big browns in open water

[Bucho]

Hi everybody!

I once took a fly fishing seminar/guided trip with Bernd Ziesche with first cast fly fishing school. Bernd is the single most successfull guy I know when it is about catching large, silvery sea run brown trout on a fly. In a nutshell, he breaks it down to this:
-a very, very fast retrieve
-a lot of lead in the nose of the large "fly", up to 1/16th oz, for jigging action
-a very long, very soft tailwing - spey, marabou, arctic fox, polar fiber, racoon dog...
-the fly must dart by itself in order to straighten the leader
-a tying gimmick that keeps the wing from tailing -e.g. a funnel, glue, an extention...
-natural colors, very sparse flassh
-big trout >20" are fish feeders. When they´re around, the´ll always go for a sand eel. Use a big fly that resembles one!

When I learned this succesful kind of flyfishing, heavy flyes, constant wind, waves, a lot of casts and even more exhausting retrieves - I must admit I found it samewhat hard and thought to myself: why not cast the stupid thing with a spin rod in the first place?

Problem was, I didn`t know where to look for the right hair bait for this kind of fhishing. Nobody`s done it before. After goofing around with clumsy, far too heavy saltwater-style bucktails - that got me a lot of cod in deeper water - I finally gave up. Until I found this site...

A 1/16th marabou spinner gave me a following fish on the fisrt cast and a 22" trout on the second. promising! I then tried a 1/8th boolie version of a Popovic classic, the surf candy or the "baltic" candy as we call the soft-tailed polar-hair version around here.
Again, it succeded on its first try. Today, I went out with my kayak again and used it all day, mainly jigging it while trolling. It gave me 3 more fish in total, including a 24,5" herring-fed whoppper. Please excuse the nose-blood in the picture, I am going to perform a 2 1/2 day curing and cold-smoking ceremony to honour its sacrifice.
Line was 8lbs Nanofil, I don´t think I can go much thinner in the salt. Playing the fish took about 15 min although I nettet it ASAP, I had no controll over it whatsoever. Been shaky for about an hour or so.

I`m about to start fishing a large freshwater lake this year, wonder how the browns will respond there. Anyone doing something similar? would love to exchange some patterns and experience! Heard they were after frogs now that those migrate back into the lakes...






P.S. I need other sickles, I love the Matzuos but got only bronze which rust after just a few hours in the salt!!!

 

[Squeakyboatcaptain]

Beautiful Fish Bucho!! I am sure somebody will chime in on some patterns....soon

 

[StumpHunter]

Awesome catch!! Thanks for the report and pics

 

[Pup]

Interesting discussion and great-looking brown trout. :icon14: :icon14:

 

[AtticaFish]

Doesn't get much better than that. Looks like a very healthy and brightly colored fish.

Don't have much help with patterns, but if you are wanting a long easily flowing material..... zonker strips would be perfect. Rabbit is very popular here. I saw you mention raccoon dog - maybe that is the same as the Finn Raccoon i see in fly tying material websites?

Trolling from your kayak... do you troll paddling forward or paddling in reverse? So much easier to paddle forward but every time i get a fish on, you are facing the wrong way and have to get the kayak to swing around.

 

[Fatman]

Great looking fish!!!!!!!!!!! and excellent report

 

[Bucho]

.... zonker strips would be perfect. Rabbit is very popular here. I saw you mention raccoon dog - maybe that is the same as the Finn Raccoon i see in fly tying material websites?

Trolling from your kayak... do you troll paddling forward or paddling in reverse? ....

I´m with you about rabbit being a great material once it is in the water. On the way there, however, it has a tendency to develop a will of its own. Even the very synthetic, very castable polar fiber effects the casting at a certain amount. I rather fish the lower version in the pic, the bigger one already costs a little casting range as it sometimes starts to flutter. I´m speaking of mayby 6-8 out of 40 yards, but thats a lot on open water if you see a fish rising. Which brings us to today`s fishing trip
Long story short, 3 trout of almost identical 18". This time I caught them casting, after I spottet the first one, all within maybe 4 or 6 casts. Could have gotten more, but the large, upward pointing #1 hook inflicted serious injuries on each one of them, so I kept them. A flock of fish like that is usually all the same size so I left the spot alone after the 3. fish, wich is more than enough for my little smoking needs. At that time I felt I`d rather have a downpointing #4 hook to carry on fishing without causing any harm.




For the trolling, I haven´t yet put the mirage drive in reverse, apart from a litle test run. Felt funny and surely has its applications, but I usually troll at a speed of 1,5-3 knots, mostly with 2 rods, and I have to see where I´m going. There´s too much traffic, fishing nets, bottom structure to follow, stuff like that.
And the finn racoon - it is racoon dog, wasn´t sure if that stuff would travel so far from finland that you american guys would use the Eumer brothers´s marketing name for it, too.

 

[Fatman]

Nice looking fish!!!!!!! They're gonna make a great meal!!!

 

[Shoemoo]

Those are some nice trout. We have browns here, though they are not sea run. People mainly catch them on streamers, plugs and soft plastics in gray/black or perch colors. I'd get a good look at the local forage and try to emulate that as closely as possible. Berkeley makes a Power Bait color called smelt that a lot of people seem to have success with.

http://simage1.sportsmansguide.com/adimgs/l/2/208248_ts.jpg

As far as the tailing materials, finn raccoon (raccoon dog), arctic fox tail, temple dog and very long craft fur would do well. A loop of mono or a few stiffer hairs like bucktail tied in under the hook will keep the tail from wrapping around the shank.

Downsize the hook to a #4 and you won't have as many issues with sticking them in the eye or nostril. You would be surprised what they can live though, though. I caught a 14" rainbow while standing on top of a 12' retaining wall. I didn't have a net so I tried to hand over hand it up and the line broke just as I was reaching for the fish. It fell the whole way and hit the edge of a cement slab before landing in the water. About a week later I caught the same fish in the same spot, which I recognized because of the mark on its side where it hit the slab.

 

[LedHed]

Great catch & report. You might want to try the Black Nickle Matzuo hooks.

 

[Bucho]

@shoemoe:
It´s good to read something about trout in lakes, thanks! The lake has a lot of small landlocked smelt, also whitefish. The black/mother of pearl combination is a good think to start from. I once bought a jar of teh exact same powerbaits for use with a trolling-baitholder, so I can find out first hand.

Downsizing the hook is of course a simple, probably the best way.
It has its limits though if you want to go up in weight.

I´ve been thinking... Another one of Bernd´s postulations was to balance the fly in a hook-down position, he would never fish an up-side-down pattern no matter what. He said the hook would simply hold better in the lower jar, the upper one was nothing but bone, teeth and thin skin.



1/1 mm super heavy mono, barely fitting through the eye of a weedless #4 high end carp hook, permanently bent with a cautery knife, the hook dangling free...
I took that down into the cellar for pull-testing. Had to lean in real hard, but it finally came off. While this is fine for "normal" jigging purposes, I know my fellow German anglers... they will be using these as droppers on deep-Sea party boats, have them straightend out by huchen and wels catfish etc. If the hook should break, so be it, but if the connection does - I´m in trouble!

This heavy-head-small-hook dilemma is bugging me ever since I tied my first bucktails on 4/0 jigsheads, knowing that there were seatrout around even in the deep...
So once I´m at it, I cut that stuff off and tied a weedless #2 in, with a full loop of hard mono, using kevlar thread. No fish with a german angler attached to the other end of the line will pull that out!


I´ll try and see how that goes with the bucktail before I use some softer, more attractive material for it. A heavier head could even handle some rabbit. But why not tying the wing material on the trailer hook...

@ledhead: Been thinking of the same hook,:icon14: but could`t get an inland supplier. Got a "whishlist" for US-orders, gotta bundle them once I understood what I really want and can make use of.

 

[Shoemoo]

Personally, I prefer the hook to ride up and stick the fish in the roof of the mouth. Some North American species have a lot of thin tissues in their lower jaw where the hook can easily rip out. It might be harder to get a good hookset in the roof of the mouth, but on the upside once they're stuck they stay stuck.

You may want to look into the techniques fly tiers use to make articulated patterns like MOALs and Intruders.

If you want a heavy head with a small hook, a couple of members here can help you out. Hawnjigs pours custom 1/4 ounce heads on size 4 hooks, and I'm sure others can as well.

 

[Bucho]

Wow, that MOAL Leech is really something!!!:icon14:
reminds me of a ragworm pattern

http://download.serious-flyfishing.de/Bindeanleitung_Jelle_orm.pdf

which is even more flexible but doesn´t accept that much material, by far!

MOAL jigs it is!

 

[Jig Man]

Nice fish sir...

 

[Fatman]

Nice setup but concerned that if a big brown takes that small back hook it will pull loose from your main jig. You might be better off tying off at the bend of the main hook and running the stinger from that.

 

[Bucho]

If your concerned - I´m concerned! So I fixed a similar setup and pull-testet it. The mono actually slipped out at less than 20lbs. not cool. So I tried again, this time squeezing it with riffled pliers to give it some texture for the thread to grip in. My scale showed 24lbs when the 30lbs hard mono broke, with the #2 carp hook in the bend which I haven´t yet found again



However, I would love to learn a hairbait stinger hook setup or two. The only one I know about is what we use for plastics - a small treble, wired to the hookeye. Have spend some time looking here but couldn`t find a pic.

 

[Fatman]

I don't have any right now but was thinking about it last night and I think I have a solution for you. Don't know if you can get this from your shop but hope you can.

Twist weld leader wire
http://lurepartsonline.com/Online-Store/Leader-Wire/Twist-Weld-Spool.html

Put a piece around the bend of the hook and wrap it around itself and use a lighter to seal it and do the same to your stinger hook. If the guys from In-fisherman can catch hugh pike with it, it should work for this. It is flexible and you should have no problems tying on it.

Hope this helps

 

[Hawnjigs]

The point down hook preference is interesting, if not my choice. I get bottom snagged enuf with point up jigs. However, If I wanted to make point down trout jigs, would use the tiny size 0 stainless steel sinker eyelets - only $1.50 per 100 direct from Do-it molds - to replace jig hook eyes and sub a straight shank hook with point reversed downward both molded into a head. A few dabs of something sticky that dries hard on the mold face indents would keep the hook from sliding forward or back during a pour.

 

[Bucho]

you mean like this?

http://www.bleigussformen-shop.de/F106-Meeresjig-25-75

Thats a very good idea, thanks! I already got a trailer-ball mold but never liked the inevidable gap between the head and the tying material. With a little bit of creative mold manipulation however I might leave some of the banana`s collar to ty a hackle upon and smoothen the tie.

Thanks, too, for the tip with the leader material. While it doesnt help with the main hook replacement as it stiill needs its bend, it might be a real problem solver for the large zander jigs I´m bearing in mind.

 

[Fatman]

I'll have to see if I can find the video on how to tie it up