Fly Tying Jamboree II Photos

Had a great time at the jamboree on Saturday.  About 10 people showed up to try tying a few bass and pike patterns.  I thought there might be a few more experienced pike fisherman in the group but I found out that not a single person in the group said they had caught pike before so they had plenty of questions.  I did my best to answer even though I have only one season of chasing them myself.   We chatted about where I have been fishing and what time of year and conditions I found to be most productive.  Hopefully I gave them enough good info to get them started.  We discussed the controversy that surrounds pike in the state since they aren't native and spreading into more traditional cold water fisheries.  Overall we had a very enthusiastic and friendly group.

The first fly we tied was a 3/0 red/white banger variation using white yak hair for the tail and wing at least that is what I was going for. I like this style of fly and want to make sure and tie some more for this year.  I haven't seen any tied with yak hair and wanted to see how it would come out.  pikeflyfishingarticles.blogspot.com blog has many great variations of this fly including a step by step tutorial.

The next fly was a black bass gurgler.  I've been fishing a fly very similar to this with a spun deer hair head and wanted to modify it to have a gurgler style head instead.

The last fly tied was one of my favorites from last year.  It is based on the hang time musky fly which I keep tinkering with.  I have yet to even fish for muskies but the local pike and both smallmouth and largemouth bass eat them up no matter how big I make them.  Most lakes in the area have large populations of yellow perch so I tend to tie a lot of perch colored patterns.  I just like the perch colors too.  So much prettier than the typical shiner or most suckers.

Even though most of the people in the class weren't pike fisherman many do tie for stripers and they commented on how they could fish some of these same patterns for them or incorporate some of the tying techniques into their striper patterns.

I have some friends that come over every other Tuesday night to tie.  This week we plan on doing some crease flies and whatever else comes to mind.

Fly Tying Jamboree II

It's been a while.  I tied for a bunch of days in a row then ran into a wall over the holidays.  The first jamboree was a lot of fun.  We ended up tying only 2 striper flies, a black bird and hollow pollock.  Here's a couple pics of these flies from past posts, not the actual ones that were tied in the class.

I'm doing my second jamboree tomorrow 2/26 where the topic is bass and pike flies.  A lot of the patterns and ideas have come from other bloggers so thanks for posting your flies especially Simon at Pike Flyfishing Articles.  I'm planning on doing a version of his banger in the class.  I plan on tying more of these this winter for the upcoming season.

Fishing season is coming up quickly so I hope to more regularly post.  This year I'll be chasing stripers as usual and hitting the Saco and local lakes for bass.  Pike fishing was a learning experience last year and I want to continue it this year.  The focus will be to catch them a little more consistently and under different conditions.  The big challenge this year will be to catch a musky.  Preliminary plans are in place to chase them in Maine with a possibility of looking elsewhere depending on how successful we are close to home.  A couple of musky fly boxes are starting to fill up.