it's my perfectly good popper, floating all buggy and googly-eyed! 
I can see it, and I gently twitch it.
I stall it, waiting.
I pop it.
I wait some more.
I make it dance a jig.

And the quarry ignores it. The game is a bust.
Every other writer and fly man in the world seems to be filling their creels on these "bugs," and I get nothing. 
Not even a courtesy swim-by.

Well, something else you learn to do in fly fishing is adapt.

"Alright you buggers, if the popper wont do - lets see what will."
I tie on a Mooda Poodah, which is a craft foam and deer hair, bug-thing with rubber legs. 
"What do you think of THIS?!" I shout, and cast it back into the same spot. And that was the trick.

The fly sat for a few seconds, quivering, legs dangling. Then, there was a splash, and it was taken under, savagely. The line straightened out and I was dumbstruck. 

But in fly fishing, you have to be ready for this. 
I woke up, grabbed for line and started stripping. 
I got the situation under control. The rod is bent, the fishes weight is felt.
At that moment, a 1lb. 'rocket bass' leaped from the water, flew about 4 feet and tore off across the pond.  This was more like it.

Now, I know a lot of you like to see bass flying through the air. That big head flailing, those red gills flaring. 
Why, the more aerial displays, the better. 
But I'm the opposite. I try to keep them below as much as I can, with tension firmly maintained. 

"Keep the hook in their mouth, not waving around with their head, out of the water" - that's my motto.

And I did exactly that. 
And that feisty 'green trout' still managed an LDR (long distance release), despite my best effort to the contrary. 

Just like that, the fish was gone and all I got back was the fly. 

At that point you say, "Sometimes you catch them, and sometimes you don't."
The fly was taken, the fish got hooked (briefly), and I got my fly back. That's a good start.

Working the Water Column
I wasn't planning to be there all day; in fact, I only had about 45 minutes to fish. If I was going to work the water column, from surface to the bottom, it was time to switch up.

"Okay, the Moodah Poodah caught a fish," I said. "But, I've fished them for a few years; that's old news. Let's see what we can do below the surface, with something new."

Because I also tie my own flies, I usually have an assortment of untested ones ready to try. I reached for my fly holder and took a look at the offerings. 

Besides the poppers and surface bugs, I also brought along a couple of sub-surface nymph and soft hackle patterns to test out. 
I took one of the "Casual Dress" patterns loose from the holder.

The Nymphs Are the Ticket - Again.
Something I've learned from this freshwater fly fishing business is this: If you're not fishing nymphs of some sort, you're missing fish.
They don't have to be exacting mimics, either. Representative of the type is enough. The "Casual Dress" nymph is of the latter sort. 

Its tied from muskrat hair and a little ostrich. This makes it fuzzy, wiggly, and, well, just plain nymph-y. Natural fur is arguably the best material for these flies.

And the fish were nailing them every second or third cast. They liked a slow retrieve with a sink-and-quick lift. Their take was either a rip-snorting snatch and run, or a gentle heaviness in a sideways direction. 

Nymph Mouth Rocket Bass

I also noticed something unexpected with the Mink & Pheasant version of this nymph. Call it one of those, "Ah-ha moments" that often happens.
The M&P nymph, like the Casual Dress, is a hair-and-feather job. What happens is, it dries out a good bit during line-out (false casts), and then floats for a while in the film. It then submerges to fish wet.

But, while it was still at the surface, I noticed fish were coming up to slap at it. I assume these are bluegill, as this "smack and stun" trick is the bluegills M.O. They do it to knock the wind out of bugs that hit the water; they then come back and pick them to pieces. It was the only sign of bluegill I saw.

Mink And Pheasant Nymph

I also fished the one soft hackle I had, a Black and White Reverse Hackle.
It's a body of heavy black thread, ribbed with krystal flash, and a collar of reverse tied fibers stripped from a hackle feather.
It's a very basic fly, but very adaptable and a good fish catcher. 
It is also a way to use the cheap, non-descript hackle feathers that might otherwise be too long for the hook size you're using. 
I'll detail this one in another post, so make sure you subscribe.

Soon, it was time to go and get busy with the days non-fishing business. We need new tires on the car, preparations for the family Memorial Day are in the schedule, and .... well, there seems to always be something else.

But that's okay. At least I got to sleep in.

Tight Lines and Thanks,
David

Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment.
David Hutton, © 2018
Palmetto Fly n Fish On Facebook

Deer Hair Sorta F-Flies

Deer Hair Sorta F-Flies

These are some flies that Lee Capitano of Jacksonville, FL posted on one of the facebook pages we frequent. Here's what Lee had to say about them:

"Tied on a 2x nymph hook. It's one of my go-to flies. I guess I should call it the 'Rule Breaker.' 
Once its wet, it sinks slowly. Then you treat it like a streamer and swim and twitch it along just below the surface. Everything in the pond will chase it. 
Think I'm crazy? Try it. 
Sometimes you need to fish it slow, and sometimes you gotta go fast. Once you dial it in - you will tie more.

It's deer hair hackle, and Shetland yarn, the same stuff you buy for Killer Bugs. I have lots of colors."

This fly struck a chord with me, which is why I present it here. The reason is simple - it's much the same as flies I've tied myself, and which I fished with equal success back when I had more time for fishing. 

My own version started out as I toyed around with the "F-Fly," maybe 4 or 5 years ago. The F-Fly by Marjan Fratnik is generally tied small, 12-16 and with a cul d'canard wing. At the time, I didn't really know what CDC was, nor did I have the proper sense of scale that goes with that famous European fly.
Basically, I just improvised wildly on the basic F-Fly idea....

1. a body
2. a wing
3. a head

Hook sizes were pretty much whatever I felt like. Flies like this tied on larger hooks will catch bass. I haven't gone past about #4, but those will take big panfish and bass. 

The bodies I applied from most anything I had around. Yarn, dubbing, wool, and my ultimate favorite, wire-wrapped peacock herl.

The wings came from hair brushed from my dog, bucktail and finally deer hair. 

The head is just thread wrapped and varnished. 

In the end they look something like this....

• Peacock herl counter-wrapped with my signature red wire.
• Natural deer hair tips.
• Big thread head

These are tough enough for panfish, and they don't come apart too soon. They're also fish catchers. 

For a brief period, these experiments inspired me to stop using feathers for soft hackle and I ended up adding deer hair to just about everything. 
Honestly, I was quite surprised at how the fish went for it.
It was at this time that I started using one of my now favorite phrases - "...deer hair is magic!"

In retrospect, I think I first broke down the, "hackle must be feathers," barrier after discovering the old Al Troth "Spiders"... which aren't spiders at all; not in any sense of the word.
They're actually dry flies, but they use a collar of flared deer hair in place of the usual dry-fly hackle. I was entranced by that idea for a little while, and it must have stuck. 
It was just a small leap of faith to replace a soft hackle with hair, and especially deer hair.

My friend Bart Lombardo has resurrected an old, obscure pattern along similar lines, the "James Woods Bucktail." It uses bucktail as a hair wing, circling a chenille body and behind a chenille head.
He ties it, now, in several different color combinations to mimic all sorts of fish food. Here's a link to his original tribute to that pattern:

The James Wood Bucktail

With the zillions of exotic, lurid, and complicated flies we might tie, well... ain't it amazing how the simplest combination of materials does the job as well?

Palmered Wooly

The Palmered Wooly - Will it Work?

When simple might be better...

David Hutton Palmetto Fly N Fish©
May 21, 2018

I'm not really sure where I got the pattern described below. It may have been something off the internet, or something I tied and recorded with an eye towards posting at some point.
I expect it was the former case.

Adios Internet

See, there was a time not too long ago that I didn't have the internet. Well, for a long time really. When we moved to our current place, we got a culture shock. To say its in the middle of nowhere might be an understatement. 

You leave town miles behind, and you cant help but notice there are no power lines or poles along the way.

When you finally reach our little shack in the woods, you realize that electricity has come a very roundabout way to our crossroads - and there's no room for internet. 

At least not the hard-wired, unlimited gigabyte sort every body else enjoys these days.

So for a long time, I was a collector of internet information... an info-miner, you might say. 
Every chance I got, I downloaded whatever I found on fishing and fly fishing to a memory stick. 
I wasn't concerned about where it came from, and I wasn't scrupulous about capturing those details. Just get it on there and go for more.
Subsequently, my files are a big repository of Universal Fishing Joy and Goodness, but I don't always know where I got the content. This is most likely one of those items.

Simple Is The Word

Its the simplicity that I wanted to present here. This is really just a Wooly Bugger variation. But it lacks much in the way of embellishment. This isn't a fly pattern gypsy wagon.

I imagine some of you may wonder if something so basic can catch fish. Most pages are full of Wooly Buggers that are anything but simple. The gaudier the better, it seems. 

I saw one guy recently asking for opinions of his; it had a huge, golden bullet head, three colors of body and tail, tastefully contrasting hackle.... well, I was tempted to offer my opinion, but held my tongue. 

This has gotten easier in my older years. 
Funny how that works.

My First Wooly Bugger

But, can simple work? Well, for a long time I didn't fish a Wooly Bugger - ever. I knew of the fly, but I never got around to fishing one, and it was kind of a personal rebellion to resist its siren call. 

So, one day at the vise, the planets aligned. I grabbed a #6 hook, some scrap feathers and well, I caved in. 

Cosmic forces had risen - and I tied a Wooly Bugger.

As I recall it had a short tail of marabou fluff from the base of a feather. The body was more of this marabou stripping dubbed on, and a non-descript hobby store hackle completed the outfit. 

It was drab, grey-brown, and honestly, it looked like a turd. 

It was a passable Wooly Bugger, yes, with all the right stuff.

But it looked like a turd. A Wooly Turd.

I didn't expect it to do much.

The Proof Is In The Turd Pudding

It got its baptism one day while fishing with my friend, Donald Schmotzer. We were at the west end of Wessinger Island on Lake Murray, when I tied on that Basic Bugger and started creeping it along the bottom. I remember it like it was yesterday; I can take you to that same spot today.

I hadn't mentioned the Wooly Turd to Don, because I'm always changing flies. I fish a while with one, then try another. It's like a ritual with me. 
And since I have a lot of flies I've tied, I may as well use them, right?

Because of this, he's come to expect me always fussing with something. 
So, when I let out a whoop, he turned to see what all the commotion was about. 

The rod bent in a way I wasn't expecting, arching over into a hoop that nearly touched the water.
"What you got there?" he asked.
"I don't know, but its something..." (A loss for words, I guess)

Surprisingly, it turned out to be a stout ol' shellcracker, about a pound. It gave my little 5 wt a tussle, and it was a bit of a triumph for me. 
Up until then, I had never caught shellcrackers on anything but worms. 

Once that fish was landed and released, I spilled the beans.

"That was a Wooly Bugger of all things, Don. 

Can you believe that? 

Of all the zillion patterns, I got that on a Wooly Bugger. 

And it was the first one I've ever fished!"

"Really? Your first ever?

Man, I use to use those things some years ago, and caught a lot of fish on them. But I kinda got away from 'em, for some reason. They'll catch fish, that's for sure."

That was sort of Epiphany Moment for me, and I guess for Don, too. I've noticed he's been catching a lot of big bluegill and bass on a small, black Wooly Bugger these days. 

I've also seen him get at least one big 7lb. catfish that way. 

Another we only imagined was a catfish, as we never got to see it before it broke off... also on that same black a Woolly Bugger of his. 

I should say here he ties one of the tidiest Wooly Buggers I've ever seen. Mine never come out so neat.

They always look kinda like turds.

So here is the simple, basic Wooly Bugger pattern that popped up in my files. 
I closed my eyes, pointed the mouse and clicked.
This is what you get.

No pictures. 

No lengthy instructions.

Nothing but the basics.

Will it work? Try it, then let us now.

Materials

Hook	2xl or 3xl nymph hook, 6-12
Thread	Red
Tail	Black Marabou and a few whisps of pearl krystal flash
Ribbing	Fine Gold Wire
Body	Olive Chenille
Hackle	Grizzly Hen Neck, Palmered
Head	Black Bead

The Fish That Saved America

The Shad of Valley Forge

by Allen G. Eastby

They called it the, “Starving Time.”

For the officers and men of the Continental Army, it began in the autumn of 1777 as their commander-in-chief, General George Washington, began gathering troops to continue the campaign against the British army that had occupied Philadelphia. From Albany, New York came regiments raised in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York. 

The Connecticut and Rhode Island Lines trooped across New Jersey. When they joined the "Grand Army," as the force under Washington's direct command was called, the Continentals from New England and New York were greeted by men from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Washington's army grew in size, but it became steadily harder to feed. 

Commissaries and quartermasters, it seemed, were either incompetent, or corrupt, or both. The generals, even proven combat veterans of European armies such as Baron De Kalb,

were inexperienced and untrained in the art and science of logistics: the arming, quartering, clothing, and feeding of armies.

With the best intentions in the world, Congress was unable to devise a supply system that worked. And there was no real money anywhere, except in British-held Philadelphia. There, the local farmers flocked to sell produce to the King's men, exchanging meat and flour for gold.

Yet during November and early December, the Continentals were able to continue their efforts to drive the British from Philadelphia. But marches and counter-marches wore out shoes and hungry men fell ill, or deserted, as the nights grew cold.

Recapturing Philadelphia, it seemed, would have to wait until spring.

During the last week in December 1777, the Continental Army trudged through a somber countryside to a place known as the Valley Forge. Here it was they were to establish a "cantonment," a winter camp. 

As the soldiers struggled to build huts and squabbled over rights to springs and wells, their hunger pangs grew. Colonel Henry Beekman Livingston of the Fourth New York slaughtered his own cherished mare and his younger brother's favorite gelding and gave his regiment—290 officers and men—a Christmas "feast" of boiled horsemeat.

One evening, Colonel Walter Steward, of the Thirteenth Pennsylvania, dined on a single roasted potato, which he shared with the regiment's major. 

Some brigades fared better than others, and here and there in the encampment could be found regiments—those blessed with active and enterprising officers—that ate relatively well.

But, overall, the hunger was real, as real as the cold, the "camp fever," and the "itch" (a chronic skin infection that made the rounds in the close camp).

During January, February, and the first weeks of March of 1778, the Continental Army tried desperately to feed itself. 

"Grand forages" were organized in which the troops scoured the countryside seeking anything that could go into the cookpots hanging over the smokey fires at the cantonment. 

Large detachments were sent into New Jersey and Delaware with orders to collect everything and anything that could fill empty bellies. 

Letters flowed from the encampment at Valley Forge. Officers wrote friends, relations, and officials at home, begging, pleading, imploring that food be sent.

Washington and his generals bombarded Congress with requests for money, weapons, clothing, and especially for food. Time and again, the commander-in-chief warned Congress that the army must soon break up unless food reached the cantonment.

The crisis was real, and it threatened the army's survival and the success of the Revolution.

During the first week in March, word of wagon trains of supplies and herds of cattle on the move reached the camp at the valley forge. On March 18, a fine, warm spring day, a detachment from the North Carolina Brigade marched from the cantonment. 

They were to protect a herd of cattle from New England as it crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. 

British patrols and raiders were avoided, and the herd reached the camp safely. The fresh meat was welcome, but 200 "beeves" would not feed 10,000 men for long.

The Starving Time was not over, yet.

Then, hunger vanished because of a humble fish.

The valley forge encampment nestled on the banks of the Schuylkill River. During

the last week in March and the first week in April, as had happened every year since time began, Alosa sapidissima, the American shad, returned to the river.

It is not recorded who first noticed the fish in the Schuylkill, but the news swept through the camp like wind-driven fire in a dry wood. 

A few hook-and-line anglers appeared on the banks, but fishing tackle wasn't carried by many in this army. 

So, shad fishing quickly ceased being a sport and became serious business.

Nets were begged, borrowed, and yes, stolen. They were strung between stout poles set in the shallows along both banks. At first, the shad obligingly swam into the waiting nets. But they soon began avoiding them.

The Continentals, though, officers and men alike, were becoming adept at improvisation. 

They had learned a hard lesson: An army of amateurs fighting for a country that did not yet exist, had to make do, or do without.

So if the shad wouldn't swim into the nets, why, then, they'd be driven into them.

Detachments of the only cavalry regiment at the valley forge camp, Colonel Stephen Moylan's Fourth Continental Light Dragoons (a formation raised in Pennsylvania), were assigned the task of driving the shad. 

Troops of cavalry charged full gallop into the Schuylkill from both banks.

The shad, had other plans, however.

They appear to have congregated in the shallows, according to accounts, and simply escaped straight out into the deeper flows in the middle of the river. The nets were again avoided. 

It was time to improvise yet again.

The next phase of the fishing was entrusted to the soldiers. These were men from the Hudson Valley in New York, the Delaware and Susquehanna valleys in Pennsylvania, and eastern Virginia. 

These men fished for shad every spring most of their lives, and they knew what had to be done. 

This time, the nets were redeployed across the river at the pontoon bridge the army

had built spanning the Schuylkill. The next cavalry charge was directed upstream.

That night, every soldier in "Liberty's Army" ate his fill of fresh shad.

The Starving Time was over. The Continental Army would survive. 

The Revolution was not dead.

The records are spotty and incomplete— Continental Army staff and clerical work always left a lot to be desired—but it appears that initially the soldiers ate shad, and especially shad roe, as soon as the fish were caught.

But shortly after the netting began in earnest, the glut of fish had to be dealt with.

So the army started smoking and salting fish, packing them in barrels for future use.

Once the fish were on the river banks, they were turned over to the “camp followers.”

Although it is seldom brought out in histories of the War of American Independence, the Continental Army was very little different from others through the centuries in one way: It was accompanied everywhere by large numbers of women.

These were wives, sweethearts, sisters, nieces, even a few mothers.

When they are mentioned, the "followers of the drum" are usually characterized as little better than prostitutes....and some no doubt were.

But in a modern military force, most of the “camp followers” would be in uniform and be counted as soldiers. By contrast, these literal followers served as nurses, cooks, housekeepers, stretcher bearers, and seamstresses and they ran the eighteenth century's equivalent of post exchanges.

They received army rations when available, and sometimes pay (especially the nurses). They occasionally found themselves in the midst of a turning battle, and were also subject to the harsh discipline of the Continental Line, if they ran afoul of it—including flogging.

These brave, dogged, and unheralded women, forgotten today, were crucial to the success of the Revolution.

And during April 1778, these followers did the dirty work of cleaning, smoking, and salting the shad..., tens upon thousands of shad.

When the shad run finally petered out during the middle of April, the Continental Army had enough to eat, and then some. 

Under the direction of the Continental Army's new and very competent quartermaster general, Major General Nathaniel Greene, fish were added to the growing "magazines" of supplies that were accumulating for the coming campaign against the British. 

When the regiments of the Continental Line marched from the cantonment, they would have real rations - hundreds of wagons of flour and salt pork, and thousands of cattle had arrived. More were on the way. 

And there were shad, so many shad that everyone, from the commander-in-chief to the new recruits, grew heartily sick and tired of them.

In June 1778, the British evacuated Philadelphia. 

The Continental Army marched from the valley forge cantonment in pursuit of the enemy. On June 28, near the little New Jersey town known as Monmouth Courthouse, rebels and King's men met in battle. 

It was a long and bitter fight that went on until after sunset. In the grim darkness, commissaries distributed rations to the tired Continentals. It is recorded that at least four regiments, the Fourth New York, the Third Maryland, the Third New Hampshire, and Malcolm's Additional Continental Regiment, ate smoked shad.

Others no doubt did, too, but left no record.

Following the Battle of Monmouth, the Continental Army took up positions in

southern New York and northern New Jersey, watching the British in New York

City. The herds of cattle that followed the army—rations on the hoof—couldn't keep pace with the hard-marching Continentals.

Once again, the army found itself eating salted shad.

In September 1778, the Second New York was sent to fight Indian raiders along the upper Delaware. “Chasing Indians was bad enough,” wrote the regimental commander, Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt, to his father, the lieutenant governor of New York state. “But can't they find something for my men to eat besides smoked Schuylkill River shad?”

Colonel Van Cortlandt was not the only continental to complain about yet another

issue of shad. But neither he nor any of the other soldiers of "Liberty's Army" would forget the run of bright fish that brought the Starving Time to an end.

No longer do shad run up the Schuylkill, or any of our rivers, in numbers large enough to feed an army for months. 

And we today fish for sport, not for meat. 

But each time we catch a shad, we touch our history. For those silvery fish that bring us so much pleasure, helped ensure our country might exist. 

They fed the Continental Army in its direst time, from which it burst renewed to carry the fight to the enemy.

The rest, as they say, is history.

A Feast of Continental Shad

The officers and men of Washington's army ate shad broiled, fried, and baked. They ate it salted and smoked. They even ate it boiled. The precise details of the preparation, however, are mostly lost.

But, the following are traditional recipes that were in use during the Revolutionary

War and on several occasions were used to prepare fish for the officers of the New York Continentals and militia. These methods were no doubt used by other soldiers as well.

Skillet Shad

Whole shad, split along the backbone (sometimes called "butterfly cut")

Salt pork (bacon and/or Canadian bacon can be substituted)

Freshly ground pepper

The shad and salt pork are simply fried in a cast iron skillet over an open fire. 

The open fire is the essential ingredient.

Colonel Van Cortlandt's Baked Shad

Whole shad

Potatoes, peeled and diced

Salt and pepper

White wine (Hessian "hock" was originally used; hock was an off-dry wine made from the Johannisberg Riesling grape. Try a chenin blanc)

The shad (two or more, depending on the size of the oven), along with the potatoes, swimming in wine, are locked in a cast iron Dutch oven and buried in the coals of a campfire for "as long as it takes" (one to two hours).

Allen G. Eastby is the author of The Tenth Men, a historical novel set during the American Revolution. It is published by Empire State Fiction.

Bob Clouser on Bass Fly Fishing

Bob Clouser Seminar - Bass from Top To Bottom

Atlanta, GA

Feb 3, 2017

I had the pleasure of sitting in on Bob Clouser's bass fishing seminar in Atlanta last year, part of the annual Fly Fishing Show held there. 

Bob is a big, bear of a guy from Pennsylvania. He has a full, white mustache, little hair, and a stout “Yankee” accent.
It's fun to just be in his presence and to listen to him. 
In attendance were also two stalwart members from our facebook page, "Palmetto Fly n Fish": Gerry Korzi and Donald Schmotzer. 

It's not everyday you get to sit down with a legend, so I took as many notes as I could.

Following are highlights of Bob's talk. Some of it may surprise you...

--------------------------------------------

We come in a bit late, and enter an already darkened room. Bob is in front of a projector screen, manning his laptop and running a slide show. About 40-50 people are seated, theater-style, facing him. He's talking about tackle...

“Alright fellas, lets talk about tackle for bass.

Rods

Now, I'm a pro staff angler for TFO, so naturally I'm gonna promote their products. They are high quality and reasonably priced.

But when most people talk about bass on the fly, they mean 7-9 weight rods. 

And I wanna say right here - that's not really necessary. 

Today's modern materials and designs give most 5 wt. rods the strength needed to handle bass. 

The main issue isn't the fish, anyway – its the bulky, air-resistant flies everyone thinks they need to throw at bass.

So lemme ask - how many of you guys use 5 wt. rods? 

(a few timid hands go up)

Hey, its alright – rod manufacturers will tell you the most popular rod weight in the country is a 5 wt. 

This is followed by the 4 wt. 

Then the 6, 7, 8 and the rest.

So, how many of you fellas want to keep using those 5 and 6 weight rods? 

(this time over half the crowd raises their hand)

I thought so. And who wouldn't, right? It's what you're used to.

If that's the case, start tying your flies on bend-back, or worm style keeled hooks, and tie them somewhat sparse. These flies aren't big and bulky and me and Lefty* have been working with them for years.”

Here he shows a picture of flies tied with a pronounced kink behind the eye. The shaft makes a near 90 degree bend for about 3/16-1/4”, then bends back in the same line, but now below the original plane. It looks very much like a worm hook, and he places the eyes right in the kink.

* This was before the passing of Bob's longtime friend, and fly-fishing great, Lefty Kreh.

Bob goes on to speak about lines...

“Line

I wont say too much about floating lines, but I will tell you to have floating AND sinking lines. 

The best sinking line? Type 3.

It doesn't sink too deep, or too fast, and this lets you control the fly better.

Adding Weight to Flies

If you need a deeper presentation, you'll be thinking about adding weight, right? 

That usually means using split shot, to get the fly down.

Well, don't – use Twiston lead strip weights, instead.

Split shot tends to snag and drag, or you gotta get into tricky shot droppers, and so on. And you have to fumble them out of little baggies, or tubes or whatever, to use them.

Instead, the Twiston lead wraps come in a convenient pack like a book of matches. You wrap them around the leader and line and they present nothing to get lodged between rocks or snags.

Use Loops

Your line and leaders should use looped connectors – there's nothing to go wrong with a loop. Enough said about that.

Leader

Don't get too long here; 5-6 feet is enough. 

It doesn't need to be tow-cable thick, either. 

Just a standard thickness that matches the line, and stiff enough that it allows the line to turn the fly over. 

This is because your tippet is actually the key...

Tippet

Make your tippet long. 

Bass aren't terribly line shy, but they can be. 

You wanna get the fly well out and away from the line and leader, using a minimum tippet length of 3 feet!
You'll catch more bass this way.

Knots

There are only two knots you need to know for attaching flies to tippet.

- Lefty's Non Slip Loop Knot

- Improved Clinch Knot

Don't worry about others.”

I give a silent cheer and nudge Gerry Korzi, whispering, “This is great! I'm not smart enough to know a dozen knots, and have been using these for a long time.”

Back to Bob...

“TOP WATER

Lets first clear something up - the 'top water bite' is a myth, fellas 

(A murmur goes up and people squirm uncomfortably at this).

I know what you're thinking, but in general, fish don't normally loaf at the 'top' - the surface - waiting for your fly or some other juicy tidbit to land in their face. 

They're too exposed that way and it goes against all their instincts. 

Instead, they stay below and COME UP to the surface.

Think about it; how many times have you seen that – the fish isn't literally on the surface, but comes out of nowhere from below and grabs your fly? 

(the audience nods its head in unison)

I remember one white fly hatch so thick, you couldn't breathe without gagging on bugs. The bass were hungrily feeding on the flies - but they were only taking every fifth fly. 

They would come up and take a fly off the surface, go back below to their safe spot to gobble it down, and then come back up once they felt safe enough. 

During  the time it took for this to happen, four white flies had gone by!

The point is, they are exposed at the surface and they don't like it. They may be NEAR the surface, yes, but they are not normally right in the film. 

Another way to look at this is to say they'll maybe feed up, rising to the fly.

Surface Presentation

Bass that are willing to feed on the surface and take a fly, might be somewhat particular, however. 

They either like noisy flies, or not. And you gotta figure out which.

When they want a quiet presentation, don't give them a noisy one...you'll put them down.

If they'll accept a noisy surface bug, great - give that to them.
But you'll have to start out with slow, gentle presentations first, or risk scaring them off.

This means cast the surface fly and let it sit.

Twitch it, maybe.

Let it sit some more.

Move it slightly, let it sit again.

Repeat.

If that doesn't work after numerous attempts, get more rambunctious with your retrieve and imparting action until you start getting strikes.

Poppers

Who likes poppers? 

(all the hands shoot up)

Well, when it comes to poppers, we used to use cork-bodied versions back in the day, and did well with them. 

Then foam came out, and we all thought it was wonderful. So many colors, easy to work with, and tough as nails; the cork can be a little fragile, after all. 

Sounds perfect, right?

It's not.

Foam has a problem. 

Both Lefty and I found our foam poppers don't get as many strikes as the “corkies.” 

After a lot of study, we figured out what was going on:

The old cork bugs sat lower in the water!

Cork is buoyant, but not like the foam material. By contrast, the foam jobs ride right up on the surface which is kind of unnatural.

To cure this, what I recommend you do is cement a piece of thick solder or lead wire into the slit you make in the foam popper bodies when you glue in your hook. 

Experiment a little until you get the weight right, ensuring your bug bodies float half in, and half out, of the water. 

You'll get a better sonic effect and I'm sure the fish will more readily take these modified poppers

But I think there are better surface flies than poppers, in my opinion, and these are the skippers, chuggers, sliders and so on. They present a more natural appearance in the water. You should give these serious use.

Near Surface Flies

Another class of 'top water fly' isn't really; it's what I call the 'near-surface' fly. 

These run from right at the surface to a foot or two down. 

This is the suspending fly, the one that doesn't sink fast.

It kinda hovers on the drop, instead. 

You can do as well with these, and maybe better, than with top water flies. 

A favorite of mine has a three layer head of red - white - red hackle in front, with a white Deceiver-style back end.

FISHING HEAVY COVER

Here we're talking about lily pads and thick weeds, guys. This is a favorite place to fish for bass.

My advice, though, is to ignore this stuff except under the best conditions. By that I mean, when the wind lays down and the water is calm. 

You want to work back into the pockets and holes in the weeds, but its almost impossible to be in control of your line and fly in this stuff when your line is drifting all over, the boat is drifting all over, or everything is being blown around by the wind.

Weed Guards

How about those weed guards? Everybody loves these things, and so do I.

They keep your fly from hooking on everything... including fish.

My favorite type of weed guard is the side-by-side wire or mono type. But – and its a big but - I trim their length so they just barely protect the hook point, right to hook point length, in fact.

Shallow Cover

I also advise you guys to fish tight in to the shore cover, often.

How many times have you gone down near the shore and seen the wakes of fish taking off like scared rabbits at your approach? 

It's happened to all of us, I'd imagine.

Well, you'd be surprised how often decent sized bass are right in tight to shore. This will usually be in the presence of some kind of cover, most often weeds.
They may not all be trophy bass, but you should hit every pocket and point in the shore cover, as long as there is plenty of it around. Stick ups, too.

The lone stick or bit of grass poking up usually has a more significant structure beneath the surface, and fish will try to hide in amazingly sparse shelter.

In fact, if a fish can hide his head, he thinks he's safe - even if the rest of his body is exposed!

Because of this, a good tactic near shore is to use your polarized sunglasses to look for the tails of fish within the cover. 

If you see them, don't cast right at the head – or even beyond it. Instead, cast to the side, away from the tail. 

If your eyes aren't playing tricks on you, and a fish is really there, he will know your fly is there, too. 

And if he wants it he'll come to get it.

Casting at his head or dropping your line over his noggin' is just gonna send him running.

Frogs

Around heavy cover, USE FROGS. 

I cant stress that enough. 

I think bass spend their lives eating frogs.

Cast these right along the shoreline and cover, too. 

Bass fishing means accurate casting. 

I'd recommend quieter frogs over noisy ones, too, most of the time. But if you're not fishing frog mimics around heavy cover at least part of the time - you're missing fish.

DOWN DEEP

When fish aren't coming to the surface, and arent shallow, you have to go deep and that usually means near the bottom.

In rivers, its dead drift along river bottoms. 

In lakes its working a fly along the bottom.

Flies for this are patterns that imitate crawfish, sculpins, darters, worms, etc.

Mending the Drift

When deep drift casting on rivers, make your mends in the air before the line lands in the water. 

Let the line shoot out and give it a sideways up-current flip before landing. This puts an upstream loop in it. 

The point is to let the fly settle in place once in the water, not to be dragged around by tryin' to get the mend and drift just right. 

Bass will often hit the fly just when it enters and begins to float down. If its being hauled all over by your line gymnastics, it may put the fish down more than attract them. 

It also lets slack get in the line.

And you want to keep the slack out of your line! 

Follow the line on the drift with you rod tip and strip in line to eliminate slack. This rule is universal. 

NEVER let the line drift in behind your rod tip – it should always be to the front, your rod tip pointing at the fly and you should not let slack develop.

The Reel

When playing fish, forget the reel. 

How many of you have had a fish get off while trying to reel in slack and get the fish onto the drag so you can, “play it”? 

You have this big money reel with its disc drag, and by God, you're gonna reel that fish, right? 

Sorry, but that's your mistake fella's

(more muttering from the crowd....).

Rather, keep stripping line and don't fiddle around trying to get the fish on the reel.

What happens is that while you're frantically trying to reel in slack, the rod tip is bouncing up and down - sending slack waves down the line toward the fish. Given half a chance, that fish is gonna get off.

The point is to maintain tension at all times, keep stripping, and don't let any slack develop with the fish on.

If the fish needs line to run, let the line out through your tightened fingers and manage it that way. 

If the fish is that damn big, its gonna get on the reel soon enough, anyway!

Be A Line Watcher. 

Bass don't often grab a fly and try to snatch the rod from your hand. It sometimes seems that way, but the fact is this: by the time you realize a bass is on, it has probably had your fly in its mouth for some time. 

Very often they pick up a fly and reject it before you even realize it happened.

Frequently, they grab the fly on the drop, or when you stop stripping and there is no real tension between you and the fly. 

And since the fly is coming towards you on the retrieve, odds are very good the bass is following – and moving towards you, too. Thus, it picks up the fly while also moving in your direction, on a slackened line.

This means the single best way to know whats happening is by watching the line where it enters the water. You must not let gross amounts of slack develop; if you do you'll miss the subtle twitches, stalls, and sideways bumps the line may exhibit when the bass engulfs your fly.

NOTES ON FLIES

Red and white still remains a productive color combination after all these years.
It doesn't seem to scare the fish or put them down, as you might think – in fact, they often seem to prefer it. The red and white hackle fly I already mentioned is great and I'll say it again, it works!

You can also work red and white into other patterns, like Clouser Minnows, for example.

Other Colors

A few other colors that seem to appeal to bass most of the time are these:

• Olive over yellow, w/ gold flash. I don't know what it is with this combination but its another fish taker. Tie a sparse Clouser Minnow with a yellow belly, gold flash center line and olive top.
• Gold, too, just seems to be a bass magnet in any form. You should try to work it into your bass flies wherever possible.
• White belly, green side line and brown top

UV2 Materials 

In recent years, UV enhanced materials have come on the scene.

These have been touted as some sort of cosmic beacon to fish. 

They aren't. 

What they will do is brighten the fly, especially under reduced light conditions. 

So for flies intended to go deep or to be fished under low light conditions, UV2 is a good idea.

Steve Farrar Flash Blend

If you've never heard of Steve Farrar's “Flash Blend,” its time to change that. This stuff is almost magical the way it swims and adds attractiveness to a pattern. 

I recommend it highly.

Whenever I fish with Lefty Kreh, I always end up begging one of his flies. As good as mine are, his seem to be better. And he always obliges my request, because he brings along extras.

And he always charges me $5 per fly, for the privilege.

Stewardship

On a final note, I'd like to tell you about a lovely lady I've had the pleasure of fishing with for years. One day she caught a nice fish and wanted to take it home to show her mother.

“Why do that?” I asked. “By the time you get it home its eyes will be waxed over, its scales will be falling off and it'll look pretty ragged. 

Why not take a picture and let it go? That way, it can breed and make a thousand more babies for you to catch in the years ahead.”

She liked that idea.

The fish you save today is the sport you enjoy tomorrow.

The Crippled Minnow

And last but not least, someone asked why I haven't mentioned my own, "Clouser Crippled Minnow." 

Well, it's too damned good, that's why. 

Fish take it so hard and fast they get it deep, and I was seeing a lot of wounded fish, often mortally wounded. 

So I quit using it. 

It's kind of a secret weapon, but for the wrong reasons. 

I don't recommend it any longer.

Have fun and tight lines”

- Bob Clouser

I hope you enjoyed this. Remember, this was from memory, and my notes, and is not a direct appropriation of Bobs work. 
With luck, though, you learned more than you bargained for.

If you liked it, please share it with your friends

David
Palmetto Fly N Fish

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