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Post by Mark Patenaude on Mar 28, 2007 9:13:20 GMT -5
I'm not looking for anything special. My comments were benign. The ant was tied very nicely and I'm used to using dubbed ant patterns and am looking forward to trying the foam.
I do tie mine up with flourescent posts or a tuft of flourescent steelhead "glo-bug" yarn on top. Alot of the spring creeks that I fish require a 15' leader and long casts to very wary fish and they can be hard to see at a distance without the touch of color.
Mark
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Post by jskowron on Mar 28, 2007 9:47:35 GMT -5
I've also found that fish taking ant's aren't very subtle about it- the strike has been hard to miss. However, my data set is very small on this. Any of you more frequent "ant fishers" have different experiences?
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Post by Mark Patenaude on Mar 29, 2007 9:07:33 GMT -5
I've had both splasy and subtle takes. The smaller fish, as with most dry fly fishing, are the ones to put on more of a show and the bigger fish tend tend to "sip" the fly and be much more subtle on the take.
My biggest trout on an ant is a 20" buck Brown and I only saw him nose up out of the water to sip it.
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Post by yashuone on Mar 29, 2007 21:00:47 GMT -5
I'm not looking for anything special. My comments were benign. Mark i know, i was just ribbing you a little after the 46 year old eyes comment  i also have had an assortment of takes from an assortment of sized fish (no 20 inchers on my ant... yet ) though i have not noticed a pattern btween size and sipping versus a more dramatic take, i should pay more attention to that. thinking about it i would presume that the much smaller fish (say under 5 inches) tend to hit the ant aggressively rather than sip due to the size of there mouths. a bigger fish "sips" by opening it's mouth and drawing the prey item in by diplacing the water beneath it. a smaller fish may not have a large enough mouth to displace the amount of water needed to draw in that sized insect, especially a more bouyant terrestrial like an ant... just a thought. |
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Post by Mark Patenaude on Mar 30, 2007 8:31:39 GMT -5
It really has more to do with energy expenditure
The ratio of energy to be gained by a small fish eating a smaller meal is much closer than a larger fish eating a smaller meal.
That is why larger fish will be willing to move farther and faster to chase a large streamer than they will to slash at a dry fly.
Less energy expended chasing more energy gained by eating. Larger fish need more to be gained by eating a smaller meal thus less energy expended in getting it.
Mark
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Post by yashuone on Mar 30, 2007 10:50:46 GMT -5
good info, makes sense.
(on an off topic note; why the hate of canoes, mark?)
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Post by Mark Patenaude on Mar 30, 2007 12:50:23 GMT -5
I have to defer and ask you to ask Joe Overlock. I refuse to indict myself and if Joe wants to tell you the story, he can.
It wasn't pretty.
I hope he goes easy on me...
Mark
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Post by yashuone on Mar 30, 2007 22:51:10 GMT -5
uh-oh... this sounds like a doozy....
joe...?
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Post by JoeOverlock on Mar 31, 2007 7:14:17 GMT -5
uh-oh... this sounds like a doozy.... joe...? I thought I was sworn to secrecy?  |
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Post by JoeOverlock on Mar 31, 2007 17:04:13 GMT -5
If someone starts a seperate thread on this so we don't fill up this one, then I'll tell the story. Otherwise, I'm not tellin'! ;D
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Post by flyfishgb on Apr 6, 2007 9:24:01 GMT -5
Jskowron,
Tied up a goddard caddis today using yours as an example....
whats a good strategy for the antennae... I used brown hackle stems but i cant seem to get them to be even...
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Post by jskowron on Apr 6, 2007 10:38:08 GMT -5
I cut a stem about twice as long as in need and tie it in in the middle of the stem, one antenna at a time. I try to get the first one in place with only a 1-2 wraps, and then do the second with a few wraps. Then I cut off the extra and put a few wraps over the butt ends, a few more over the antennae, and then tie off in front of and under them. I use head cement (Sally Hansen's) and make sure to work it in with a bodkin where the butts of the antennae are covered. There may be other ways of doing it, but that what I do and it seems to work.
The whole process can be a real pain in the butt. It's not uncommon to break off or cut off an antenna when finishing off the fly. In the right conditions, I think the anttennae really do make a difference. There have been times where a goddard with antennae have outfished the same pattern with the anttennae broken off. There have been other times when the dnot make a difference. I have also fished chewed up, soaked goddards as wet flies, and even put some weight on the leader to get them down. I think the antennae provide just one more stimuli for the fish to key in on (or to distract from something else about the fly that just aint right)
Andy- are you gonna make it up for the tying night on Tuesday? If so, I'll tie some up and you can't watch what I do.
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Post by flyfishgb on Apr 6, 2007 15:27:29 GMT -5
Yea i am pretty sure that I am gonna be able to make it Tuesday night... I definitely want to tie with fellow BCFF members...
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