Untangleing leaders fast

 If there is one thing that I hate when I am out fishing, it is the inevitable tangle in my leader, especially when using multiple flies. Over the years I have found that the quickest way to deal with them is to cut the flies of, untangle the line and then re-tie the flies. It is much, much quicker to retie the flies than try to untangle a leader with flies on. Just saying, use it don't use it...

Fishing soft hackle flies for yellowfish

It was one of those hot muggy days in January with the incessant sound of cicadas singing in the surrounding bushes that I found myself crouched low, stalking a golden green shape in a gorgeous looking run on a small stream close to Calitzdorp. I was rigged up with an 8 and a half foot 4 weight fly rod, weight forward floating fly line and 10 foot leader that had two soft hackle flies attached. my tippet was 4x Rio Powerflex. The first fly was a #14 partridge soft hackle with a flash body and a brassie soft hackle in #12 was on the point. The water was not clear but not overly dirty either with visibility being about 30cm. The water that I was about to fish had several large boulders and a lot of smaller ones with an average depth of about 40cm and a lovely flow that yellowfish tend to prefer. there was an overhanging tree on the right hand bank that seemed to hold quite a few yellowfish. I was very glad that the water was not gin clear like the Western Cape streams for one very important reason. Unlike trout that tend to face upstream and wait for food items to drift to them, smallmouth yellowfish move around a pool or run and can often be facing you. The limited visibility meant that the fish would have a much harder time spotting me. I found that wearing clothes that blended in with the surrounding bush was still very important because of the fishes keen eye sight. Another big difference between fly fishing for trout and yellowfish is that yellowfish tend to school and will move around the river in numbers. Trout tend to inhabit suitable runs and rapids singularly and will often inhabit the same spot for days and weeks on end.  They will sometimes school in a large pool, especially in the heat of summer but in a run or rapid they tend to be solitary.  

I was fishing with Mark Krige, one of the best all round fly fishers in the country and we were making a DVD on fly fishing for yellowfish in small streams. Fishing with Mark is always fun and I think I end up learning more about the sport watching him fish than I have from any book or magazine. This time around, Mark was filming me as I fished. I had spent a very enjoyable few hours filming Mark upstream nymphing and the grace and precision with which he could pick off a sighted fish must be seen to be believed. On the DVD there are several amazing shots of Mark spotting a yellowfish 15 meters ahead of him. A cast is fired out with precision and a split second later the fish takes the nymph and is hooked. it really is poetry in motion. But I digress.

Once in position to make a relatively short cast upstream I waited to see what the smallmouth yellowfish was going to do. It was positioned facing upstream and was leisurely grazing on insects off the rocks. I made my cast a few feet upstream of the fish and let the soft hackle flies drift relatively drag free back towards me while I kept the rod tip as high as possible and fed in the slack line. 

Brassie soft hackle

On about the third cast the flies drifted past the yellowfishes position and I was just about to lift up and recast when out of the depths another fish rose and inhaled the point fly. I set the hook and watched as the fish swam off at top speed around the pool.

This was the first time that I had used soft hackle flies on yellowfish. I have had a lot of success fishing soft hackles for trout and tilapia in rivers and lakes for many years. The smallstream environment of the Calitzdorp area was the ideal place to experiment with these flies on yellows and I would use the knowledge gained here to catch some amazing specimens in the larger rivers of the Orange and Vaal later on. 

 

Pearl bodied soft hackle

Soft hackle wet flies are amongst the oldest flies in existence with patterns dating back to the 14th century in Europe and even longer in Japan where they were used by Samurai fishing the Tenkara style. North country spiders, hackle flies or just spiders are several of the more traditional names given to soft hackle flies. The list of famous soft hackle patterns is long and as old as fly fishing literature itself. March brown, snipe bloa, dark needle, partridge and orange, Greenwell's glory, Stewards black spider, Edmunds yellow spider and hares ear are just some of the many famous names. They are just as deadly today as they were then. There are several reasons for this effectiveness. The soft hackle materials used in the collar of the fly pulse with life underwater and the profile of the fly represents many different insects in various stages of emergence. A soft hackle fly can be proofed to fish as a dry fly or emerger or tied on a heavier hook to represent adult caddis, stonefly or mayfly nymph. It is also an excellent representation of midge pupae, all of which are on the yellowfishes diet. They also can represent snails or sunken beetles and ants.

There are many fly companies in South Africa that tie soft hackle flies although getting your hands on a huge variety of different types could be challenging. The most popular types are plentiful by if you want to get the best out of fishing soft hackle flies, it pays to tie your own. This is also important because commercially tied soft hackle flies are often tied on lighter wire hooks meant for trout.

A huge plus is the ease at which a soft hackle fly can be tied. There are very few "parts" or steps involved. You can use just about any game bird or hen hackle as a soft hackle collar.

After landing a 15 inch yellow from the run, It took a few more casts before hooking into another very surprised yellow. It was evident that I had hit on a winning formula. 

A bit later,  I moved a little downstream to a bend in the river where a mini rapid emptied into a pool lined with vegetation. Using the same two soft hackle flies I made a cast downstream and across and let the flies swing with the current. Two casts later and the line straitened as another yellowfish latched onto the fly. I landed 5 more yellows from 14 to 20 inches in the next half hour using the soft hackle flies. Mission accomplished. There were several advantages to using the soft hackle flies on these smaller streams. They were easy to cast and made no audible noise when hitting the water (a heavily weighted nymph can often spook fish in small streams when they land), thus enabling pin point presentations close to feeding yellowfish. In my DVD "Fly fishing for smallmouth yellowfish in small streams with Sean Mills and Mark Krige", the DVD that we were filming at the time, you can see these soft hackle flies in action on the amazingly beautiful and intimate streams of the Carlitzdorp area.  That was 5 years ago and using soft hackle flies in tandem has been a winning combination for me when targeting yellowfish in small streams ever since.

Hare's Ear soft hackle

You can fish soft hackle flies upstream or downstream and you can dead drift them, swing them with the current or strip them back depending on the situation. They do not have to fish drag free like many nymphs to be effective. The current brings the soft hackle to life underwater and this subtle movement represents life to any fish in the area. Just make sure that you keep the rod tip high when fishing with them. The major reason for this is to prevent a break off when a fish latches onto the fly. They can hit a soft hackle fly very hard and if you point the rod tip directly at the fly with no slack in the line it is very easy to be broken off.... You do not need to use an indicator when fishing with these flies. Just watch the bend in the fly line for signs of a take. 

A year after making the DVD, I found myself fishing on the Vaal River at Parys. The water was quite high due to recent rains but this did not diminish the effectiveness of the soft hackle flies when the yellowfish moved into the shallower runs and rapids and I managed to land some awesome yellowfish up to 2.5kgs on the soft hackle flies. I even landed a few hard fighting mud fish on them.  

I also did very well using the soft hackle flies in Douglass on the Orange River. I had 20 fish afternoons using just a team of soft hackle flies. The success of the soft hackle flies is largely dependent on the time of day and temperature of the water when targeting yellowfish on larger rivers. When the water is warmer and the yellows are feeding in the rapids or runs on emerging insects is when soft hackle patterns really come into their own. If the yellowfish are feeding on the bottom in deeper water, then soft hackle flies will be less effective unless you can use a heavier fly to get them closer to the bottom. For me fishing soft hackle flies is about fishing them in tandem, with no extra weight and with no indicator on the line. This is a very pure, simple and elegant way of fishing them. This is why it is essential to find yellowfish feeding in shallower water for this style of fishing to come into its own. So this means in early spring that you would have to wait for the afternoon to fish with soft hackle flies because it can take the water that long to warm up enough. In summer however, as long as the fish are in a shallowish run or rapid you can have great success any time of the day, but especially in the evening when the major hatches come off. In the breeding season be aware of spawning yellowfish and rather move on to areas where the fish are not engaged in such behavier. This is simply ethical behaviour. 

I usually fish two soft hackle flies at a time for yellowfish on a ten foot leader (3 meters). Traditionally, a team of 3 flies is used and the flies fished down and across.  Yellowfish on larger rivers can be very powerful and using 3 soft hackle flies is a little over kill. I attach the first fly  on a 10cm dropper and the last one on the point. The distance between the two flies is usually about a meter or more. I use 3x tippet. My favourite soft hackle pattern is the copper wire bodied brassie using hen hackle or guinea fowl feathers as the soft hackle. These days you can get many different colours of coper wire. I use the medium size copper wire in copper, black, orange, chartreuse and red for these slightly heavier soft hackle flies. Tied on a #14 or 12 hook, this pattern gets down a little deeper ( a few centimetres) in the water and really delivers. I also love to use a black or orange bodied soft hackle for yellowfish. Other colours that work well are the lime green, mustard coloured and flash bodied soft hackles. Any soft hackle pattern will work for yellowfish however so it is up to you to experiment with the fish in your area. I am also fond of a yellow bodied soft hackle. Soft hackle bodies can either be composed of tying silk or dubbing. My flash bodied soft hackle flies use flashbou in pearl, wrapped in tight butting turns over black thread as the body. This flashy body mimics the shiny appearance of nymphs that pump gases into their bodies at the time of emergence. The soft hackle flies that i use are far from traditional and I will adapt the flies that i use to the species of fish and the area that I am fishing. 

Just make sure that you use very strong hooks when targeting yellowfish. Trout rarely reach a kilogram in our rivers but smallmouth yellowfish often reach 4 kilograms or more and even a 2 kilogram yellowfish can open up a light wire hook. You have been warned. I love the Fulling Mill 31530 Competition heavyweight hooks imported by Craig Thom at www.streamx.co.za They come in packs of 50 and are keenly priced. This is a 3x strong, 1X short bronze hook that is very strong and has the perfect bend for soft hackle flies. I have never had one open up on me.

When fishing on the Orange and Vaal Rivers I step up my tackle to a 9 foot 5weight rod because the fish tend to be bigger and more powerful. A 10 foot rod can also be highly beneficial and is the preferred length for traditional soft hackle fishing in Europe. Although not covered in this article, I have noticed that using a soft hackle fly on the top dropper when Czech style nymphing can be very effective on these larger rivers when fishing in deeper runs and rapids.

I did a web search recently on yellowfish flies used in this country by other fly anglers and most lists had at least one soft hackle pattern. This I think is testament to how affective these flies are for yellowfish. 

I am a great advocate of using de barbed hooks no matter what type of fly fishing that I am doing. I also like to offset the hook to the left or right as this definitely improves the effectiveness of the fly. If you look at most bait holder hooks you will notice that they are off set to improve their hooking potential. 

For me, small stream yellowfish and soft hackle flies go together like hotdogs and mustard. So when you are next on a yellowfish stream, give the humble soft hackle fly a try, you may well be pleasantly surprised by the results... It certainly beats the humdrum of Czech style nymphing.

For more info on the DVD "Fly fishing for smallmouth yellowfish in small streams" click here www.seanmillsflyfishing.weebly.com

Catching carp on Tenkara, don’t try this at home….

So, did I ever tell you about the time that I tried for carp with a Tenkara rod? Well it happened last spring when a section of one of my local lakes was flooded and the carp where feeding in numbers. The average size was small and so I thought that it would be really cool to try to catch a few with just a long very flimsy and flexible stick of 11 foot, a furled leader of 12 foot, 1 meter 4X tippet and absolutely no reel… The simplest form of fly fishing and one that is millennia old…

I had caught plenty of trout on my Tenkara but carp for me would be the ultimate challenge. After rigging up and tying on a white carp maggot fly in size 10 (this is a very simple fly with a silver brass bead and white tough chenille as a body), I carefully started to stalk the carp that where feeding in inches of water, often very close to the side. What I found out was that getting the fly to the feeding carp with the long Tenkara rod was ridiculously easy and a pleasure. The carp did not know what hit them..

I hooked and landed 5 small ones of up to 1.5 kilograms without too much trouble. Playing the carp was exhilarating with no reel and only your wits. The water was a little murky in places and I tried to target the smaller carp. Out of one muddy patch I spotted a pair of rubbery lips working and dipped the fly close to them. The carp accelerated and inhaled the fly, and as I set the hook I new, I was in serious trouble… The carp turned out to be about three time the size of the ones that I had been targeting. 

I held on and prayed as the carp at first did not even know that it was hooked, but soon enough it did a roundabout turn and headed off at top speed. I tried to keep the rod tip up and to the side but to no avail. The rod and line was pulled strait and the line parted with a loud bang. I stood there like an idiot for a few seconds and then tried to see if anything else was broken. 

The rod was not broken but the top very flimsy section was stuck and I could not get it unstuck. I packed up the Tenkara and headed home… At least I tried and it was fun while I lasted but no more carp on Tenkara for me…

On Special- The Ultimate Guide To Starting fly fishing

**New**  "On special till 31 August 2014" DVD "The ultimate guide to starting fly fishing with Sean Mills"

In this DVD, Sean Mills (the author of “Fresh Water Fishing in South Africa”), shows you in detail everything that you need to know in order to successfully fly fish.
Shot on location at Vaalvlei (*) in Stanford (Western Cape), Sean
takes you through the fundamentals of fly fishing in his easy going, relaxed manner.  Putting the rod together, how leaders work, tying the fly on, how to do the roll cast and overhead fly cast, how to read the water and find feeding fish, how to cast flies in windy conditions, how to cast multiple flies, fishing with sinking fly lines and how to retrieve the flies in order to elicit a take. He also covers how to avoid tangles, take out coils in your line, what fish eat, sharpening hooks and many other tricks that will enable you to achieve success on the water. Furthermore, Sean teaches you how to catch trout, blue kurper, and black bass. After showing you the fundamentals, Sean puts theory into practice and hooks
and lands four different species of fish including a beautiful rainbow trout and a surprise smallmouth bass in a 20 minute session. Sean then takes to the water in his kick boat and uses a
sinking poly leader to turn the table on reluctant fish. The DVD is delivered in an informative and fun way and will keep you enthralled, whether you are a beginner to fly fishing or a seasoned angler. (*) www.vaalvlei.co.za
    

DVD length 75 min .  R160 (On Special till 31 August 2014)

Fly fishing for bass in weeded lakes

Many of the bass lakes that I fly fish have extensive weed beds. These can range from light weed that is relatively deep to thick mats of weed that have a few large holes in. Weed for me is desirable in any bass lake.

I love fishing weeded lakes. The simple reason is that bass love weed beds and caching them can be far easier than fishing weed free lakes. There are challenges involved in fishing weed beds though. Especially in the warmer months when the weed beds are thicker and also contain filamentous algae that can easily catch onto your fly and ruin its fish catching ability. In such cases, patience is called for as you need to clean the algae off after just about every retrieve. The end results can be well worth it though.

As far as tackle goes, I use a 5 weight 9 foot rod that is very powerful. It is the rod that I use most of the time for bass. This is because I live in the Western cape where a 3kg bass is rare and 500 gram to 1.5 kg bass are plentiful. If you live further north then use a heavier rod. A 7 or 8 weight should do the trick.  I use a 6 weight floating fly line, usually an Airflo Ridge line because it casts really well, is very tough and has little stretch which has the advantage of helping you to detect takes and horse an angry bass out of heavy weed. I also love the low stretch Airflo Ridge line because it enables me to feel if my fly is fouled with weed or is not swimming correctly. It is really that sensitive. My leader set up is really simple. I use .50mm Maxima as my butt section on the leader and make that about 1 meter long. I then tie my tippet, usually .25 or .30mm maxima Ultra green onto this section. The overall length of my leader is usually 2 to 2.4meters long. The tippet needs to be abrasion resistant and strong in order to hook and play bass in thick weed. Using lighter line is just not an option for this type of fishing. 

 

I have spent many hours honing my tactics for fishing in and around weed beds. I fished a local private lake many times last winter. The weed beds where extensive and the water very clear. In these conditions, fly choice is critical. If it is a weed and algae magnet, it is no good. I tend to use subsurface flies most of the time for fishing over submerged weed beds. On several occasions I did very well fishing with jig style fritz flies in black or olive. Being the dead of winter I used smaller flies than usual. The flies where tied on #10 or 8 long shank jig hooks (to fish hook point up for less snagging on the weed.) using a BB split shot or tungsten beads for weight. On other occasions, I did better fishing with bend back clouser or clouser zonker patterns. (picture a clouser minnow tied using rabbit zonker strip as the body and tail). The dumbbell eyes added weight to get down and helped to keep the fly running hook point up. 

The technique was relatively simple, cast the fly out over the submerged weed beds and then retrieve it very slowly and erratically back. I was amazed at how savage many of the takes where considering how cold the water was. Often though you could feel the fly being obstructed by weed. This was a soft spongy feeling. When a bass ate the fly and held on, the fly almost felt as if it was getting stuck on a branch, a much more solid feeling. By striking hard I was often rewarded by a very angry fish on the other end. On one occasion, I landed 8 bass between 1.2 to 2.4kg in four hours fishing. That is superb fishing by any standards. I timed my trips to coincide with a few days of sunshine in between cold fronts. Smaller lakes warm up quickly after a few days of sunshine and as long as your fly comes close to a bass, you are in with a really good shot. Also try to time your trips to the hottest time of the day if fishing in the colder months.

For me there is no better structure in any bass lake than weed beds. They are just so predictable. As a fly fisher, we often need all of the help that we can get.

On a recent trip to the Le Bonheur Crocodile farm near Paarl (Western Cape)  I was treated to first class bass fishing in heavy weed. The day started with a few small but fun bass. As I moved around the lake I reached one of my favouite spots. I wadded out in amongst the reed beds cautiously and peered out over the extensive weed beds. Much of the weed was just subsurface with large, deep holes interspersed. I could see several bass close to the surface in each hole. I tied on one of my most successful bass flies, the frizz fry (which I designed about 4 years ago). It is tied entirely out of frizz fibre and is exceptionally soft. The profile looks just like a small fish and it swims like one too. I tie them with no weight so that they sink very slowly. This is the key to this fly. It almost suspends and this makes it swim just subsurface. This enables it to swim over submerged weed without hooking up. 

The other advantage of a fly that swims just subsurface is that you can see it and  hence the bass that eats it. Bass often find a suspending fly that lingers in their field of view irresistible. I tied on a red and white frizz fry in size 6 and cast out to the closest bass. it stormed the fly and engulfed it. i set the hook and played it out as quickly as possible. It was about a kilogram or so. After releasing it I cast it out to the next hole and was rewarded by another angry bass. This one was slightly larger. These holes where relatively close. I then cast out to the largest hole about 15 meters away. The fly landed 20 meters away which gave me plenty of space to play with. After three twitches i spotted the tell tale wake of a bass close to the surface storming towards my fly (I love this sight) and it hit the fly side on. This bass was followed by several others in quick succession with the largest being about 1.8kg. Exciting fishing.

Moving around the lake I was treated to a red letter day with more bass engulfing the fly. Most of the bass where caught in large holes in amongst the weed beds. I then came closer to some very thick weed with only a few small holes and a lot of heavy filamentous algae. I noticed thousands of agitated tilapia fry over the weed which was just subsurface. As the fry swam over a hole in the weed, a large bass launched itself out of the water grabbing a few fry as it did so before returning to its deep dark hole. I waited a while and then cast the frizz fry just over the hole and pulled it in. As if written into a Hollywood block buster, the enraged largemouth bass flung itself out of the hole and engulfed my fly in a flurry of water. I somehow managed to compose myself and eventually landed the bass. This is another example of how observation of the water can help you to catch more and better fish. 

 

Bass, and especially big bass, love these deep holes in thick weed and I always place a fly into them or over them. The water underneath thick weed enables the bass to stay away from predators, gives them ample shade and plenty of food.

About a two decades  ago I fished a very weedy lake called Princess Vlei. It was a quaint little water, longer than it was wide with exceptionally clear water and it fare share of gangsters (not the fishy kind). The bass where cautious for want of a better word. I had great success by dipping heavily weighted flies deep into the holes. In the evenings I fished small poppers motionless over the larger holes. You needed great patience to do this and a wind still day but that fly just sitting there was often too much for a bass to resist. Why just let it sit? Well if the hole is the size of your bath tub, you can't really fish it for that far anyway. The tactic has caught me many great bass over the years in other waters except that I more commonly fish a fly that I call the frizz frog instead. Its body is made of foam and the legs are knotted frizz fibre hence the name). The foam body floats the body while the highly mobile legs sit under the water aggravating the bass. It catches bass and bluegill equally well. 

If you are greeted with scattered, deeper weed beds then you can employ a tactic that I call "shot gunning". To do this you use a clouser style fly which you cast out as far as possible and then you bring it in as fast as possible. I often employ a two handed strip to do this. Tuck the rod under your armpit (this frees both hands up)  and then retrieve the fly back using both hands in a circular motion. This animates the fly nicely and you can cover a lot of water at the same time. It works well in spring and summer any time of the day. Why it works is very simple. Bass are predators of small fish. If you fish a fly that looks like a small fish quickly past a bass, it will often storm after it if it is in an aggressive mood. If the weed is not very thick, you can also employ two flies. When the weed is very thick then stick to one. 

Another trick when trying for large bass in thick weed is to use Fluorocarbon tippet. Fluorocarbon is very tough and cuts though weed better than normal monofilament line.

I hope that this article has wet your appetite and enlarged your repertoire of bass fly fishing tactics. I love fly fishing for bass. They are tailor made for fly fishing and often plentiful in waters throughout the country and you do not need access to an expensive bass boat or specialist fly tackle to catch them. I often catch from the shore, wade or use a kick boat to access areas that are further out.

For and E book or DVD on fly fishing for carp, check out my website-

www.seanmillsflyfishing.weebly.com