I’ve been doing more and more work with photo-based monotones and duotones in (Adobe) Photoshop and Illustrator. When converted to vector paths in Illustrator, an image like the one above can become wall-size with no loss in quality. While I’ve used this type of Photoshop-to-Illustrator workflow for various projects in the past, it has only been recently that I’ve started to put the technology to more regular use. Expect to see some illustrations here at FF&W that come about this way, as well as some other types of FF&W projects (T-shirts anyone?).

The above image was taken during an early morning on a carp flat on Lake Michigan. The photo is a number of years old, and the flat no longer exists (the lake’s water level has since dropped). My father and I spotted some fish on the flat the night before the pic was taken, and we decided to grab a motel room rather than continue on home (we had been trout fishing elsewhere). It turned out to be a smart move!

The morning the shot was taken dawned clear and warm, and carp were pushing heavy wakes all over the place. A Hare’s Ear did the trick, and we were glad that the little trout reels we were carrying had ample backing.

Sadly, a couple of years later the flat was no more. The last time I saw it, it was mostly grass, and the big lake’s edge was perhaps a hundred yards from where we had first found fish. Maybe the water will return some day, and slide back up over the rock slabs and hard-packed sand. And maybe the carp will be back, too, ready for the orange light of dawn and a couple of bleary-eyed anglers tossing fluff and hope their way…

Continuing the lazy blogging “reflecting on the past” theme around here lately, I have for your viewing pleasure a few bass flies from my “golden age” of illustration. By golden age, I mean before I got distracted by a thousand other things, and let half of my trusty Rapidograph pens dry rock solid, with no hope of recovery. I’ll have to buy all-new points for the next book project, but in the meantime, I’ll keep posting a string of fish, fly and water drawings here at FF&W…

I grew up bass fishing (with everything from ‘crawlers, to jitterbugs, to poppers, and ultimately flies). For me, the largemouth bass was, and sometimes still is, a go-to fish. There is just something about the combination of a Northwoods lake choked with lily pads, an early morning brightened by steaming coffee, and that signature largemouth take…if you’ve fished top-water largemouth, well, you know what I mean.

If you’re looking for searing, flats-style runs, largemouth are not your fish. If you’re looking for technical approaches with delicately boned patterns, just pass on by. If you want to boom huge casts across vast rivers, with the hope of that certain “pull,” largemouth are not where you want to focus your time.

Chucking a meaty bass fly into edge of the lilies, or around the clutches of a snag, or under overhanging brush, is its own world. Perhaps the closest thing outside of the bass experience—for me—is fishing baby tarpon deep in the mangroves. But unlike tarpon, a morning spent working a bass lake seems more relaxed and less concerned with “now!” Certainly, when the take happens it is all about the “now,” but the moments leading up to that take often come across as lazier, or perhaps more contemplative. Or perhaps I’m just waxing nostalgic…

I will say that the most memorable time that I ever had fishing with my grandfather (on my mother’s side) was a June morning consumed by a single largemouth. I learned to run an outboard that day, and I won’t ever forget the misty Pennsylvania woods, the dip and twitch of the bobber, and the gill-rattling surprise that jolted me out of my youthful languor.

Largemouth may not be for everyone, but for me they are a fish that remains deeply intertwined with my angling life. When I think back, I also think forward—to the scent of water and pine, to the soft puttering of an old outboard, and to a certain vacuum take that can pull a whole morning into a single second.

A bit of “re-play” from an old “Fly Fish America” article (which I think made the rounds three times in various states of tune).

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The use of droppers is a staple technique for many fly fishers around the world. During opportunistic (”eat what comes by”) feeding periods, droppers not only allow an angler to fish two (or more) widely different patterns, but they can also provide a fish-inducing fly-as-indicator system. Opportunistic feeding, however, is not the only place where droppers can shine. Multi-fly rigs can also be used with success during periods of selective (organism-focused, often hatch-based) feeding.

Just because fish are keying in on one food organism (mayflies, for example) doesn’t mean all the fish are keying on the same stage of that food organism. Some fish may be taking adults, others emergers. In addition, there may be multiple sizes of one type of organism (caddises, for example) hatching at the same time. Some fish may be taking the big ones, others the small ones. To make matters even more entertaining, there might be multiple types of insects hatching all at once (mayflies and midges, for example). Some fish may be taking emerging or dun mayflies, others midge pupae.

While there are many ways to build a dropper system—some very specialized—this little article will focus on a system that requires no pre-meditated leader design or presentation forethought. You begin with a standard leader and single-fly arrangement. Extra tippet material to make the dropper system is simply tied to the eye of the existing fly, or to the hook bend if you so prefer. Another fly is then tied to that extra piece. All in all, it amounts to not much more than a couple of minute’s work.

Let’s begin with a midge-based selective dropper designed to fish an adult midge along with a pupa. In this case, we’ll use a trailing-shuck Griffith’s Gnat as the dry adult and little copper Brassie as the wet pupa. While we’re at it, I’ll give you an easily-made, monofilament, dry-fly leader design. Start with 4 feet of .020”, then add 1 foot of .013”, 1 foot of .010” (1X), 2 feet of .007” (4X), and 2 feet of .006” (5X) or .005” (6X). If you aren’t comfortable building a leader, just use a pre-made dry-fly leader ending in 5X. Tie the Griffith’s Gnat on to the end of the leader and then tie an 8-inch piece of 5X or 6X to the eye of the Gnat (on the opposite side of where the end of the eye wire meets the hook shank). Tie the Brassie onto the end of that. You can grease the leader (rub part of it with floatant) in addition to greasing the Gnat if you want extra floatation.

Using this dropper set-up, the Gnat floats where you and the fish can see it, and the Brassie rides just below the surface film. You’ll know quickly if a fish takes either fly. Let’s keep the same dropper layout, but move to a complex hatch.

Last October I fished a spring creek where both Blue-Wing Olives (mayflies) and midges were hatching simultaneously—and different fish were taking different insects. I rigged up a black, size 22 Griffith’s Gnat as my midge along with a size 22 Low-Rider Emerging Nymph as my mayfly, both on 7X. Even though the Gnat looked to be about 10 sizes too big for the midges that were on the water, I still managed to hook (but not necessarily land) 7 of the 11 or 12 fish in one particular pod. The hooked fish preferred the Gnat about 2 to 1, but without the Low-Rider on the drop, I might have missed a shot at that other one-third. The next day, however, it was the mayflies that were predominant, and the hook-up ratio flip-flopped.

You could adapt the described dropper rig to fish two adult imitations or two nymphs, depending on the circumstances. On example of this would be a tan, size 14 X-Caddis on the main tippet with a black, size 18 Z-Caddis as the dropper. If you really wanted to get adventuresome, you could add an EZ Caddis, an F-Fly, a Z-wing PMD, and a CDC BWO, and have a veritable alphabet soup of flies lashed to your line!

Creating a usable dropper system requires little beyond attaching an extra piece of tippet and a fly. A quick knot, an added fly, and you’re ready to meet twice the selective challenge.

Here is another of my previously published pieces that has worn out the printed page in several languages. So, I figure that FF&W is a good place for it to hang out for a while. It takes a somwhat alternate approach to presentation, but it’s an approach that I’m sure has been used successfully by a number of FF&W readers over the years (clever lot that you all are)…

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One of the realities of fly fishing is that anglers lose flies—a lot of flies. There must be a veritable gold-mine of slightly-used Elk Hair Caddises, Hare’s Ears and Royal Wulffs lurking unclaimed in trout streams world-wide. The problem is obstacles—such as mid-stream boulders, logs and weed clumps. Fish like to hang out next to such obstacles, and anglers must cast around or over those obstacles to get to the fish. The rest is a sad tale that ends with yet another trip to the local shop to replenish one’s fly box. There is, however, a flip-side to that story: exploiting angling obstacles to make your presentations work better.

The very same fly-eating obstacles that help to keep fly shops in business really can help you in making your fly delivery. The trick comes in understanding when and where to exploit the obstacles. Drag is often a big factor in that understanding.

One time in Tasmania, my father and I were fishing a small creek populated by not-so-small trout (and venomous serpents, but that’s another story). After a long walk to the lower end of a huge meadow, we came to a shallow pool positioned above a gentle riffle. A deliberate rise in the upper reaches of the pool immediately brought to mind the stories we had heard about four-pound brown trout.

There was no way to approach from above without being blatantly obvious, so the cast had to be from below. The problem was that the cast had to be made from the swifter currents of the riffle up into the slower currents of the pool—a recipe for drag. There was one redeeming feature of the pool, however: a small rock planted front and center and about halfway between the necessary casting position and the fish. As my father, Gary, and our guide, Ken Orr, kept an eye out for errant Tiger snakes, I crawled into position.

Once in position, I made a puddle cast that fell directly over the top of the rock. With the rock mostly holding the fly line in place at the mid-way point, the faster current closer to me did little to influence the drift. Indeed, it was as if I had made the puddle cast from 15 feet away, rather than from 30 feet away. With the fly dead-drifting cleanly, the fish sipped it confidently.

The reward was not the big fish I had hoped for—the brown was perhaps 14 inches—but instead I got the satisfaction of catching a wary trout in razor-thin water where drag was enemy number one. The exploited obstacle had made my delivery a matter of one simple cast.

On the other side of the drag/delivery equation is the idea of using obstacles in order to create drag and alter the way a fly swims. A good example of this comes from a trip that my father and I took to Russia’s Kola Peninsula.

At the outfall of one big lake was a fairly broad expanse of river, populated with some fairly significant boulders. Making long casts to likely holding spots was easy enough, but the subsequent retrieves did not always swim the fly through certain areas with the desired focus. The boulder obstacles, however, provided a partial solution.

Casting directly over a boulder created a mid-stream “pivot-point” for the fly line. Our streamers would first move across-current and then turn near the boulder, swimming close to the seam between slower and faster water behind the boulder.

Our fly lines were not happy about being dragged over the bare rock, but the fish liked what they saw. One of the rewards for the tactic was a truly big brown, measuring just shy of 28 inches. Exploited obstacles had allowed us to easily swim our flies in ways that would have been difficult, if not impossible, otherwise.

No matter how good you become at casting a fly, one fact of fishing will remain: you will lose flies to angling obstacles. If you learn to exploit those obstacles, however, you can turn the tables from time to time, opening new pathways to greater fly-fishing success.

I’m heading down to Eugene, Oregon this afternoon to do a little cast-and-chat with the McKenzie Flyfishers. To keep FF&W “fresh daily” after early June’s unintentional hiatus, here’s another sketch from the “lost drawings” archive:

This fly comes from the General Practitioner family. I’m a fan of the GP/prawn style of flies, and also have a long-time affinity for the look of double-hooks. When I did this illustration, I wanted to go with a perspective that was a bit different than the usual. GPs are tied in such a way as to have a “shrimpy” profile, but they also have a strong dorsal view. I went with the latter, and while it’s not typical, I liked the end result.

I’m parked briefly at Break Espresso in Missoula before heading back over the “hill” toward home. Heard that Rock Creek was fishing really well yesterday, but I am looking at a nine hour drive in the wrong direction today. Last time I fished Rock it was the early season and despite a bit of warming sun, it was a long day of casting practice with a only a small window of action. But when Rock is good, it can be great, and I’ve had some memorable days there. To be so close and have to leave without a cast is painful…

I will be back in Missoula the second week of July, however, for another FCI Clinic, so we’ll see about Rock (and my other favorite 50 Montana streams) then. In the meantime, the thought of the coming PMD hatch has my head filled with images of stream-side tying and those perfect mornings when it all comes together. With that in mind, here’s a little bit of stylized pen-and-ink depicting a long-time favorite mayfly pattern, the Loop-Wing Dun.

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Missoula. Yes, I’d rather be fishing, but it has been a week-and-change since I last updated FF&W, and at some point one has to eat, too.

Spent the day in Hamilton, doing a “Taste of the FCI“ hosted at the brand spankin’ new Marcus Daly Hospital Rehab Center. It was a really good day, with 16 total participants coming through in four, two-hours blocks. Those who decided to spend part of their day at the Center got time on both a Casting Analyzer and a Videolyzer, a sitdown with a rehab/prehab specialist, and 20-30 minutes of hands-on casting instruction.

After today, it now appears that we (the FCI crew) will be doing a full-on clinic (which includes motion-capture) at the Center from August 21st through the 23rd. It should be a good time (the river is pretty much right there), and the facilities are very nice, indeed. We’ll have something up on the FCI site shortly is any FF&W readers have an interest.

I also have a small pool of new blog posts that are waiting in the wings. Regular updates will be starting again this week…

Continuing the “old flies from old drawings” theme here at FF&W, I present you with a Deceiver, another of the great patterns of fly fishing. Unlike the Mickey Finn, this is not a fly that I tied madly as a kid. It was, however, a fly that I frequently admired in the mouth of large Keys tarpon shown in books and magazines. Of course, the fly is typically referred to as “Lefty’s Deceiver,” and since Lefty is a long-time friend of my father’s, it is only natural that the fly figured large in my angling youth.

The version drawn above is one of the few million (it seems) variations floating around, but I wanted to go fairly conservative in styling, and ran with saddle hackles, bucktail, and peacock. Synthetics have definitely enhanced the modernized iterations of the pattern, but there is still something satisfying about catching fish (tarpon or trout) with the classic materials.

As with the Clouser Minnow, the various Deceiver modifications over the years have accounted for untold numbers of big fish of all kinds. Even if you never expect to wet a line in the brine, you can probably find a place for a Deceiver. Pike? Check. Salmon? Check. Bass? Check. Trout? Check. Just about anything that eats baitfish? Yep, check. Colors? White, chartreuse, black, or circus clown, it all works somewhere…

Rummaging through some old folders this evening, I came across a handful of fly illustrations that I had thought lost. The small stack of pen-and-ink pieces were originally used in a Scientific Anglers book project many years ago (when I was still in college), and then subsequently in a few Federation of Fly Fishers casting newsletters.

Some of the drawings look perhaps a bit dated, but a few of them still play fairly well (even with the low resolution of Web images). I figure that I can give them a bit of a “re-birth” here at FF&W, starting with the Mickey Finn shown above. I’ll be tossing up a few more as we go through June.

(Update) Got an email basically saying, “Nice Mickey Finn. How about a story, like the trout and salmon stuff you posted?” Okay then, each fly that I’ll be putting up does indeed have a backstory, including the Mickey Finn. So, here goes…

The Mickey Finn illustration came about for two reasons: 1) When hired to do the original book job, I was told that one of the illustrations should be “A classic streamer, like a Mickey Finn, or Black-Nose Dace.” (Do any FF&W readers still fish a Black-Nose Dace? Haven’t tied one years, sadly.) And 2) I love the Mickey Finn.

I grew up tying various Finn patterns, some with bucktail, some with craft fur, some with jungle cock “eyes” (or plastic jungle cock eyes, which was about as attractive as it sounds), and so forth. I fussed over my tinsel technique, fumed over too long/short/thick/thin wings, and agonized over painted eyes (hey, when you’re eight, those things can be trouble). Despite my youthful frustrations, I still tied Mickey Finns, over and over.

I fished them, too, and some of my early streamer successes came thanks to the Mickey Finn (and yes, thanks to the Black-Nose Dace, as well). Brooks, browns, and rainbows all nodded their approval, and although I eventually moved on to more modern streamer designs, the Mickey Finn remained bright in my memory. So, when the time came to draw a classic, it was first on my list.

If you’ve never fished a Mickey Finn, you might find it worth the time to buy or tie one (I still like to go “old school,” with bucktail, wrapped tinsel and a painted eye). I suggest finding a beaver pond filled with brookies and spending an hour or two casting wherever you please. A few strips on the line may be all that you need to rekindle the magic that accompanies uncomplicated angling and the eagerness of speckled trout—thanks to the Mickey Finn.

Up-close-and-personal fishing can be one of fly fishing’s most exciting aspects. At extremely close ranges, however, “normal” casting is often not possible or desirable. What to do? Easy, just break out your Bow and Arrow (cast, that is). While the Bow and Arrow Cast gets relatively little attention in fly fishing, I consider it a “must-have” technique for any angler who likes fishing at super-close ranges.

The basic Bow and Arrow set-up. Hook point up and outside of your fingertips!

Also known as the “Catapult Cast” and “Bowspring Cast,” the Bow and Arrow Cast is begun with a length of line approximately the same length as the rod. With the rod held steadily and aimed at (or just above) the target, grasp the fly between the thumb and forefinger of your line hand. Hold onto the hook’s bend with the hook point up and outside of your fingertips. If you decide to be a rebel and go hook-point down and inside your fingertips, you may quickly understand why I wrote “hook point up and outside of your fingertips.”

Now, pull the line back toward you, causing the rod to flex like a bow; do not allow extra line to be pulled from the reel. Another note of caution at this point: Do not rear back and over-flex the rod’s tip-most section—you may get a multi-piece rod even if you do not want one. Try to flex the rod as if simulating the flexure from a real cast. You can adjust the cast’s angle of attack by moving both your line and rod hands side-to-side as well as up-and-down. When ready to cast, let go of the fly. The rapid un-flexing action of the rod will deliver the fly to the target.

(Top row) The B&A set-up. (Bottom row) It actually works! This little sequence is from a TV pilot that I worked on a few years back (”Modern Outdoors”). As you can likely guess, a “normal” cast in this circumstance might not be the best choice…

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