hooks/flies

[willowhead]

Well i'm sitting here going thru my "collective" Christmas present from my wife. She managed to keep me from finding out what it was all week, by simply leaving it right out in front of my face where she knew i wouldn't ever think to mess around, LOL. Tricky girl. Just an open Duane Reade bag stuffed full of stuff she brought back from Japan for me. Walked right past it sittin' on the floor of the apt. in Manhattan. Anyway, there's all kinds of cool "stuff" in there. But what i'm wondering about is these hooks she brought back. They are made by a company named Umbrella Hooks. The model i have here is H80C High Carbon Steel Wire, Black Nickel finish. They look to be about a size 16. I'll have to measure the cap. Pretty odd lookin' hook too. Obviously designed to tye a very specific fly on. The eye, and a distance/portion, of the shank directly behind the eye, is bent directly downward and almost at a completely 45 degree angle to the rest of the shank. Then, right after that, the shank is bent up in a bit of a hump before it all straightens out and heads towards the bend. I'm not sure if that description makes any sense in terms of a correct picture in your mind, but it is very interesting. Both my description AND the hook, LOL. She also brought back about a dozen samples of the flies tyed on these hooks, but i'm not about to try going in to describing them here, LOL. You'll just have to come over to the gallery and see for yourself. You'll also be able to see the five beautiful salmon flies she brought back tyed by a Japanese Salmon Fly tyer named Yasunori Fujimoto. Three hair wings, a Spey and a Dee. Boy i can't wait to get a bit deeper into the Duane Reade bag, lol. later, mark

 

[willowhead]

Holy Cow, Mackarel, etc., etc. LMAO. I knew she had hooked up a deal with Daiichi, (she recently told me) but Waoh..................in the bottom of the Duane Reade bag was a smallish cardboard box. Inside the box was 130 packages of Daiichi hooks. All kinds of hooks. Dry fly regular, dry fly 2X, dry fly with mini barbs, dry fly barbless, wet fly, wet fly heavy wire, curved nymph, extra wide cap scud with continueus bend some with down eye, some with up eye, all kinds of bent nymph hooks, salt water hooks, spey hooks (Alec Jacksons), and on and on. What a Christmas. I feel like the guy at the end of the movie, It's a Wonderful Life. LMAO. Remember Clarence? I think i hear bells ringing, lol. mark

 

[Ahab]

Willow, We are all smiling with you!!!! Glad you had such a wonderful day. As for me, feeling very good, three weeks and 2 days since surgery and I am going to the Y to walk on the treadmill. No weights or vigorous workouts for another 3 - 4 weeks - still leaves a lot of time to get in shape for heavy spring wading!!
Happy holidays.
Paul

 

[njflyguy]

You're a lucky dog....I got a Ramsey outdoor gift card from Sis and Mom came across with the universal gift earmarked for the Somerset show and the Elkhorn rod booth....The Little Lady got me the rod building kit I wanted from Cabelas...and on to the best gift of ALL....The kids gave me a portrait of themselves and their mother...I know its kinda corny but what a great gift....

 

[Fly Ty R]

It sounds like they are those waterwisp hooks. I think that's the name. They're those dries that are tied so the hook is inverted and the fly rides headfirst downstream. I've seen them in mags and at the Somerset show. Pretty cool design. I don't know if that's what you're describing, though.

 

[Harry]

Mark,

Sounds like it is simular to a swedish dry fly hook that LaFontaine tyed his Dancing Caddis pattern on. If you have Caddisflies take a look at them in his book.

Harry



_________________________
"Quit Wishing" "Go Fishing"

 

[willowhead]

funny dry flies

Ahab, glad to know your feelin' better and making progress. You'll be wadin' with the best of 'em come spring. Obviously, your health is your greatest gift. Ed, sounds like you cleaned up too. That gift from the kids is totally cool man. Kids have to have a lot of confidence in their parents in order to give 'em a gift like that and not be worried whether or not they'll be happy with it. You must be raisin' 'em right. Fly Ty R, i figured it out. The reason they are called/manufactured by Umbrella Hooks is becasue the flies tyed on them are Parachutes. They ride in the water with the hook point and most of the shank under water pointing straight down. The entire fly is tyed on only that portion of the hook forward of that hump. And basically all there is on the fly, (on the deer hair and hackle fibers winged ones), is some hackle and a wing. There really is no body, and just a we bit of a head. Some of the samples my wife brought back use deer hair for the wing, (at least it looks and feels like deer hair), and so there is a sort of Elk Hair Caddis type head on the flies. Others appear to have a hackle fiber(s) wing. And still others have a poly wing, faned out, with an extended body and tail. But those with the extended bodies and tails are not tyed with that body and tail having anything to do with the shank, behind the "hump." When holding the fly in your hand, it would appear that the body and tail go straight up in the air, lol. But because the hook rides in the water the way it does, the body and tail appear normal in the water. You'all gotta see these flies. Pretty cool design. I'm gonna try them out and just see how they work. mark

 

[willowhead]

hooks

Harry, you must of slipped your reply/post in when i was working on the last one here. I do have Lafontaine's book Caddisflies. Signed no less, lol. I'm gonna look that up, and get back at ya. mark

 

[willowhead]

Harry, it all comes back to me now, LOL. I remember that Caddis pattern. I even watched him tye it once at Somerset. Now, IF, you can imagine the design of that hook he used for the Dancing Caddis in just about an exact opposite of that design. In other words, the eye would end up directly below the shank, NOT above. Just imagine a regular hook, and as you are comming forward on the shank, as you get about 2/3 the way towards the eye, all of a sudden there is a hump/bump/bend almost straight up a bit, and then the whole thing goes down below the shank to about 'Point" level. So the eye ends up just about even with the point. Now try to imagine a fly tyed on that hook with all materials forward of that bump/hump/bend, and riding in the water with only that above the film, and the majority of the hook under water. Ok, got it? mark

 

[willowhead]

go figure

Fly Ty R, the waterwhisp flies are the ones tyed upside down right? With the hook point up? At the shows they have a bunch of the flies in a fishbowl. Makes sense in the fact that the fish wouldn't see the hook, or at least as much as they do with a traditionally tyed fly. But for whatever reason those flies do not seems to have taken off/over. They've been around for a few years now. Maybe we're all just a bit slow to catch on/up? Course if you think about it, these Japanese dries would be even worser (in that sense) because they have even more hook (and shank) riding under water than a traditional Catskill style dry, a comparadun or haystack style, OR a parachite would have. AND, the hook point isn't even facing the fish. It's pointing up, because the shank is straight down in the water. Go figure. LMAO. mark

 

[Johnw]

I've been looking for somewhere to buy some the Lafontaine Dancing caddis - anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Fly Ty R]

To paraphrase Ray Bergman, if trout weren't so inherently dumb to begin with, we would never catch any, right?? Those waterwisp flies look amazing to people in the water, but I really don't think they'll affect the trout's decision to eat the fly to any great degree. Think about it: We throw hunks of metal with feathers, fur, and thread tied around them, with a string coming out of the head, to trout which can distinguish between size 22 and 24 natural insects in moving water. Do we really think that they can't see a big piece of metal sticking out of the flies we throw at them? I think they do see it and don't care, or maybe because they way the light reflects off of the fly at any given moment they don't see it. That's when they chose to eat our offerings. It really wouldn't matter if there is a hook protruding beneath the water's surface or not, because they see the hook in normal flies anyway and still eat them. Waterwisps may help you in 1 out of every 20 cases of finicky trout, but I think most of the time they'll eat any old fly that looks fairly life-like and is presented correctly. I think that's why they haven't become very popular. Most people like to fish with the old reliable stand-bys, myself included .

 

[willowhead]

Pretty good case you got there Fly Ty R. Sure hope you can make the "Gathering". mark

 

[willowhead]

JohnW. i'll tye 'em up for you if i can find a hook that'll do the trick. Or, if i can modify a hook to do the trick. Stay tuned. mark

 

[Johnw]

Willow - thanks for the offer but I found a source for the flies and the hooks as well as Gary Lafontaine's other patterns. You might be interested. www.greycliff.com

 

[willowhead]

Good for you John. I will definately check that source out. That url looks familier..........lol. You might also like to try getting in contact with Al and Gretchen Betty (legendary fly tying husband and wife team who live in Idaho), because they have put out a series of videos on how to tye the Gary LaFontain flies. I have one of the videos and it's a good one for sure. I use to get Gary's newsletter/catalog before he passed. He sure was a nice guy. I only met him about 4 times but he was very gracious and generous, and funny. Anyway, good luck with the flies. mark

 

[onemorecast_OLD]

With respect to the fish we catch, they are instinctive but not that smart.

Take any old fly and drop it in a small clear glass bowl. Take a look at the fly from the fish's perspective, looking up from underneath. I think you will note that the view of hook on most flies, especially the small ones, gets lost in the body of the fly. Basically, looking up, you don't even see it.

My own view is get a good natural drift with the right size fly, color will help, and it won't matter too much about that hook below the surface. my 2 cents

 

[willowhead]

presentation

I agree with you OMC, and you got size and color in the right order. But, there's one more that's even more important than color and comes right after size. And that's shape/form/or what is know as sillowette. Color is definately third on the list of presentation, and of course that's all in terms of what, not how. That's, another show. mark