Eldredge Bros. Flyshop Expo

8th Annual Expo at Eldredge Bros. Flyshop in Cape Neddick, ME Saturday April 2

Great way to kick off the fishing season here in Maine. Gives me a chance to catch up with friends and make plans for fishing trips this year.  There will be plenty of free food like donuts, burgers and dogs.  Manufacturer reps are available with rods to cast and new gear to check out.  There will be spey casting and flytying demos, antique rod appraisals, entomology seminars, and a bunch of gear giveaways (rods, reels, flies, etc.)

For the those of you who aren't local there is an especially sweet deal.  Any purchase over $300 gets a free flyline up to $85 value, any regularly priced fly rod and reel outfit that totals over $300.00 gets a free fly line and backing, any two handed rod and reel outfit gets a free spey line of your choice (versitips not included).  This deal is good for the weekend even for phone and email orders.  Contact the shop for details.

This is the best show of the year in our area. Check out the link for more details - http://eldredgeflyshop.com/fly-fishing-expo

Square head poppers

These square headed poppers have intrigued me so I tied a few up in different sizes for largemouth to pike to musky.  I'm looking forward to see what kind of pop and disturbance they make.  I used similar flies last year with deerhair heads that caught fish but didn't stay above the surface for long especially with an intermediate line.  I'm thinking these will float high even with an intermediate.  Shouldn't be long until I can give them a try if we ever get some warm weather.  Need to tie a few up for stripers too although the green one has a mackerel feel to it and should do the trick.

Last year John http://coop-fly.blogspot.com/ caught a few pike with me on a twin tailed yellow deer hair popper so I tied one with the yellow foam head as well.

 Directions and more info on tying these flies can be found on the Zero 2 Hero blog.

Crease flies

Had a few friends over for our Tuesday night tying event.  Alan has been tying crease flies lately because I think he figured he should have at least one fly for stripers that he doesn't need to drag on the bottom.  I thought I'd join him and make an attempt at tying them also.  I've fished crease flies here and there with decent success for stripers and freshwater bass but have never tied them myself.  Yes I actually bought a few flies to fish with as hard as it is to admit it.

Alan is much more skilled painting with the nail polish than I.  I'm reasonably happy with the way they turned out though and they should catch a few fish.

Deep water flies

I sat down to tie some flies to be used for pike and bass in deeper water. Last spring when there was strong wind the shallow water got very murky from the wave action. The bite for pike really turned off under those conditions so we felt like we were forced to fish deeper water. Maybe there was some other presentation we could have tried under those conditions in the shallow water but we couldn't come up with anything that worked for us.

I tied these flies up to fish deeper in these conditions, around submerged weed edges later in the summer and rocky points and shoals for bass. They will also hopefully fish a little deeper where there is current in some of our larger rivers.

Initially I wanted to tie a whistler but started layering saddles, marabou, bucktail and flash up the hook shank similar to a lot of the other flies I've been tying lately.  I finished off the fly with a grizzly hackle over a few extra wraps of lead behind some lead eyes.  Unweighted this style of fly really swims so it should be interesting to see what kind of action they have with the weight up front and the jig hook.

Bunker flies

I've been told that the flies I have been tying for muskies aren't big enough. So I dug through my striper fly boxes and pulled out some of my old bunker and grocery flies. I don't have as many opportunities to fish these flies anymore for stripers so maybe they will be better put to another use.

Musky flies

I've been tying up a few musky flies lately in anticipation of this season.  At this point I have no idea how they will fish but they sure look cool and like they will swim.  These flies are articulated and tied up using a Gamakatsu S12S 4/0 in the front and SS15 2/0 in the back connected with 30# nylon coated wire.  I was going for a perch look in the first couple of flies which was effective for pike last year and a fat headed sucker look in the last fly.  These flies are way too much fun to tie and think about what might someday attack them.  It's a nice break from tying the same old striper flies all the time.