I got to hit a trout stream for a little over an hour on Sunday and I was having a tough time. I did pick up one small rainbow on an egg, but besides that the fish were hugging bottom and bouncing nymphs off their noses wasn't having any success.
One my way back to the car out of frustration, I tied on the giant poorly tied Sex Dungeon I tried to make like a year ago. I had my 4 weight on me so it took me like 5 sloppy roll casts to get the damn fly out more than 20 yards but when I did, a MONSTER brown came after it. He struck the hell out of it and I somehow didn't get a hook set. I had to get home or I would have kept working him, but it showed me that maybe I should be tossing some bigger bugs.
First, I decided to revisit the Sex Dungeon and knock some of them out. Yes, that's a purple one. I actually own purple deer hair. I found it in a bargain bin at a fly shop for a quarter.
Although I still suck at deer hair heads, the rest of the flies turned out gorgeous. Lots of rubber legs and schlappen.
Next up, the Conga. This is a Craven pattern that I read about in the most recent issue of Fly Fisherman magazine. It's a pretty sweet sculpin imitation that has a faux fur (polar fiber) head. Save yourself some money and buy a huge pelt of this stuff at Michaels for $4 instead of paying double that for a smaller patch of it in the fly shops. The only downside is they only sell it in brown, black, and white. I tried dying some of the white with RIT dye but it didn't turn out so well. If anyone has any suggestions on a dye that will hold, let me know.
Last up, I'm not really sure what this is. I was looking at some other Galloup patterns and just went freestyle. Marabou tail, Zonker body over some Siman Peacock Bronze dubbing, red hare hair for the throat, and believe it or not, my first time ever using wool on a fly for the head. I think it looks pretty cool, but it might fish like garbage.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Here's the little bow from my Sunday trip. Far cry from the fish I was catching a week ago, huh?
I think the wool head one will work pretty well... flys with fros.
ReplyDeleteI've never used wool either, although I have a package of it lying around.
ReplyDeleteThe Sex Dungeons remind me of a Dahlberg Diver but with legs. I'm sure there are some more nuances but they just seem so much alike that I would think it would be a variant, not sure.
Killer looking flies , I'd throw any one of em at the browns here in my neck of the woods. Nothing like watching a hungry brown chase a big streamer through a pool...if that don't get your blood pumping you better stay home on the couch!
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