Back in the fall of 2016, I was working on a sculpin pattern that took a few different ideas from other patterns and blended them together. As Gunnar Brammer says in one of his streamer videos: “I don’t have a lot of original ideas… almost all of my bugs in general… are original compositions… different materials, different ways to build bulk, different silhouettes. It uses unique techniques or features or materials to make it different… it’s all from the people who came before me… I just take things that I like, things that I know to be successful, and then I base a composition that hasn’t been done kind of around that.”
Continue readingFly Box
Fly Feature: Chocklett’s Game Changer
If you’ve been following the fly-fishing world over the past few years, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Blane Chocklett’s Game Changer-style of flies. There’s a reason for this: the patterns are effective imitations of a number of different baitfish, and you can tie them with a number of different materials. It’s a platform that you can use to tie the pattern a number of ways (another popular platform, for example, is the Clouser Minnow).
Continue readingFrom the Vice: January 2018
January always feels long. It was a good start to the new year, and there were some new experimentations coming off the vice. One of the big things was working with bucktail for the first time, which ended up being a lot of fun and a material that I want to use more and more. It’s also been a good time to start restocking the standard nymph and dry fly boxes as well.
The Carp Box
The summer of 2016 was really hot around here, and coupled with a vacation to a place along Lake Michigan, I (Caleb) was looking into what exactly it took to catch carp on a fly rod. Between Jay Zimmerman’s great book, The Best Carp Flies: How to Tie and Fish Them, and a number of good articles on that (including this one), I was intrigued. I’m still learning a lot, so I’ll admit up front that I’m not an expert at all.
Some Box Reorganization
Over the weekend I took some time to reorganize some of my fly boxes (much needed, for sure). The goal was to have a box to use specifically for warmwater and carp flies, on top of my bigger box for articulated streamers (3-5 inches long). It took a bit of time in the morning on Saturday, but I wanted to share the results.
Oak Hall Outfitters 