Unconventional flyfishing tactics and confessions

[Chris Shelton]

I thought we could have a bit of fun with this thread. I will start the ball rolling with a little 'dry fly' confession

I spent a few days at a guest farm in the Machadodorp area enroute to the Kruger Park a few years ago and had a few trout dams to fish all to myself. I proceeded to put out a buzzer with my floating line. Two foot above the buzzer I attached a little piece of self adhesive flourescent orange foam strike indicator material to the tippet knot. My fly had hardly hit the water when a fish exploded on the surface, grabbing my strike indicator at the same time. I missed the fish and involuntarily uttered an expletive. I proceeded to let the buzzer drift and 20 seconds later the same thing happened, but this time I struck, pulling the indicator out of the fishes mouth and the buzzer came up and lodged itself in the fishes jaw. It was a fish on the line at least, but I didnt feel too good about it. It was a bit like aiming at a particular bird in flight with a shotgun , firing and hitting the bird next to it instead.....not terribly satisfying at all.

Releasing the fish, I decided to switch to a dry fly instead. I seem to recall that it was a DDD. Casting out to the same spot, I watched the fly drift, all my senses honed for the take. Five minutes later I was still watching the fly with nothing happening. I tried casting to a different spot and a few minutes went by without any takes either. "Strange?" I thought, as I brought the fly in. I then tried a brighter hopper pattern, which also yielded nothing. "Flipping strange!" I thought again.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to switch back to the buzzer and indicator rig. Blow me down, my fly hardly landed and a fish came up and grabbed my indicator again!

Now this is where my confession begins. I thought up a devious and cunning plan. If they were not going to take the legitimate flies that I had so painstakingly and lovingly tied for them, then they would just have to settle for second best, and that was a bare hook with my strike indicator attached to it!

Geez, did I have fun that evening! One cast after the other produced one fish after the other....all on the surface of course. I dubbed the fly Strikindicatorisvulgaris! A big name yes, but deservedly so....... what a fly, what a fly!!!

[smallstreams.co.za]

Chris

Would it be possible to post step-by-step tying sequences for this fly? It sounds magic!!!

[Chris Shelton]

Chris

Would it be possible to post step-by-step tying sequences for this fly? It sounds magic!!!

Gladly Mario, albeit at the risk of putting the hackle and fur suppliers out of business! Now.....if only I can find some more of that damn selfadhesive foam material.

[MaXiMuM]

I once had the pleasure of fishing Kloppenheim (www.kloppenheim.co.za), a beautiful resort and they have some nice still waters tucked away on the other side of the resorts, but in front of the hotel, they have their trophy dam and at around 4PM they come out and feed these oversized, overweight, gluttons.

I am guilty of squeezing a DDD underwater, to get the air out of it, and weighting it with a tiny piece of split shot, and then showing off to my mates as I took fish after fish. My arm was so saw I could hardly fish the next day, but thankfully we had moved to Gerhard’s place on the Spekboom, and I just had to throw a line…

[Fario]

Chris

In the UK magazines they advertise strike indicators with hooks in them "the strike indicator that bites back".

Why not just use a buzzer suspended beneath a floaty dry fly?

[Chris Shelton]

Chris

In the UK magazines they advertise strike indicators with hooks in them "the strike indicator that bites back".

Why not just use a buzzer suspended beneath a floaty dry fly?

I agree fario, that is what I usually do, but the fish were either damn stupid or highly educated in that particular still water, taking neither dry or buzzer. The indicator was all they were interested in. Never encountered anything like it in my life before. I caught at least 15 fish in the space of 2 hours on the indicator!

[Matuka]

I think you will find that the trout in the waters you were fishing are regularly fed with floating pellets. I have seen something similar with a Chesterfield stompie being hit repeatedly on the surface.

All you need is to superglue a suitable butt to a hook, cast and doze until the hit.

[Jasper]

I CONFESS!!

I was the inventor of the famous "Chesterfield Light" dry fly.

it worked wonders in the pristine (and very expensive) waters of Highland Run. It was really matching the hatch .... ideally fished by stomping up to the waters edge ... preferably wearing blue overalls and gum boots ... and shouting in Northern Sotho!!

(the fly developed from a butt into a spun deer hair imitation!)