toad fly...

[swsmith]

has anyone had success with this fly here in SA.......or is it strictly a producer of tarpon only?

[Jono Shales]

I know the guys over here have had great success on various fish using toads in various colour variations.

No reason why it wouldn't work on leeries I reckon

[Kevin James]

Yeah, gotta agree there about the toadie for garrick.
Also, those slow flies would be deadly for the daga salmon (kob) in the deep channels.

There are some guys in our local waters that get small geelbek (jewies) on fly not too dissimilar to the toad fly.
Bit of food for thought.

[deewy]

hey guys

steven has jumped me to the gun here. I have been reading up quite a Bit on this fly in the last couple off weeks. I was thinking of skipjack when I started finding out how its fished ect. skippies is a family member of the silver king and I can't see why it wouldn't work on them.

the reason why these flies are so productive as because off all the movement that the zonker strips and or the marrabou provides...definitely a kob killer, especially in the darker purple and black combination for the murky water.

now a question from me, does the body have to be that merkin matterial or can one maybe spin it with deer hair or egg yarn and just trim it flat and round?

[swsmith]

howzit dewald

i think as said earlier it was designed to stay above the eyeline of the tarpon.i dont know how it will effect the action if you weight it and fish it along the bottom for kob.i personaaly am sold on the sempler for kob...im going as far as saying that it has the best action of any fly i have seen so far....

As for the tying of the body of the toad...it seems its std to tye the body merkin style...i dont know what material they use but i remember them using yarn strike indicator as a substitute.....

[deewy]

this is more of a static fly than a striped fly. I have tying instructions where they add small dumbell eyes to give it a jiggy effect and add more movement to the fly.
tarpon don't chase down food they just sip it up when they swim into it, that's why the toad was developed and with the materials being used it moves by itself even when static.

[swsmith]

bru,i bought a dvd called destination x yesterday fron john at upstream.......all i can say is im jas and i need to get onto the water......those tarpon chase those flies......they strip them back and the tarpon chase them.....some times its just a short twitch but mostly the guide will tell them to strip it back....you need to watch it!!!!

[LeRoy]

Hi Guys..

Yeah, and now Deewy jumps in front of me! There's a joke in here somewhere about great minds and such, but I'll leave that to the comic wizzards on here..
I've also been doing some research, if you will, on alternative flies for saltwater, and the toad just jumped out at me .. Look at that thing (and the 7693 824 variations you'll find on the net..) and name a fish that CAN"T be caught on it! My first thought was also "Skippies!!", but cob, grunter (!!??), leeries, bass, even trout and yellows.. you could tie a variation of the toad for anything, IMHO.

Now I haven't tied any yet, but I'm sure you could sub the "merkin material" with egg yarn or polar fibre, or even with good ol' gramma's knitting wool. Deerhair could be an idea, but it could make the fly a bit too buoyant IMHO, and maybe you'd want to then just spin/stack a full head for it, instead of just stacking the sides...?

Can anybody say what a toad would do on a fast retrieve, though? It looks like the kind of thing that will twist your leader if retrieved too quickly, and that you should stick to other patterns for faster retrieves?

Thanks for the thread, SW, a look outside the standard box of SA saltwater flies is long overdue..

[swsmith]

i think becos we havnt seen it in the water we dont know how it will react to certain stripping techniques......im going to tye up an unweighted and weighted pattern tonight and test them in the pool......they use burnt mono for the eyes...that cant add much weight to the fly.i think its the marabou that turns the fish on with this pattern.....

[deewy]

bru,i bought a dvd called destination x yesterday fron john at upstream.......all i can say is im jas and i need to get onto the water......those tarpon chase those flies......they strip them back and the tarpon chase them.....some times its just a short twitch but mostly the guide will tell them to strip it back....you need to watch it!!!!

any chance of doing a copy for me...hint hint wink wink