Fly-fishing the salt

[Traditionalist]

Although this tries to cover a lot more than just the flies involved, I put it here because it is heavily oriented towards flies.  There is now a great deal of interest in salt-water fly-fishing, but a lot of the information is not oriented towards European waters. This may be of use to some of you who want to try it.



( This is just to prove that I occasionally actually catch something!  )

These articles try to explain how I do things and why, other people use different gear, flies and tactics, and their general approach may also be different. This works for me, hopefully it will get you started at least if you want to try it.

One or two basics to begin with. You can use any tackle you like of course, but probably about the best suited is a #7 to #8 weight 9 to 9´6 rod with a fast action. Personally I use a very fast 9´6" #7 for the majority of my salt water fly-fishing. You can use a floating line for lots of things, but in any wind or wave action it will drive you crazy, being blown and moved about all over the place. This can prevent you retrieving properly at all. Floating lines float higher in the salt, as salt water is denser than fresh! An intermediate shooting head matched to the rod is best for "shallow" water fishing. To match up salt-water shooting heads to rods, just buy mill ends, here for instance;

http://www.mullarkeys.co.uk/fishing/Fly-Fishing-Lines-and-Backing/mill-end-and-budget-fly-lines/

Make up the heads using the instructions here;
http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/shootingheads/index.html

Or from one of the articles I have posted on this.

Intermediate lines also sink more slowly in the salt, as salt water is denser than freshwater! A stripping basket or similar is more or less essential in the salt, as otherwise the wind and wave action will have your backing all over the place hindering casting and causing tangles. Any reel of sufficient capacity will do, but it should of course be salt-water proof! I currently use Okuma Airframes. A drag is not essential, but you need some means of braking, and if your reel has no drag, then it needs an exposed spool rim or similar that you can use to brake it.



This is a large arbor graphite titanium reinforced fly reel, and is not expensive. I have been using two of them for a very long time now, with no problems at all. They are absolutely salt-water proof and extremely robust.

Product Specification

AIRFRAME LARGE ARBOR GRAPHITE FLY REEL

   Titanium reinforced carbon construction
   One-way clutch bearing
   Oversized disc drag with stainless steel and Teflon discs
   Japanese one-way clutch bearing in stainless steel
   Stainless steel main shaft
   100% saltwater proof

AIRFRAME LARGE ARBOR GRAPHITE FLY REEL

Model  Weight         Line Capacity
#4/6     149g    WF6 + 50m backing
   OKU-011946
#7/9           175g    WF8  + 100m Backing
   OKU-011979
   
Prices vary somewhat so have a look around.   

You can get them at various suppliers;

http://www.google.de/search?q=okuma+airframe&hl=de&client=firefox-a&hs=pVs&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=nLpqTuCWHceq8QPvqtEx&ved=0CC4QrQQ

Any fish in shallow salt water will usually be feeding. How they feed and what they feed on varies very widely though, according to the time of year, and the conditions. In Spring, sea-trout for instance are usually hungry and restless. They will patrol the shallows grabbing more or less anything they can chase down. Sand-eels and shrimps are favourites, as they are practically all year round. Various fish will only be present in "shallow" water at specific times or under specific conditions.

These fish are there to feed and they will usually take suitable offerings avidly. Sometimes they will concentrate on certain food items more or less to the exclusion of all else. Such feeding fish often take small crustaceans in and around weed-beds and other structure. Sea-trout especially, but actually most fish, love structure of any type, and will practically always be found near it. Rocks, weed beds, trenches and the like. They also like moving water, and so areas with a good current are more promising than others. They may also occasionally be found in open water, usually patrolling, but are then much more difficult to find and target.

Seatrout will often be found in less saline water. Around estuary mouths, where a lot of freshwater runs in. Normally they will avoid cloudy water like the plague, but they will hunt around the edges of it. If there is a mud stain apparent, then fish the edges of it. At certain times, various troughs form, or are permanent features of some coastlines, and Sea-trout will often be found in these at specific times feeding heavily. This is because the water in the troughs and similar is warmer than the deeper water, and the activity of bait-fish, shrimps, etcetera is consequently much greater, as their metabolic rates are accelerated, and more will be found there. Sea-trout and other fish will usually be found in these areas at dawn and dusk, and often through the night, heavy overcast or storms which stir up the area can also bring them in.

In Summer, daylight fishing in absolutely calm and clear conditions is often a complete waste of time. Dawn, dusk, and through the night being the best times to fish. Long featureless sandy beaches are usually a waste of time, as although various fish pass through these areas "on-patrol", they will not normally stay there long, and are consequently extremely difficult to find and target. Usually there is not much in such areas to feed on anyway, as the bait-fish, crustaceans and other prey items also require cover. Occasionally various fish will follow bait-fish shoals in such areas. The larger fish in deeper water do this practically all the time. If you actually see a shoal of bait fish moving along the coast, where sea-birds are diving, or fish are occasionally coming out of the water, then this is always worth a cast.

Many people use Clousers, Deceivers, and similar flies almost exclusively for slat water fishing and these flies will often be successful, but there are other patterns which will work as well or better under various circumstances. Also other techniques. Many people also usually fish largish lures fast for various fish and this works of course, but better imitations fished slowly are actually invariably more successful.

Over the years I have used a huge range of patterns for various things, here are a couple of my Baltic sea-trout boxes.  These are by no means all the patterns I use, just the basics.  Of course I try to use these in the appropriate circumstances, and the collection here is by no means random. I will go into that later.









These boxes are "Curver" sandwich boxes from the local supermarket. Dirt cheap. I have lined these with ethafoam. One may also use the white rubber foam draught excluder shown here instead. This is cheap, tough, and long-lasting, and also easily replaced;



You will find it at any DIY market or similar.

As you can see, I don´t use many "standard" patterns like the ordinary Clouser´s and Deceivers, although some of course, and I use some similar ones designed in different ways for specific purposes.

I will be adding to this series for quite a while, as I am revising a lot of my stuff on salt water fishing. It may be a few days before I get it all up here.

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

In order to understand some things about these flies, how and why I use them, one has to understand my particular philosophy about flies in general, for these and other purposes. I don´t expect everybody to agree with my ideas on the matter, they are merely my ideas, and they work very well, so I see no particular reason to change them. Much the same goes for the way I fish. It may not suit everybody, or even very many people. But I enjoy myself doing it this way, and I catch plenty of fish as well. If you disagree violently with anything have written, then that is your prerogative. I don't mind discussing things sensiblyat all, but I flatly refuse to enter into pointless arguments about it. If you don't like it, then just ignore it.

On then to some "basics"! I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating! Shore angling has a major advantage over many other type of angling, for one simple but extremely important reason. If there are takeable fish in the shallow water, or near it, and one can reach them, then they can be caught. The only reason they are usually there at all, is because they are actively feeding! They have no other reason to enter shallow water in the first place, or to hang about in the vicinity of it. It is a dangerous place for them, which they otherwise instinctively avoid.

Various fish species will hunt for long periods in shallow water, but they wont normally stay there all the time. ( There are some exceptions to this, but we will go into those later).

Shallow water, especially near structure or similar, always has a large number of marine organisms in it. Even when everything seems "dead". Various marine worms, sand eels, shrimps, and a number of other creatures will be found in the shallows, even in winter. Although then of course there will be far fewer. The reason is quite simple, they have nowhere else to go!

Deeper and perhaps more "featureless" water, is just as dangerous for them as the shallows are for the larger fish. Structure, weed beds, large stones, pilings, etc, provide relative safety for a whole host of creatures. For the same reason, long featureless expanses of sand will usually be more or less completely barren. There is just no suitable cover. This is basically the same reason you wont find land game in open fields much of the time. They come out to graze or hunt at particular times in particular places, and then they clear off again. If you spook theme, they will clear off anyway. The same applies to fish!

There is a widespread misconception among many anglers that they wont spook fish in the sea! This is absolute rubbish. The same basic principles apply as when hunting any creature. If you spook it it will certainly stop feeding, and most likely bugger off sharpish!

Many of the creatures found in shallow water, the sand eels mentioned before (Ammodytes tobianus), being a case in point, are only actually present in relatively shallow water, ( there are many other species of similar fish though and they are present more or less everywhere), and that is why predators are obliged to hunt there.

By "shallow" water, is meant water from a foot to about ten feet deep. Of course, it is often better to fish in water much deeper than this, but that does not mean that fish may not be caught in such shallow water. One simply needs the right conditions.

One very relevant point which is worth mentioning here. If you go and watch practically any anglers, irrespective of where they may be, at least 90% of them all do one thing. They attempt to cast as far as possible in a straight line outwards from the shore at more or less 90°, towards the horizon. I have yet to see many trying to fish the shallows properly, by casting parallel or diagonal to the shore or concentrating on structure.

If these same people were in a boat, they would be doing their utmost to reach the shallows, or various structure, also in a straight line. It is most peculiar that so many people do this. For years, the old saying "5% of the anglers catch 95% of the fish", has been going the rounds. It is quite true, and the simple reason is that 95% of the anglers are doing something, (or indeed many things!) wrong.

Avoid falling into such patterns, or you will simply be one of the 95% who regularly go home fishless and frustrated. Fishing is as much a cerebral exercise, as a physical one. You must keep thinking about it if you wish to be successful. You must also act on your conclusions! Saying afterwards "I wish I had tried that", or "That might have worked", is a complete waste of time and effort. If you have an idea, then try it immediately.

In order to cover shallow water properly, and I really do mean shallow, less than a foot deep on occasion, you must fan the whole area with your casts, and you should start by fishing the shallowest water first. Doing otherwise may disturb fish you might otherwise have caught, and simply serve to frighten them out of range. If you find a "trough" of water, parallel to the shore in winter, especially on a sunny day, or after a sunny day. Then fish it very carefully. Such troughs are common, and many people ignore them. But there will be more activity there than anywhere else, Sand-eels and other creatures will have become activated by the slightly warmer water, and the predators know this.

DO NOT WADE IN UNTIL THE WATER IS SLOPPING OVER YOUR WADERS!!! You will only spook fish you might otherwise have caught. This behaviour is just stupid. If you do it, you will catch less. Try to cover what you can without going into the water at all, and also use any cover there might be. This may mean just standing back a bit on a rock ,instead of going right to the edge, or moving up behind rocks, seaweed etc.

Mark the location of various troughs and features carefully on your maps. Take compass bearings, on easily recognisable features, so that you can find them again, even at night, or in murky weather.

The two most important instruments for a shore based salt-water fly-fisherman, are a thermometer, and a compass! This must of course be coupled with a map. It is best to make up your own maps. Copy the relevant stretch of coast from an appropriate commercial map, Seal it in polythene (Stick to A4 paper), and mark your spots with a permanent marker. You can transfer your markings to your main map later. Carry a small notebook as well, and make notes. Some features may be permanent, (like areas of tumbled rocks etc), others may not, like troughs, and weed patches.

Back to the trough then! Fish it lengthwise. Don't cast over it and cover it sideways. At the least, if your standpoint is such that covering the trough lengthwise is not possible, then cast diagonally across it. Your chance of connecting with a fish will be very much improved, of course you also need to take note of any currents and use them as best you can.

The same applies to surf by the way. Hunting fish will be mainly at the edge of the surf line. They are hoping for tidbits being washed out by tidal action. Casting far beyond the surf line will mean that your fly is in empty water for most of the time. Fish parallel or diagonally to the surf, and keep your fly in the strike zone as long as possible.

For most fish, and especially in winter,  such places are the main likelihood of connecting at all. Sand-eels by the way, are actually mainly nocturnal, and usually spend the daylight hours buried in the sand. Which is why imitations of them work especially well at dusk, during the night, and at dawn. They are also excellent in murky weather, or when the bottom has been stirred up. They also work well in the surf for the same reasons.

Shallow water is not only good for catching fish, it is a great place to seek and observe the appearance and behaviour of the organisms which are also present elsewhere in similar conditions, with a view to imitating them and their behaviour.

Spending a day with a "shrimping" net or similar on any shoreline, rocks, pools and so on, will give you more information on the organisms to be found there, than reading fifty books, and you will also see how the creatures behave, which no book can really tell you. There is no way you can easily sample the ocean where it is ten meters deep, (not from the shore anyway), but some of the same creatures may be found in water only a couple of feet deep, and will behave in the same way as their "deep water" brethren.

There is a very large amount of information available on various marine organisms, but it is difficult to interpret regarding its specific use or importance to anglers. There is no substitute for going out and having a look yourself. No particular knowledge or expertise is required. You simply wish to know what some creatures look like. The size, colouration, general behaviour.

If you wish, you may inform yourself more from various books etc, after you have done this. We are not trying to identify obscure nymphs or mayflies here. We simply want a general idea of what is to be found. Hardly anybody does this. Even those who have a solid interest in saltwater fly-fishing invariably buy a book, or check the Internet, etc etc, and the questions they have at this point are always the same. One of which is "What flies do I need".

This is completely the wrong question, and the wrong approach entirely. The real question should be, "What do I wish to imitate?"

The only possible way to know this, is to discover what is there. As yet, I have never seen an angling book about salt-water fishing, which gave any really useful information on the creatures to be found in the ocean at any particular time of year, or their behaviour, and I have seen a large number of books.

American books dominate the "saltwater" market anyway, and these are all much of a muchness as well. Usually a short introduction to tackle and techniques, and then pages and pages of fly-patterns. There are hundreds if not thousands of books like this. Even the freshwater fishing book authors do the same thing. Quite apart from any other considerations, it is extremely unlikely that many of the readers would even manage to dress many of the patterns described, or know how or when to use them, or even want to. Carrying two hundred fly-patterns will not catch you a single fish! You would be much better served with a few patterns that you know you can rely on, and which you know how to fish under which conditions. There is no reason you should not try other patterns of course. But you are there to catch a fish, not to carry out research into the possible effectiveness of American or other fly-patterns in European waters.

Practically all this stuff is more or less useless to you as regards fly choice under specific conditions in European (or indeed any other!), waters. This is however the absolute key to success!!!

Standing on a beach somewhere hurling Clousers into the great blue yonder may occasionally result in a fish, or even a few. Logic and prior knowledge says this must be so. If you stand in the Sahara desert, or "Death valley" long enough, it will also rain on you. You may even be lucky, and survive long enough to actually witness the event.

That is not my idea of fishing at all. When I go fishing, I want to catch a fish as soon as possible, and as often as possible. Everything else may be enjoyable, or healthy, or soul filling, etc etc. But my reason for engaging in the activity at all, is to catch a fish. It is not my intention to deride others who may go fishing for all sorts of reasons, or to hack at the old saw "There is more to fishing than catching fish". Of course there is, and any angler who does not realise this must be a complete idiot. Unfortunately, this phrase is often used as an excuse for not catching anything, or as some sort of "sop" offered to those who have done just that, and that is not at all the same thing.

One may philosophise forever on angling and its various aspects, and very enjoyable it is too, but this will not bring us any nearer to catching a fish. For that matter, neither will logic, unless it is applied in the correct fashion, and under the correct circumstances, and then acted upon! It is no good knowing something unless you actually act on that knowledge!

Clousers and such will take many  fish., as has been said, they will occasionally grab anything that moves, but they will be far more likely to take something that looks and behaves like the stuff they have been, or are actively engaged in, eating at the time. Realising this, and acting on it is absolutely imperative if you wish to remove much of the "chuck and chance" element from your fishing.

So what do our target fish eat anyway? There are a number of prey items which figure prominently in the diet of various fish at various times, and some which figure less prominently, but may still be taken.

One may make all sorts of assumptions and guesses about these things, hopefully based on prior knowledge or experience, or one may indeed take advantage of somebody else's knowledge or experience, and choose a fly and a tactic based on this. This will usually work much better and more consistently than the "Death valley" methods previously described, but it is still not optimal.

To be successful you must "KNOW!!!!" what is going on. Assumptions and guesses may or may not work, depending on their accuracy. If you "KNOW!!!!" something, then it will virtually always succeed! Even on those occasions when it does not succeed, you know you have done the best you could, and do not sit for half an age afterwards moping in the pub, or boring your family and friends to death by carrying out pointless post-mortems and involved analyses about why your fishing trip failed. Mainly because you are looking for excuses to explain why you caught nothing! They probably think you are unhinged in any case, and don't care. They would much prefer you to appear smiling before them with a fish!

They may still think you are unhinged, but at least you were successful. This also nips a lot of criticism neatly in the bud!

Occasionally you may meet conditions which prevent you from catching fish anyway. Or there are simply no fish there to be caught. Analysis of failed trips is extremely important of course, but it should be based on knowledge, not wild assumptions, if it is to be of any use to you in the future.

Depressingly often, I hear people say things like, "Well if the wind had not turned, we would have caught something". On occasion, I have asked why, and it often turns out they did not even know what direction the wind was in to start with!!!

OK, I think I have belaboured these points sufficiently. Back to "what Sea-trout eat"

Fish eat lots of things, and a lot of active prey, but they will also eat various things which just smell nice as well. Doubtless one could imitate a mussel, or a limpet, or lugworm, or a lot of other things with flies, and there are doubtless people who have done so, and maybe even caught a fish on the result, but I fear this would only bring us in a roundabout way back to the "Death Valley method".

There are only two characteristics which one may normally imitate with flies in salt-water. These are, appearance, and behaviour.

Of course one may anoint one's flies with various things. Many Danes use pilchard oil, and similar stuff. Why not? If it helps. Personally I dislike the clart about involved, and I don't like the smell of such stuff on my hands either. It takes days for the stink to wear off, no matter how often you wash your hands.

Also, I consider it "cheating". Shrimps don't smell like pilchards as far as I am aware. Not that I have anything against cheating per se, if it gets me a fish, but regarding this particular topic, if you are going to use some awful stinky stuff, then you might as well stop buggering about with flies, and use a worm, a strip of herring, or a bundle of mussels, on the appropriate gear for it, in the first place. This will doubtless prove a great deal easier and will save you reading a lot of stuff you simply don't need to know! 

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

Down to some specifics. Based on my own observations and backed up by various research, I know that one of the commonest creatures in the areas I fish, is the Sand eel. These fish are common in many places, and are a major item on the diet of many predators. This creature is variously known as a "Launce", "Lance", "Tobias Fish", and a host of other names. It and its relatives, or things which look similar enough to be considered relatives by an angler, abound in most oceans. Sand-eels are usually present all year round. There are a number of types, but they all look very similar. In the majority of cases similar enough that various imitations will suffice to represent most of them.The exact taxonomy of a creature, although it may be interesting in itself, is actually largely irrelevant to an angler trying to imitate something. The idea is to produce an imitation of what the fish are eating. It is not necessary to even know the name of the creature involved., although of course the more you know about a prey creature the more likely you are to fish it correctly.To those interested, this particular creature is "Ammodytes tobianus".

Practically all the sand eels I have caught or observed at various times, have been long, round but somewhat flattened in cross section and relatively thin in relation to their length. Anything from six to ten inches long. Although there are smaller ones as well of course. Most have a bright silvery belly and flanks tending to reflect a light translucent olive gold colour, with a "chevron" pattern, and a light to dark olive green coloured back. They swim fast, when they wish to, but they normally tend to "hang" in a "tail down, head up" mode when "finning" in mid-water, and have a peculiar habit of diving for the bottom head first when disturbed. Sometimes they also hang the other way up, head up tail down.

According to various scientific sources, these fish hibernate in winter, at various depths in the sand. This may well be so, but not all do so, and even if they do, it appears that some wake up now and then and go for a forage. This makes them extremely vulnerable to predators.

Just about all the patterns for sand-eels that I have seen, and there are literally hundreds, probably thousands extant, from all over the world, are usually a maximum of four inches long. Some a lot less. Otherwise quite a lot of them look pretty good.

Here is a fairly typical pattern;
http://www.saltwaterflies.com/sandee.html

This, and many similar patterns will catch fish, but in my opinion, most of these patterns are far too small. A glance at any book or website dealing with such creatures will confirm this. Seeing one in the wild is even better. These patterns are all just too small. They work of course, some very well under certain circumstances, but a more accurate imitation, in terms of size, will work better. Also, the old maxim "big fish, big bait" is still as valid as it ever was.

There is a lot of information on the internet about the small sand eel, and a search will turn up a great deal of it;

http://www.fishbase.org/summary/speciessummary.php?id=38

This fish, (it is indeed a true fish, related to the cod family, and not an eel), is represented in some form or another in every ocean in the world. At certain times and in certain places large shoals of such fish may be found. Unfortunately, due to overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution, these fish are on the decline almost everywhere, but they are still one of the most important items in the food chain. In Winter, they are often distributed singly over wide areas, and on occasion large colonies may be found buried in the sand at certain spots. Predators frequent such spots!

Most of the sand-eels I have observed in winter have been swimming alone, although occasionally one may see a shoal. In Spring and Summer very large shoals of these fish may often be observed in shallow water. especially at night or in low light conditions.

Sea-trout, Bass, Mackerel, and of course many other fish, love these things. Probably at least 70% of the total number of spinner caught fish on the Baltic are caught using spinners designed to imitate this fish.  I know that imitations of this fish are also very successful elsewhere, especially for bass and a host of other fish in the UK. The very successful "Toby" lures, and very many others were all originally based on this fish.

Having tried a number of patterns, with only limited success, I made my own. My success rate jumped massively!!!. What did I do? I made the thing a decent size, and tried to copy its behaviour more accurately. This was accomplished by constructing the pattern in a specific way, and also by the method used to fish it. My criteria were; it had to be easy to make, it had to look and behave like the real thing, when fished correctly. It needed to be robust, it should be of a larger size than most such lures already extant, and finally, it should still be easy to cast.

Here is one pattern I came up with;




This fly is tied on a short tube. The tube is a piece of Q-tip tubing about 30mm long. Simply cut a piece of the q-tip about 35 mm long. ( Check that the q-tips or similar you buy for this or other flies really are plastic. Some are made of paper).

You will need a needle to fit the tube tightly. Either raid your wife´s/mother´s/girlfriend´s sewing box, or buy a set of needles to fit. They only cost pennies.

Prepare the tube as shown below. Warm one end of the tube by holding it near a lighter flame until it begins to melt, this forms a ridge at the end of the tube. You may also make a larger ridge by pressing the tube down on something hard and flat, ( I use a piece of flat metal on my desk, but anything will do). This will be the front end of the fly here. On some flies you can form ridges at both ends. This supposedly "stops the dressing slipping off", but if your dressing slips, you are doing something wrong anyway, and no ridge will hold it!



Tube flies have many advantages over conventional salmon irons, or similar hooks. They are cheaper, easier to dress, the hooks can easily be changed if damaged, and if properly dressed these tube flies last almost forever!

Now mount the needle in your vice, and the tube on your needle. Of course, if you have a tube fly vice, or some other system, then by all means use it. But you will need the needle for at least one special operation later.Now we need a set of bead chain eyes. These are sold by the metre/yard in various sizes by most DIY shops..Cut a pair of eyes off the chain using sidecutters.

Now, holding the eyes on one side with a pair of needle nose pliers, heat the eyes using a gas lighter. When hot, place the eyes carefully on the plastic tube, about a third of the way from the front end. If all has gone well, you now have a piece of plastic tube with eyes firmly welded to it, in the correct position for this fly. The needle prevents the metal bar of the eyes sinking through the tube, keeps the tube itself clear, and also conducts the heat away when the eyes touch it. One may also bind the bead chain eyes on to the tube using thread, but this method makes for immovable eyes, and a better imitation, as the eyes are also in the right place.

Start your thread and build up a layer behind the eyes. This should be parallel to the tube (i.e. the thread layer should not slope backwards) this is important as it keeps the "wing" flowing straight out behind and not at an angle. This affects how the fly fishes.

The "wing" of dark olive Arctic fox hair, and light olive crystal flash is then tied in. One may reverse the order of the hair, by tying the crystal flash "on top" of the tube, and the fox hair below. This is how I originally did it, but it does not seem to matter much actually.

The overall length of the fly is 15cm. Despite its apparent size it may still be cast easily. The raised layer of thread ensures that the wing is straight out behind the fly, and not at an angle. This is important!

Dark olive chenille is then attached and wound in to cover the wing roots, and a length of silver grey chenille is used to form a head. Wind over and through the bead chain eyes. Tie off with several whip finishes, and varnish the thread. Use thin varnish, so that it soaks well in under the chenille. Don't put any varnish on the chenille!

I also make up some of these things using epoxy with "glitter" added for the heads.

To fish, a long shank straight eyed stainless steel hook, size 4, is mounted in the usual way on the rear of the tube. Use red tube, it simulates the "guts" of the fish very well, and enhances the pattern's effectiveness although you can't actually usually see the guts on the naturals, they appear translucent but are actually usually quite opaque.

This fly is fished on a ten to twelve foot leader, and a floating or intermediate line (depending on conditions). The technique is to cast out. Allow the fly to sink, (careful here, takes "on the drop" are common). Then retrieve in long slow pulls, with pauses in between. Takes may be gentle, (so strike at anything at all, don't assume it is just "weed" etc), or extremely fierce. In which case there can be no mistake.

I also have a pattern of this fly with a floating head, for use in deeper water on a sinking line. It is basically the same as the pattern described except the head is a block of closed cell foam, slightly longer than the "sinking" head, sprayed with aluminium paint on top, and the dressing added afterwards. I use sequins of the appropriate colour for eyes on this, with a black pupil of paint or varnish, (one may simply use a hole punch to punch out circles of silver or gold paper etc, and place a "pupil" of varnish or paint in the middle), and epoxy the heads thinly when the fly is complete. I consider the eyes of paramount importance on such imitations; they are one of the most salient recognition points for predators.

As you may have guessed, the sand-eel pattern is one of my stand-by patterns. If I am not sure what is going on, or what to use, I will often try such a pattern first. A large number of my fish have been caught on these and similar patterns.

Here are two more patterns which I use;



This is a simple bucktail pattern dressed in a variation of the "Thunder Creek" style crossed with a Clouser!

Here is another made of braided polypropylene cord;



Details here;
http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16609.msg177438#msg177438


So what else do fish like to eat?

Well, one of the main reasons they come into shallow water, is to feast on worms. After a storm, or when the bottom is stirred up, and especially when the water is still murky, large numbers of such creatures may be washed from their burrows, and the fish mop them up with alacrity, and obvious relish.

Worms

The two main types of worm known to sea anglers(although there are many) are lugworm and ragworm, or things which look much the same in any case.

Lugworm are extremely easy to imitate as far as appearance goes, but they are more or less useless as "flies" for two reasons. First of all they don't do anything much at all, which means they have no behaviour to imitate! And secondly, the fish locate them primarily by scent/taste. Most fish can locate and follow scent trails by means of various sensors. We could of course smear "essence of worm" on some imitation, cast it out, and let it roll about or stay still or whatever and hope. But this is once again a "Death Valley" method. Presumably it would eventually succeed, but it would not be a good idea to hold your breath while waiting.

Ragworm and similar things however, are much more interesting. For one thing, they have lots of "legs", and are extremely mobile. They can also swim very well in an undulating snake-like fashion. They swim holding the front of their bodies relatively stiff, and undulating the rear two thirds.

In Spring, when the water reaches a certain temperature, and other specific conditions are met, these worms gather into large swarms in the open shallow water to spawn. At such times the fish become almost totally preoccupied with them, and will often ignore anything else. One of the few occasions that such a thing occurs. However, they are also present at other times, just not in such numbers, and may still be successful when fished in the right places.

These worms are quite difficult to imitate, but not impossible. Most imitations are tied on long shank hooks, and it is difficult to give them the right "undulating" motion. There are more complex and "lifelike" patterns, but they are often very time consuming to make. Some work very well, others look nice but are fairly useless for various reasons.  These worms come in various colours, ranging from black, through green, to brown, and even bright red. They all have various "metallic" glints. I still carry a range of simple patterns in various colours and these are shown below. But in the meantime I also have a "special pattern" for these. This is based largely on the same considerations as the sand eel.  The right size and the right behaviour.



Details here;
http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16609.msg177593#msg177593

The patterns below are basically just the usual "Woolly bugger" variations using various materials and colours. The main point is the built in "movement" provided by the marabou, hackles etc. This is often enough to trigger a fish to strike. One also has the advantage that these things resemble quite a lot of other things apart from worms, and the fish may take them for something else entirely. Sometimes the bright colours will work well in cold water.




Fish them in short pulls, with a pause in between. The idea is to get them to "pulse" and undulate. These things do not really move fast. A slow pull of about a foot or so, which takes 3 or 4 seconds, and a pause of the same time is OK. You may of course vary the retrieve, in fact you should!  But the one described is usually most successful. Finding out the "colour of the day" is usually a matter of trial and error. Occasionally you will actually see the worms swimming, and in such a case use the colour you observe. One may also use long winged red, green or brown streamers or similar. These are not as accurate imitations, but if you give them the right action, they will also take fish.

Baitfish

There are always a number of various bait-fish extant in the shallows, and around structure. herring, sprats and various other juvenile fishr fish are also fairly common. Many of the "standard" bait-fish imitations will often work for these. Including Clousers and Deceivers of the right size and colour. If you observe shoals of bait fish swimming around, then have a chuck on the outskirts of the shoal. If you see bait-fish like sprats etc leaping from the water, then cast into or ahead of the shoal, and LET YOUR LURE SINK WITHOUT MOVING IT for a while. If nothing happens, give a few slow strips, and be ready for a thumping take. Also, when you get a "knock" but are having trouble connecting, the first instinctive impulse is to speed up your retrieve. Dont!  Slow down or stop, and then start again. Very many fish will take when the fly stops.  Of course you can still try speeding up as well!

This often works very well because fish crash into bait fish shoals, stunning and injuring fish, and then return at their leisure to mop up. You can normally tell the direction a shoal is traveling, because the fish will leap out of the water ahead of the predators which are chasing them, in frantic efforts to escape. It is often no good tossing your fly directly in front of the shoal, the predator may then not even see it, try behind and to the sides first.

Fish your lure SLOWLY! and erratically. An injured bait-fish can not bugger off at forty knots in a straight line. If it could, it would not be an injured bait-fish! Tossing to the outside of the shoal is necessary, if nothing much is happening, because that is when such fish are most vulnerable. Their safety is in numbers. A single fish a little outside the shoal, is usually a sign that it is damaged or sick. Predators will pounce on it immediately.

Most anglers fish their flies far too fast. When fishing small flies, it may take me anything up to half an hour to retrieve a cast. This can become boring, and one must really try to concentrate, and "project" oneself into the fly itself. As if one was trying to control it with the mind alone. This sounds weird, but it works.

One may fish various other bait-fish imitations at various times and locations, but this depends quite a lot on local knowledge.

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

This especially applies to herring. Fish herring imitations as for the bait-fish described above. Larger flies are more successful. In fact, in many instances, a larger fly tends to be much more successful than a small one. I have used herring flies up to eight inches and more in length, with good results.

Fortunately most of the fish in inshore herring shoals are from about three to five inches long. This size is much easier to cast. For larger flies, various synthetics are often better than natural materials, as they don't soak up water (assuming of course they are waterproof in the first place!). This is a problem with some natural materials, which makes them heavy and difficult to cast. There are some really good herring patterns available, as this is also a "universal" type of baitfish. Like this one for instance;

http://www.flyfishsaltwaters.com/flyblueback.html

One fly which has proven a massive success in lots of places is this one;



Details here;

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16610.msg177443#msg177443

Here are some of my "standard" patterns. These are for the most part quite simple patterns, quick and easy to dress. Descriptions and fishing methods follow. I mainly use these flies in the Baltic sea but they will work anywhere.



The patterns in the image above are as follows:
2 * Hares ear shrimps. 1* "Grey Frede" 2* general shrimps. Stickleback.
Juletrae ( Christmas tree) pearl and pink Diving shrimp Stickleback
Tanglaufer ( kelp-runner) Red tag palmer Kelp runner Diving red tags and Pink baby doll

Shrimps

The shrimps are usually quite good fished slowly around structure, weeds, rocks etc.

The Grey Frede is a general shrimp and crustacean pattern, which can be used anywhere. I have heard of several people using this fly to the exclusion of all else. It is a good fly, but I prefer to have a selection. One fly will not always be successful, and it is pointless limiting oneself if this is not necessary.

The general shrimps are the same as the first two described, just variations.

The stickleback is a very good imitation indeed. The same fly tied with a blue wing is a good herring imitation. The wings are fox tail. Stiff hair is no good for these flies. It must be mobile. In a pinch one may use marabou. But the fly is usually shredded by the first fish that takes. Bucktail is usually too stiff and needs to be fished too fast to make it move.

The juletrae is a cold water shrimp fly par excellence. It is tied entirely of pearl mylar braid. The "hackle" and tail are simply picked out of the braid. It is also a fly which will often work for no apparent reason under a range of conditions. My second "go-to" fly in cold water, if I don´t know what is going on, and the sand eel has not produced within a reasonable period of time.

The pink variation is sometimes successful. Fish both slowly with little pulls. Often successful over deep water, or at the edge of drop-offs in winter. Worth a try around structure as well. Fish these flies very slowly indeed.

The diving shrimps are for fishing near weeds. Sharp short pulls (floating line, ten foot leader) work best. For this and some of the other smaller flies, one requires finer tippets, as the fly will not otherwise work properly. Don't go below 6lb BS. 8 lb is usually OK.

The tanglaeufer, ( kelp runner) will take fish in and around weed beds in spring and summer.

The diving red tags are also excellent general tanglaeufer and crustacean imitations. Fish slowly, in or near weeds and kelp beds, and other sheltered spots.

The pink baby doll is sometimes very successful in murky water. Fish it like a small fish. It does not really represent anything in particular, but the fish occasionally like it. Surprisingly enough, it often works well in cold gin clear water when hardly anything else will. I have no idea why unfortunately. I have seen a sea-trout in clear ice cold water come rushing from several yards away to grab it. This in itself is unusual, as sea-trout in cold water often tend to be very sluggish. They will normally not move far or fast to take flies under such conditions.

Crabs
One may use various crab imitations in certain areas. This is quite a good one;

http://globalflyfisher.com/patterns/femmer.htm

Although I actually prefer imitations with more movement, and have often uses a well weighted red/brown woolly bugger to imitate crabs. One simply has to make it crawl across the bottom.

I have actually had most success on a green version of the bugger. I would normally carry them in brown, green, and red. I also have a few other crab imitations for various purposes. Unfortunately, some can be quite difficult to cast, and so are only really relatively "short range" patterns. A lot of people including myself  use them from float tubes, ( although I prefer a pontoon boat for this), in somewhat deeper water. They can be real killers for cod, but will take other fish as well. I have had a lot of good sized flatfish on some crab patterns as well.

Here are some crab patterns which have been very successful for me;

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16612.msg177452#msg177452

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16620.msg177522#msg177522

In the meantime, there are new patterns being invented every day, so many that nobody could possibly even know all of them, never mind dress or try them. You certainly have as good a chance as anybody else of inventing a real "killer" for your area.

Here is a fly which I would not like to be without for cod fishing. It works well for other fish as well;

http://globalflyfisher.com/staff/bech-petersen/tinsel_fly/index.php

This is also based on imitating a successful artificial lure, the "Toby" again.

Boobies



The boobies shown are excellent sea-trout flies, and also work well for other fish in the right circumstances. Fish on a sinking line and short leader. The larger the foam heads the better. Aim for large mobile flies. You may (in fact probably should) use hair like fox or similar instead of marabou, as the marabou is quickly shredded by fish teeth. These things are very good fry imitations, and should be fished as such. Very short pulls, followed by a pause allowing them to rise up in the water again. Takes are usually very positive, and no strike is necessary. Many fish will be hooked in the throat. Only use these flies if you intend to keep the fish you catch!

With a fly like the above or a similar selection carefully chosen, you wont go far wrong anywhere. Just choose the ones relevant to your area, or modify them accordingly. Adding others, or subtracting if desired.

As has been shown, most of the patterns I use are fairly simple. Easy and quick to dress or make, and relatively cheap. These are in fact my main criteria for such flies. On occasion, you will lose flies, sometimes quite a few, and it is much less traumatic if they were cheap and not particularly time consuming to produce in the first place.

So how does one go about designing a fly for a particular situation? Or at least making sure that the patterns one has (or is obliged to purchase) are suitable? We come back to our original premises, that we may only imitate appearance and behaviour. Sometimes only very roughly, but this practically always suffices to fool a fish, under the right circumstances.

It must be said, so let's get it over with. You will very rarely be able to buy the patterns you need in shops or anywhere else. You will also probably not be able to find anybody who will design patterns for you, as you would like to have them. If you wish to be really successful in salt water, then you must learn to make your own. This is not at all difficult. Initially one has problems coordinating hand and eye, but this is quickly overcome. Anybody can learn to make the patterns shown here in a matter of hours, and the costs are negligible, as no exotic materials are required.

Some complain that they cannot turn out flies like the "shop bought" ones. "This is not a bug, it's a feature!!!". The shop bought ones will not, or only rarely, do what you want them to do, but your initially scruffy and unpolished efforts may well do so. Which is what you are trying to achieve.

Would better and more complex imitations fool the fish better? This is possible, but in my opinion unlikely. This brings me to one of my core theories, as to why a fish takes my fly at all, in preference to dozens, even hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of naturals which may be available.

My fly must look and behave enough like the creature I am attempting to imitate, but not so much that it disappears in the mass. It must have some characteristic or other which makes it MORE! attractive to the fish than the naturals. Either apparently "integral" movement as a result of the material and construction giving it the appearance of life, (or in some very specific circumstances the lack of it!) colour, or behaviour. Most "exact imitations" I have tried, and not just for salt-water fishing, are not very good flies at all. Oh one may catch a fish on them now and then, but impressionistic patterns are invariably much better. They must not be so impressionistic that they lose all resemblance to the original though!

Some may in fact look nothing like the creature one is attempting to imitate, when dry on the bench, but their behaviour when fished, due to their design, causes them to resemble the creature sufficiently. What is more, slightly aberrant behaviour in nature, is usually followed by swift death!

A creature which looks or behaves slightly differently to its more conformist brethren, is noticed immediately! Especially by predators! It has lost its anonymity, and "safety in numbers", the usual defence tactic of many such creatures will no longer protect it at all.

There are various ways of achieving this. In many flies it may be accomplished by building "movement" into the fly, by the judicious use of various materials. Movement is the main sign of life in many creatures. Indeed, many predators will not even strike prey which is not moving. Unless they themselves are responsible for it, an injured fish, from a shoal which has been attacked, sinking or tumbling very slowly or almost motionless for instance. Even then, some movement at the right time may cause a fish to strike, which would have otherwise ignored the fly. Knowing when to do this, how, and why, is important. The right motion at the wrong time is useless.

Exaggerating the eyes on various bait-fish is a tactic which obviously works. This may simply involve making them larger, or a slightly different colour. This is NOT!!! necessarily an "aiming point" for the fish, but it is a major recognition factor! Exaggerating the number of legs on various creatures which possess them, is another very successful tactic. Adding various coloured (often red of course, but occasionally other colours work as well), tags, or "aiming points" to simulate "guts", blood, flared gills, or similar things, to some flies may work well. "Flash", and metallic glints may work on others.

Many of these things are reliant on trial and error of course. But you can sit down and make patterns based on some of these premises quite easily, as long as you have seen what the original creature looks like, and how it behaves. Simply copying patterns from books will not allow you to do this to the same extent. Furthermore, many patterns in books suffer from a major disadvantage, in that there is rarely any information on how to fish them! Indeed, it is sometimes practically impossible to even surmise what they are intended to represent, much less how to use them.

Knowledge of how the creatures you wish to imitate behave is essential. You can even catch fish better on totally unsuitable flies, as long as you get the behaviour right! In my considered opinion, in salt water, (and most other places for that matter!), behaviour accounts for about 70% of a successful fly. Appearance is the other 30%.

You will know how to fish yours, because you designed them yourself for a specific purpose, based on your knowledge of the creatures involved! Or you analysed the patterns form somebody else. The importance of this can hardly be emphasised enough. Of course you can use any pattern you like, from books, shops, etc etc. But it will not usually be anywhere near as good as a pattern you know exactly when, where, and how, to fish.

One important point which is often overlooked is that weight is not always desirable on flies. It is often far better to use a buoyant fly on a sinking or intermediate line than to use a weighted fly. This means you can imitate some prey behaviour much better. heavily weighted flies, apart from being more difficult to cast  also suffer from the same intrinsic problem as various spinning hardware. They will only work when stripped fast or using a particular retrieve, and may well behave unnaturally in many circumstances.  Fishing slowly, but with the right movement is generally more successful, and is easier with unweighted or only slightly weighted flies.

The successful American "Flatwings" are also based on this principle;

http://flyfishohio.com/Flatwing%20Shiner.htm

http://www.flyfishsaltwaters.com/rhody_flat_wing.htm

There are lots of patterns extant.


Several shrimps were shown in one of the photos. Just to refresh your memory, here are a few again;



Practically none of my flies have names. I know exactly what they are, and what they are for, so I don't bother giving them names. There is no point in doing so. These are just shrimps. Over the years, I have developed a large number of flies for all sorts of things, some very successful indeed. I am not interested in publicising them so that half the angling world beats a path to my door, or worships at my feet. I have developed them in order to catch fish for myself. I don't mind giving other people information when they ask, if I can, on boards like this one, neither do I mind discussing the pros and cons of various things, I am however not prepared to enter into arguments about stuff. It wastes my time, often frustrating and can cause a lot of bad feeling.

If I only needed one shrimp pattern, I would only make up one sort, and I would only carry one pattern in my box. But these shrimps are for different situations. In point of fact, the shrimp tied on the red hooks out-fishes the others, in terms of fish, about three to one! This is mainly (but not only), due to the fact that I find more situations where the red hooked one is appropriate, than the ones on the black or bronze hooks. Also, the shape is somewhat better. I also use some other patterns for highly specific situations, but let's stay with the four in the picture for the moment.

None of these patterns is weighted. They sink very slowly indeed, due to the amount of fine brushed out dubbing which brakes their descent, and they react to every single tiny pull on the line, or the vagaries of the current. The "legs" feelers, etc, are continually moving, just as in the real thing.

It is not obvious from the photo, but when wet, these things become fairly translucent, again just like the real thing. I fish these in short jerky pulls with a pause after every pull.  Most takes come in the pause so you need to be alert, but usually if a fish takes the next jerk will actually hook it.

Dressing details here;

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16614.0

TL
MC   

[Traditionalist]

Do you really need all those flies?  That depends.  I have been an avid angler for over half a century, and in that time I have fished in many places for many species of fish under many different conditions.  If you only target specific fish under specific conditions half a dozen times a year then you don't need even a fraction of them. Three or four good patterns would doubtless suffice.  There is however a great deal of pleasure to be obtained in doing these things, quite apart from any real "need" involved. Getting into the intricacies of things like this has a fascination all of its own.  You must of course be able to spend the time required to become any good at it. If you don't have the time then you must perforce limit yourself to whatever you can manage or justify.

I will digress for a moment from patterns and their application.

Many years ago now, when I first started using flies in Salt-water, in the North Sea, from the North Yorkshire coast, it was practically unheard of. Many people laughed at my attempts, my flies, and my equipment. At least at first. I did not have much money to spend on all this stuff, in fact hardly any, and was thus continually obliged to "make do and mend".

Nevertheless, I caught plenty of fish. Amazing how soon the smiles can be wiped off a whole line of "Beach-casters", by some bloke coming along and hauling out a bagful of fish on apparently primitive, obviously makeshift, and otherwise unheard of equipment, and by using techniques they had never even considered. Quite apart from not using "bait" as such. That it was absolutely revolutionary, is putting it mildly. Strangely enough, practically nobody tried to copy it. Something which still puzzles me.

Satisfying though it may be to wipe smiles in such a fashion, that was not my main reason for doing it. I wanted the fish, not only did I want them, I needed them to feed my family. Nobody in his right mind will ever mistake me for a "purist"! There have been times when I would use anything at all, under any circumstances at all, legal or illegal, in order to catch a fish. I had no choice, I was dependent on catching them. This is doubtless hard for many to understand nowadays, but it was the case for me and quite a few others I knew then.

Fortunately these times are long gone, and I no longer have a valid reason for being quite so rabid. Also, I have been fortunate in that I have been able to indulge in all sorts of tackle and experiments over the years that ensued, in a wide variety of places. Obviously not everybody can do this, even if they wanted to. These things also coloured my perceptions with regard to angling.


However this may be, I have never lost sight of my original reasons for fly-fishing, in the salt or anywhere else. I wanted to catch as many fish as possible, in the shortest possible time, and with the least amount of cost or fuss and bother. Fly-fishing was the only way to do this with any consistency. I have heard all sorts of objections to this, indeed people get quite heated about it for some reason, and proceed to argue about it. It was nonetheless the truth when I started, and it still is! Of course, I don't "need" to catch the fish any more, but I still enjoy doing so, immensely!

Even given that my definition of fly-fishing may be just a smidgeon broader than many other people's definitions, it still puzzles me that so few actually realise how effective it is. This has partly to do with most people's pre-conceived notions of fly-fishing. The picture that springs to most people's minds, even many anglers' minds, is that of upstream dry fly fishing on a chalk stream. This is fly-fishing of course, and very enjoyable it is too, but it is a method whereby the angler is artificially restricted to certain tackle and techniques, which make it more difficult to catch the fish in the first place. This is of course fair enough if you want to abide by such rules. Also, if you want to fish in places like that you have to abide by the rules.

Locations and rules differ widely of course, as do customs, traditions, and social mores. Many anglers now have decidedly different ethics and morals to those I basically grew up with.  So, without further preamble, here is my "definition" of fly-fishing. If you have a "fly" somewhere on the business end of your tackle which is designed to fool and hook a feeding fish, then you are fly-fishing.  How you define a "fly" I will leave entirely up to you!

That wasn't too hard was it? Or are you still gasping for breath? Never mind, you will get over it, just think of all the fish!

One of the first articles I ever wrote on saltwater fly-fishing concerned itself with the problems involved in reaching areas which are simply not reachable with conventional fly-fishing tackle. To whit, by using a fly-line. I intimated that I would provide some "tricks" in order to overcome this to an extent. Well, the simplest "trick" is to do away with the fly-line, and simply use a lead weight! Using any halfway reasonable rod and reel, it is possible to propel a 30g weight a very long way indeed. Reaching maximum distance is also a matter of some skill, but it is a damn sight easier to achieve than long distance fly-casting, and there is no way even the best fly-caster in the world, armed with the best possible equipment, and under optimum conditions, is ever going to reach even remotely similar distances using a fly-line.

One can simply do this, and very successful it is too, with the appropriate flies. It does of course suffer from some severe disadvantages. One of which is, that lead weights will not float very well, and thus it is difficult to present flies that would otherwise be used with a floating line, or an intermediate, or those that require precise sink rates and the like.

Hang on a minute? Perhaps one could use a floating weight? Indeed one could, and an ever-increasing number of people do exactly that, when fishing the Baltic for sea-trout and other fish.

The simplest form of this is to use a so-called "Bubble" float. This is a plastic sphere, which is partially filled with water to give it casting weight. One may obtain these in varying diameters, and wonder of wonders, they can even be matched exactly to the casting weight of a fly rod! If you want to do that.

There are now even special "combination" rods available, (although some people have been building and using these for years), basically consisting of a fly-rod with a detachable "fighting butt". This allows one to mount a fixed spool reel, (or others, but we will come to that), and use it properly as a casting rod.

This is a remarkable advance! Instead of being limited to fishing areas a hundred feet away, we have increased our distance potential at least threefold and usually a lot more! Furthermore, we are far less likely to be disturbed by windy conditions, or tight casting spots!

Techniques are quite simple, and basically identical to the techniques one would use with a floating line. The bubble float is threaded on to the main line (10 to 15 lb breaking strain monofilament nylon is a good choice, but one of the new special braids is even better!), one requires a bubble float with a central hollow stem, a rubber shock bead is threaded on, and a swivel is attached.

One may now mount ones leader, anything from 6 to 12 feet, dependent mainly on rod length, and then the fly. The fishing is more or less exactly the same as it would be with a fly line. One has a direct connection to the fly, (which is why braid is better, it does not stretch, and even the tiniest "pluck" will be felt immediately), as the float is mounted to slide freely, basically the same amount of control is possible, although it is not quite the same of course, and one can cover a great deal more water as well. All the techniques described for use with floating lines can be used, with no restrictions whatever!

Of course one has the weight of the float on the line when fighting a fish, but this is a minor disadvantage in view of all the other advantages. What is more, even the most expensive bubble float you can find, (they come in all shapes and sizes in the meantime), will never cost more than about a pound or so! Now it may well be possible to buy a fly-line for a pound as well, I am a cautious individual by nature, and so I hesitate to say that it is even unlikely. many of my shooting heads cost less than that! What is however extremely likely, is that you will have to pay a very great deal more for what most would consider a halfway decent fly-line.

These then are our basic considerations of "special techniques". We can of course go on to refine them even more.

Many people have problems retrieving such a rig at the right speed when using a fixed spool reel. They are simply far too fast! One may buy a very good "sidecast" reel nowadays, which immediately obviates such problems. They are not even all that expensive. To cast, the reel is flipped over so that the spool is horizontal, when the cast is complete, the reel is flipped back to its normal position. I use this one a lot, and have been doing so for years;

http://www.mullarkeys.co.uk/fishing/fishing-reels/centrepin-fishing-reels-for-fresh-and-saltwater/0/shakespeare/806/

One or two people have told me, "But you can't manipulate the line with your fingers. It will tangle". Quite true, but why bother anyway? Use the reel to retrieve. This has a number of advantages. You can retrieve at any reasonable speed you like without involving yourself in various ridiculous and complex prestidigitation.

You don't need a line tray or anything like that, because you have no line blowing or floating around. You have no "slack" to wind in like a madman, when a fish takes it is "on the reel" immediately. You can wear gloves if necessary, and avoid cold chapped and damaged hands, and of course you also avoid line cuts and similar things, as except for when you cast, there is no need to touch the line at all!

Sounds brilliant to me! Indeed it is brilliant, and frighteningly simple!

But there is yet more to come!. "Fascist", "Fetishist", "Fifth-columnist", the anguished cries ring out, as a result of all this heresy. Oh well, into every life a little rain must fall!

Wouldn't it be nice if there were floats which behaved exactly like fly-lines? You know, a floater, a slow sinker, etc?

Well there are! About sixty percent of the fish I have caught on the Baltic in the last ten years, especially many of the large ones at long range, have been caught while using them! Indeed, it would probably be fair to say that I would not have caught even a small proportion of that sixty percent, had I not used them! Taking it further, about 90 percent (probably more in fact), of the fish I have caught under adverse conditions, at long range, or at difficult and restricted venues, have been caught while using them. Many times when it was quite impossible to use a fly-line in any case!

So what are these miracle things then? They are called, (absurdly enough), "casting floats". They also have very interesting sounding Italian names, depending on their function. "Sbirulinos" is the generic name. They were in fact invented in Italy, and guess what for?

Presenting bait delicately and precisely, at all depths and under all conditions, specifically for catching very difficult trout in lakes and ponds!

Here are some pictures of my "Baltic float wallet". Apart from rod, reel, (Mono or braid) line, and flies. It contains everything necessary for fly-fishing quite comfortably under practically any conditions on the Baltic (or anywhere else for that matter).







These floats are now available at a range of tackle dealers, also in the UK.

The whole wallet, including the contents, does not cost as much as what many would consider a single half-way decent fly-line, and the set replaces any fly-line, under any circumstances, and will still allow good fishing when a fly-line is nothing but a nuisance and a liability!

This set is rather heavier than most people use, but that is because I use a fair number of large flies, and I need the weight to carry them. Many people restrict themselves to 10g Sbirulinos and smaller or lighter flies.

I also use a somewhat more robust rod than most, in point of fact a 13 ft 1 1/2 lb test carp rod.  Although I have others and can fish a lot lighter if I wish.  Many people carry a couple of these floats and use them with their fly rods. You need a different reel of course, most use a small fixed spool reel.

I can belt these floats out over a hundred and twenty YARDS!! and more  if required. Even in a howling gale, I can still reach forty or fifty yards or more, with consummate ease. I cannot do that with conventional fly-lines. No matter what super-dooper-tapers, or "special" heads I might use. It is simply a no contest!

So, if you want to try salt-water fly-fishing, get a couple of these floats, or even use the bubble float I mentioned. There is no need to spend a fortune on fly gear, and a great deal of time and effort learning how to use it, you can go fly-fishing immediately!

Remember, all we have done here is to take the fly-line out of the equation. Everything else, including the flies, tactics, etc remains the same. One still needs all the same knowledge,information, and flies, for the various things, but one has broadened one's scope very considerably, at the same time removing one of the major difficulties, most especially under adverse conditions.

Many "dyed in the wool" fly-casters will not wish to do this. Fair enough, you don't have to.

As I said, these "floats" originated in Italy, and are used for a wide range of purposes. They have now become very popular in mainland Europe, most especially for catching trout in "put and take" lakes. Most experts at this particular form of angling use live-bait, usually maggots, meal worms, Tebo grubs, and similar stuff. Flies are also extremely successful.

Originally known as "Bombardas", and a host of other Italian names, depending on the particular type and function involved, they resemble very streamlined pre-weighted floats. In the meantime, they are produced by quite a few firms, and a large range of weights and types is available.

There are the original floating models, and a whole host of newer models with various characteristics, and properties . Intermediate, (neutral density), slow sinking, medium sinking, fast sinking, etc etc being just a few. There are models which are made of special plastic materials, which renders them more or less invisible in water, very streamlined and wake free. They are also practically indestructible in use.

The original floating models function much like the old "bubble float", but are much more accurate, the weight and density is consistent, they are much easier to cast, and due to their design, cause very little surface disturbance when retrieved. In fact when retrieved slowly, which contrary to popular opinion is the best universal retrieve speed for sea-trout anyway! they cause none at all. They are available in weights from 3g to 60g, from various manufacturers.

My own main Baltic "set", is made up of a range of various types, which starts at 25g, and ends at 40g. There is no reason for me to use any much finer/heavier gear, for my particular purposes. (Mainly fishing the Baltic of course). They can be used to present a whole host of things to the fish, very accurately, and with perfect control.

For presenting flies, rubber worms, muppets, and various other lures and bait as well if desired, they are unbeatable. One may fish very slowly, just as with a fly-line, and the presentation is excellent. Casting restrictions which might cause problems with a fly-line, like trees, bushes, rocks, cliffs etcetera at ones back, are no longer a problem. Casting is of course simplicity itself, and can be quickly learned, there is no need to learn any complicated (and exhausting!!!), casting techniques, like double hauling etc. They are of course very much cheaper than fly-lines, and far more versatile.

I prefer "active" angling methods, to "static" ones. They are also invariably a lot more successful. That is to say, that I prefer fly-fishing, or even spinning, or similar methods to just sitting and watching a rod top, or a float. This equipment lends itself to a whole host of "active" presentations.

There are only three knots in the system, leader to fly, leader to swivel, and mainline to swivel. A normal swivel may be used for pure fly fishing, the float is threaded onto the main line through its central stem, (usually of clear flexible plastic), at this point I usually add a synthetic rubber "Shock bead", and the line is then knotted to the swivel. I use tucked half blood knots for this, (I can tie them blind, or with freezing fingers!) and have never had a problem.

These things may of course be used with practically any rod, like the modified fly-rods mentioned, but for my specific purposes, I have found a thirteen foot light carp rod most useful, as this also allows me to use other methods, if I feel like it. It also makes using much longer leaders easier.

Please remember, I use this equipment in the ocean, where there are virtually no rules or regulations governing what one uses. Such equipment may well be illegal on other waters!

I will get back to flies in the next section and allow you to recover from any bruised sensibilities!  

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

So, back to flies.  Here is some more detail on shrimps. In the photo one is greyish, and the other is more of a fawn colour. Both shrimps are dubbed with hare body fur, and both are ribbed with cheap soft cock hackles from Indian capes. One is a light cree colour, and the other is a somewhat darker cuckoo (grizzly) colour. Both have the same cheap cock hackle tips as "claws", from a cree type Indian cape, but one is longer and darker than the other.



Now you may feel that this is splitting hairs, but these two shrimps work best under entirely separate and specific conditions, which are again entirely separate from the conditions under which the other two work.

Of course, they will work under practically any conditions under which a shrimp is likely to work, and better than most, but they will work FAR BETTER! when used in the right conditions.

The greyish "red hook" shrimp is typical of the shrimps found in water with a low saline content, and a darkish bottom, of rock, stones, mud etc. The fact that it has a highly visible red hook still makes it very obvious, even when wet, translucent, and in murky water. So where do I use this shrimp?

Anywhere where the water is less saline, and especially if the bottom is dark coloured or stirred up!

I use the fawn coloured one in water which is more saline, and where the bottom is sandy, or also stirred up. Both these conditions are easily tested. Look at the water, and taste it! ( Carefully! and not around sewage outflows and the like!).If it is salty and murky, you know what to use! It is basically as simple as that.

Why are the shrimps tied "backwards"? This is not to make them look more attractive to an angler's eyes, although of course it does so. It is quite simply because when a shrimp flees, it does so backwards, in short fast spurts. So we now know how to retrieve it as well! They have "eyes" of melted monofilament, because this is a prominent feature on shrimps, and they have "feelers" and "claws" for the same reason.

I don't usually bother with tails. It does not seem to make any difference at all to the fish, and can be a nuisance when tying flies on to the leader, as it obstructs the eye of the hook. Also, a tail may cause the shrimp to move backwards in the wrong way when the line is jerked. This would be very unnatural behaviour, and is best avoided. One may epoxy the backs of these patterns, but it makes them heavier, and removes some of the built in movement, so I don't do it any more. They are robust enough anyway. They are tightly ribbed with wire, and I have caught upwards of twenty fish or more on such a fly without it losing either its shape or its effectiveness. They do tend to get a bit raggy in use, this only makes them more effective! Of course they will eventually fall to bits. Nothing lasts forever, not even epoxy flies.

Short fast spurts, means a movement of anything from one to three inches, with pauses in between. Stripping in shrimps at high speed, or with foot long hauls, is unlikely to be successful. These creatures simply cannot move so fast or so far at a time. You may catch an odd fish doing this, in fact you probably will, but you will catch a lot more if you retrieve as described. These flies are fished on a floating or intermediate line. I usually use slightly longer and finer leaders for this. Indeed I go down to 6lb mono on occasion, to preserve the "movement" of the fly. The thickness of the leader will also affect the rate of descent. If you are snagging up on the bottom, or weed, all the time, don't change your rate of retrieve, put on shorter or thicker tippet.

The flies in the photo all have bodies about 20mm long, and are overall between 25 and 30mm in length. Most shrimps I have caught and seen are about this size, although I have also caught larger and smaller ones. As I have no way of knowing what size the shrimps may be in any particular area at any particular time, or if the fish even care much, I decided long ago to use this general size. I don't carry any other sizes. I see no point in doing so. I have at least a dozen flies of each pattern, (although usually more), in my box. All I have to decide is which colour to use when. This has proved eminently successful, and I see no reason to change a successful tactic.

These shrimps by the way, are also ideal seatrout flies in rivers! I usually add a little bit of red to the dubbing for river fishing. They are much more successful than some of the other various concoctions on offer. If you see bright red or bright orange shrimps swimming around, get out of the water quick! It is boiling! Shrimps, crabs, and other crustaceans only turn bright red when boiled. It is a chemical change in the carapace. However, on occasion, bright coloured flies will work.

Several people have intimated that a bright orange fly may be successful under some conditions. Indeed, I agree, and in such conditions, usually a bright green algal bloom, very cold water, and sometimes even in bright sunshine! I will put on a bright orange woolly bugger, or similar. But I don't try to kid myself that it is a shrimp imitation. There is no way to know how the fish perceive it of course, they may well take it as a shrimp. Doesn't matter much as long as they do take it.  There is however a fairly major problem with many "fancy" flies, and this is knowing when and how to use them.  As you have no naturals like this to base your conclusions on, all you can basically do is try these flies sometimes or read about how other people use them. This is not very satisfactory of course and does make such flies generally far less reliable than good imitations of various naturals.

Even if you decide to copy various flies from books etc. At least try to make sure that they will be of some use. Analyse them carefully, even just looking at the illustrations will give you a lot of information. If the materials are listed, or the dressing instructions, then so much the better. Even if you don't dress flies yourself, reading such stuff will still help you a great deal in deciding what flies to buy and why. Many of the monstrosities offered for sale are absolutely useless.

Although some "fancy" doe work on occasion, and some have a long tradition, especially for salmonids in freshwater, and lately in salt-water for other fish, basically all of them rely on chance and can often be a waste of time, money, and materials. Of course they will eventually catch a fish. Quite irrespective of what you use, bits of red flannel, strips of old underpants, or the "chanty handle" of Scots ghillie fame, if you cast and retrieve it long enough, then eventually something or other will grab it. I much prefer to use something sensible, it means I don't have to wait so long between fish!

Some analyses of various other flies.




The flies in the picture are the "Red Tag" (palmered), the "Juletrae" (Christmas Tree), and the "Grey Frede" (variant).
Apart from the Juletrae, which is a cold and clear water shrimp imitation, made entirely of pearl mylar tubing, and should be fished extremely slowly, which is often an extremely boring, and (per definition!) usually a very cold experience. These flies are really the core of my "small fly" armoury. If I had no others, I would be fairly happy to use these flies in various sizes and colour variations.

The Red Tag

I use red tags in a number of variations, the one in the picture is simply a closely palmered variation on a saltwater hook. This fly is an excellent imitation of a large number of small crustaceans and other creatures which live on or near weeds, most especially kelp and similar plants. I use it in sizes from 10 to size 4 longshank. Weighted and unweighted, and with or without bead chain eyes, depending on where I wish to use it and why. Whether I use bead chain eyes or other weight, or both, on various flies, depends mainly on what attitude I wish the fly to attain in use, or the sink rate or behaviour I am looking for.

For the most part, weighted flies, most especially many fish imitations, are not usually as effective, as light mobile flies. For the simple reason that none of these creatures sink like a stone when left to their own devices! Indeed, many suspend themselves in the water with barely a movement, except for finning. This is impossible with a weighted fly. Diving to the bottom when disturbed is a common tactic for some fish, and especially for sand eels. Other fish head for the surface fast, and may be seen leaping out of the water to escape predators. Using weighted flies to imitate such fish is often only partially successful. For imitating specific behaviour the tackle in use (line type, sinking, floating, intermediate, and the leaders), is at least as important as the flies, as indeed is the manipulation of the whole setup. Flies which allow a "sink and draw" action like Clousers for instance, can sometimes be very effective indeed of course, and are good as searching patterns as well, but I would not use them to the exclusion of all else.

On some flies I use soft hen or soft cock hackle for palmering, on others stiff cock hackle. Also dependent on where and how I wish to use the fly.

In the weeds!

This particular Red tag pattern may be fished in a large number of ways, under a large number of extremely varied conditions. In weeds, it is just about unbeatable. One may leave the red tag off, just use a shoulder hackle, or use different coloured tags by way of experiment, yellow or green are sometimes very effective. Some crustaceans carry balls of eggs around with them at certain times, which is then a fair mouthful for the fish, and the tag is a pretty good representation of this. In summer, a white tag is also often effective.

I use this fly mainly on a floating line, and either in or around weed beds. The stiff cock hackle variation pictured, which should have close palmered stiff hackles at least one and a half times the length of the hook gape, act as "brush off" filaments. One may pull this fly directly through kelp, bladderwrack, or eelgrass, at very slow to medium retrieve speeds, using a variety of spurts, darts, jumps, or even long slow pulls, with plenty of pauses, and it will not usually hang up!

Ribs and synthetics

One may rib the fly with monofilament, or with wire. For light flies use the monofilament. Also when tying the fly, a dab of glue on the thread base helps to keep the herl from being shredded or falling off too soon. The hackle is tied in butt first at the head, ribbed down the body, in either close or more open turns, depending on the effect required. The hackle is secured at the bend by the ribbing, which is also then taken up the body, and tied off at the head. One may add contrasting head hackles, put the "tag" at the head or throat, etc etc. all depending on what one wishes to imitate. Some wire wont last long in salt water. Use lacquered wire not bare copper etc, and you can also use various synthetics instead of course.

This fly and its variations catch a very large number of fish when used correctly. Although much of the flora and fauna dies off or hibernates, or simply clears off somewhere else, in winter on the Baltic, there are always some creatures in the weed. Very many sorts of crustaceans may be found there, and the vast majority of these are some sort of shiny brownish red colour, sometimes with greenish or other tints.

There are now a number of synthetics available, which seem like reasonable and more robust substitutes for peacock herl, and I have indeed tried a couple. As yet I have nothing much to report on these, mainly because although I tied quite a few, I have still not tried them much, as I trust my old standbys too much, and don't want to risk wasting a lot of time trying new things which may or may not work, especially in winter, when conditions can be difficult anyway. There is nothing to stop you trying stuff like this. It may be OK or it may not be much good at all, the only way to find out is to try it.

As far as the remainder of the available creatures are concerned, apart from a few crabs etc, they are either fish of some sort with particular markings and characteristics, or crustaceans and similar, which are almost universally a browny grey in colour. Occasionally olive variations may also be found.

The grey frede

Which brings us to our next fly. This has as many variations as the red tag. The fly in the picture, which is a specific variant of the grey frede, is for a specific purpose. It has heavy bead chain eyes, on top of the hook, a stiff short grizzly hackle, closely palmered along the body, and ribbed with wire. The tail is a brown grey partridge body feather, (the original uses grizzly chickabou), with the curve downwards, and it has a couple of strands of olive crystal flash over the tail.

The bead chain eyes look too big for the fly, but there is a reason for this. First of all, the fly always fishes hook point up. The heavy bead chain eyes ensure this. This prevents it continually snagging on the bottom, where it should be most of the time. The stiff hackle brushes off most weed and the like, as long as retrieve speeds remain slow to moderate. This fly may also be used to imitate a whole range of various crustaceans and similar.

It is best fished very slowly "sink and draw", in most places. When used on sand patches, in amongst weed and the like, (especially good for close range sight fishing in summer by the way), it should be allowed to sink to the bottom, and then given a slight jerk, which causes it to kick up a tiny "spurt" of sand. If you do this right, it will not be long before a hunting predator grabs it. It can also be successful on flatfish.

Indeed, this is also one of the few flies in my box which regularly catches flatfish. I use a largish well splayed red or bright yellow tag on the flatfish flies, as they are very nosy creatures, and will often come to investigate brightly coloured things. If they look and behave like food, then they will be grabbed. Surprising what a fight even a small flatfish puts up on a fly rod! For years flatfish anglers have placed various coloured beads and spinner blades etc close to their bait, in order to attract flatfish. It works very well, and there is a lot of room for experimentation here. I have two other very specialised "flatfish" flies, but they belong in another article.

Variations

There are one or two people who basically only use this fly, in a number of sizes. I have it in three sizes. The one in the picture is the smallest, with a body length of 15mm, and overall, including the tail, of 25mm. The body dubbing is once again hare body fur. The original "Grey Frede" may be found here;

http://globalflyfisher.com/patterns/frede.htm

along with some useful variations;

http://globalflyfisher.com/patterns/blackfrede.htm

http://globalflyfisher.com/patterns/copperfrede/

It is once again simply a variation on the old "woolly bugger" theme, but a very successful one. Slight variations of this fly, and of course the original, will be found in practically every Danish salt-water angler's fly-box.

It works in summer or winter, and is best used around structure, in clear sand patches close to or in weedbeds, near rocks, on stony ground with little more than algae on them, and it will prove successful. It may be tied in the original grey, as shown, with any number of variations, olive is also a good colour, black and copper, as shown at the URL´s given, and even using stuff like silver "fritz" ( glitter chenille) or similar. All these variants will catch fish. You will still catch the most on accurately fished imitations of actual creatures though. Don't be tempted to fill your boxes with a large collection of bright fancy creations, they are of only very limited use, and worst of all, one has no real idea when to use them at all. Most are "desperation" flies.  "Bling" of various types can obviously be important on certain flies, and some flies depend on it entirely, but as a general rule it is best used with restraint, to give "accents" or a small amount of flash. Using too much may not work very well. There are no hard and fast rules for this, use what you think is best.

Bait fish

And so we move on to various other fish imitations. As previously noted one may use clousers and deceivers of course, simply ringing the colour changes to suit. But I have my own fish imitation variations which I prefer.

In the picture below, a range of my baitfish imitations can be seen. One of my favourites is missing, and that is a "Mickey Finn" tied thunder creek style. This is because I still have not replaced the ones I lost last year. I fish these by stripping them fairly fast and jerkilly through eelgrass, which is bright green in colour, and gives the whole area a bright green tinge. Now and again I get hung up either in the grass itself, or on strands of kelp or bladderwrack. This stuff may look fragile, but it most certainly is not! If the hook has actually caught in the plant, then you invariably lose the fly. Unless you can reach the plant of course, but you might also ruin a good spot by wading through it, even if this is possible!



I use Arctic fox for my "Mickey Finns" by the way, not the original bucktail, for reasons of mobility.

If a hooked fish wraps you around weed, you will also more than likely lose your fly. I usually use a short relatively fragile tippet, (still not less than 6 lb BS though!) for this reason. Stronger tippet would not improve my chances much of getting out of the weed, and I don't want to "hang a fish up" on longer pieces of line. I experimented for quite a while trying to make some of these flies "weedless", and indeed I was successful to some extent, but it also made them very bad hookers, so I eventually desisted. Now, I simply accept that I have to sacrifice a few in order to catch fish.

I use these flies mainly in the Baltic, and the Baltic is a fairly unusual ecosystem with a huge range of fish and other species, because the salinity varies widely there are lots of fish in some places which would be considered fresh water fish by most UK and other anglers.  This also accounts for my having such a lot of patterns. Many of these will only work reliably where the naturals are to be found.

Mobility

Practically all the flies shown use either marabou or, (much better, and far more robust as well), Arctic fox hair. Many flies dressed with things like bucktail, and some other stuff, look alright on the bench, but are simply not mobile enough in the water for me. Bucktail is also very fragile, and I hardly use any flies with bucktail wings in the salt any more. Using Arctic fox, and some specific dressing methods, one may give an impression of bulk, but at the same time attain wonderful translucence and mobility. This is usually precisely what we are trying to achieve. There are now whole ranges of synthetics which work pretty well for this too.

The slightest movement in the water, or even a tiny pull on the line, will cause such flies to pulse and "swim" just like the real thing. It is easy to try it, just tie a few up, and play with them tied to a length of line, and a stick or something , in your bath, (lock the bathroom door first! You would be surprised what people will say if they catch you doing it.    This will also give you some insight into the speeds and types of retrieves you should be using.

You will notice that most of the baitfish flies have no "bodies" to speak of. This is designed to be so. Solid bodies often don't work very well. They give poor silhouettes, and prevent the translucence and mobility we are attempting. Apart from which, it is much easier and quicker to dress  flies without them! Although this is indeed a secondary consideration.

Wake flies and epoxy

Some of the patterns are known, most are my own inventions. The stickleback variation, (with the red throat) and the herring fry, (with the blue in the wing), have proved extremely successful everywhere. The Muddler is a special variant, which has a "zonker" strip of natural deerhair for its back and "wing". This makes the thing float very well indeed. It is also fairly durable. It may be used on a sinking line, or as a "wake" lure. Surprising as it may seem, cod will "rise" and grab such lures with enthusiasm on occasion. Sea-trout will also sometimes hammer such a fly. they seem to work best in flat calm, but they will also work in a wave. A lump of closed cell foam, mounted on a tube, and coloured with a marker, or spray paint (Black is the best colour for dusk and night fishing!), works just as well, and is far less of a pain to make.

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

I use many of these lures as tube flies as well. This is a pretty good idea in the salt and over stony ground etc, as you can change damaged hooks easily, or use other hooks to affect the action of the lure. You may notice that there are no flies with epoxy or silicone in my selection to date. There are several reasons for this. The main reason is that such flies tend to be relatively heavy, and lack mobility. They are also a terrible mess on at the vice, and over the years I have discovered that they are hardly more durable, although often less effective than those flies made without. They may be very useful for some things, but for my purposes they have actually not proven very successful at all. I still use a few and I have experimented a lot with various systems, the UV-gel type resin is much nicer and easier to use than epoxy for instance.I do use epoxy for fixing some things like eyes, legs, whatever,  making some heads more durable etc  but I don't rely on it for shaping flies and stuff like that.

Synthetics or natural?

Also, you will notice that I don't actually use many synthetics either, apart from crystal flash and some obvious synthetics like polypropylene cord and stuff like that. It is not that I have anything against them per se, but the natural materials I use for most things are at least as good and probably better in most cases. They are also a lot cheaper. We are tying some relatively large flies here, and when using a generous helping, some synthetics just don't go very far. I see no good reason why I should make my flies more expensive just for the sake of it, and there are no other perceptible advantages to be gained. The synthetics generally offer a larger colour range, but the texture and mobility often leaves a lot to be desired. Extremely bright flashy colours are often detrimental, and so I don't use them anyway.

Some of these things look very good on the bench, but fail miserably in practice. I still use a few silicone and epoxy flies, and I often buy various synthetics to try, which take my fancy, but I would not cry much if I did not have them. Mobility and behaviour is much more important than "dry" looks.

Just as for the shrimps and other flies, the baitfish are weighted and unweighted, depending on how they are going to be used and where. Practically all my needs for baitfish and similar stuff could be fulfilled with a few colours of Arctic fox hair, a few colours of crystal flash, and the appropriate threads.

Indeed I doubt that the materials and equipment for tying this whole selection, or a similar one based on the same premises, would cost more than a few pounds in total, and one could tie enough flies to last for years from it.

Experiments and the "core base"

Of course, like many others, I often carry a lot of flies which I hardly ever have occasion to use, and I am always experimenting with new ones. But basically, the selection you have seen in this short series of articles would suffice for practically anything anywhere. One might have to adjust sizes, and one or two colour schemes, to suit local conditions, but otherwise, they should work anywhere at all.

When conditions are good, and there are plenty of fish, these patterns will work extremely well when used correctly, and much more to the point, they will still work in poor conditions, This can not be said of a lot of randomly chosen flies, which will only work sometimes, and indeed probably not at all in difficult conditions. Quite apart from the difficulties involved in choosing one on any sort of logical basis.

One might add any number of patterns, or even subtract a few if required. The point is that one should at least have a "core" of patterns which suffice for most conditions, and techniques, know how they behave, so that they can be fished in an imitative fashion, and so that one does not have to ponder long when choosing flies for particular conditions or purposes.

Some relatively complex "constructed" flies like flatwings are not really my cup of tea. Sometimes they work alright, but they are invariably a lot of trouble to make, relatively fragile, and can be a beast to cast. So I don't bother with them much. Although I have caught a lot of fish on some of these things, especially when float tubing, or pontoon boating on the Baltic.

There are hosts of patterns extant, in books, magazines, and on the web, which one can try or modify to suit local conditions or creatures. This is entirely up to you. However, knowledge, information, and the ability to apply it correctly, is the main key to success in salt-water fly-fishing, of the area, its inhabitants, your flies, how and when to use them, and mobility is one of the others.

Mobility is of course only useful if you know where to go! Like many others, I am obliged to travel a fair way in order to fish my presently available and most frequented salt-water venues. Mainly on the Baltic of course, and practically always the Danish coastline, from the German border up to and including Funen, and also including the island of Als. This is a huge area, but over the years I have learned a great deal about it. Much of my knowledge is however still confined to relatively small areas.

When I fish places like parts of Sweden, Iceland, and the other Scandinavian countries I am no better off than any other angling tourist in terms of local knowledge of course, and although this may often be easily outweighed by the presence of more and better fish, this is not always the case.

My knowledge of various areas on the North east coast of England was also quite limited to certain areas. It may take a long time to discover certain things about various places.

Funen, and the whole surrounding area, is indeed a very good place to catch sea-trout, and a number of other things, but simply going there will not guarantee you a sea-trout in the salt. I know people who have tried for weeks or even months on end, and year after year, and have still not caught a sea-trout. Mainly because they rely on "death valley methods", chuck and chance techniques, vague generalisations, don't know what flies to use under which circumstances or where, etc, etc, etc. If they enjoy themselves then fair enough, but it is just not my cup of tea. I want to catch fish. I can get fresh air, frozen balls, and pneumonia, more or less anywhere with far less trouble! Just sitting in a bath full of freezing water would doubtless accomplish that!

Normally, most of my regular target areas can be reached in three to four hours by car. If I am staying there for days or weeks then just a few minutes of course. I will have informed myself as much as possible about conditions in the area, and I will have been following weather trends, water temperatures, and as much other relevant information as I can obtain, for some time. If one is a regular salt-water angler, one does this almost automatically. Indeed, although when one reads all this stuff, it seems like an insurmountable set of tasks, much of it becomes quite easy, and almost a habit, or "second nature", in time.

Nowadays, a very great deal of reliable and relevant information may be obtained from the Internet. This has made many things a great deal easier.

Usually, I will also ask anybody I know, who has been fishing in the area recently, how they got on, what conditions were like and so on. Unfortunately, very many anglers don't bother gathering much information at all, and they are consequently of little use as sources. Some may even tell you lies, exaggerating the fish they caught, or telling you they caught something when they did not. Some will only be able to give you very vague ideas of what conditions were like, they don't know the prevailing wind direction, the water temperature, or anything like that.

I have never been entirely sure why so many people actually tell lies about their angling trips, but it is quite common. Information (if you can call it that!), from such sources is of course generally useless. False information is indeed worse than none at all.

By far your greatest resource is your own knowledge and experience. The more you fish certain areas, the better you get to know them, and the more able you are to act on various intelligence, or react to various conditions.

This of course also presupposes that you do indeed fish the same areas regularly. If you travel to new unknown areas all the time, then things are much more difficult to arrange, and you will of course inevitably be less successful as a result. Whatever, the point of all this is, that you should have at least one or two possible alternatives to your chosen venue, or stretch, which you can reach in a reasonable time. This will allow you to fish even if conditions at your first choice are not good. Personally, if I have gone to the trouble of planning a trip, have driven four hours to get there, I will fish whatever happens, even if it is raining horse shit and coconuts! Going home without even trying is simply not a viable option as far as I am concerned.

This may be as simple as driving round the next headland or promontory, so that the wind is not so bad, or fishing the other side of a bay, so that the wind is behind you. There are of course a host of other reasons.

Apropos wind. For various reasons, it is often propitious to fish into a wind from the shore. This is because wind and wave action will then cause quite a lot of stuff to be washed up towards the shore, including a lot of potential fish food. Fish follow food, including bait-fish. If you find such food, then you will also usually find fish. Of course it may be much more difficult to cast as a result, but this is not a valid consideration. You are looking for fish, not for easy casting. If you just want easy casting, then you could quite easily stay at home, and do it on the lawn, or a local playing field.

Indeed, depending on wind strength, direction, and duration hitherto, it may also be difficult or impossible to wade as well. This is tough, but that's just how the cookie crumbles. Normally, if the fish are in shallow water anyway, then whether you are ten feet further out in the surf, or standing on the shore, is basically immaterial. This of course does not apply if you are fishing specific features like troughs, rock structures and the like. You will still need to reach them. If the surf and/or wind is such that you are unable to, then you must try somewhere else.

However this may be, and heavily dependent on other circumstances, it often takes time for things like wind direction changes to take effect, especially on large expanses of water. If you go to a venue where the wind has been mainly Westerly for the last few days, and when you arrive the wind is Easterly, then it is more than likely still better to find a shore line which normally fishes better in a Westerly wind. This also depends on various other factors.

This is often much more comfortable as well. The wind is then behind you, not in your face, and often the land will give you a fair amount of shelter. You can fish comfortably in the wind shadow of cliffs, headlands etc, secure in the knowledge that fish will still be there, because the food washed in by the hitherto prevailing Westerlies is still there. It does not disappear immediately, just because the wind changes direction. It may take hours or even days to have an effect. Of course other factors may influence your choice as well.

This is why you must try and discover how conditions have been, and not just how they are at the moment.

There are occasions when a wind change may have pretty sudden and drastic effects on the fishing though, and this mainly has to do, not with the food supply, but with the water temperature, (and in some cases the salinity).

In spring, and even in winter, activity (depending on your target fish), may be almost entirely dependent on the water temperature. A few hours of sunlight on a calm spring day warms the shallows up quite a bit. Such water may indeed be two or three degrees warmer than anywhere else. (Water below 6°C is usually pretty useless for seatrout fishing for instance).

If the wind changes direction from off shore to onshore, or at least in such a way that deeper water is blown in towards the shore, then fishing is likely to be useless almost immediately, as the warm water is very quickly cooled by the masses of deeper colder water moving in. This quite often occurs in spring at various places on the Baltic. What was a good spot, simply stops producing almost immediately.

Under such circumstances, it is often pointless to continue fishing there. If you suspect something like this has happened, just stick your thermometer in the water and check it. You should have checked the water temperature, and wind direction when you arrived anyway, and noted them. If the water temperature has dropped by a degree or so, or even more, then move somewhere else.

Especially in spring, the "warmest" water, (in the appropriate places of course,) will bring the best results. With regard to seatrout, water above 6°C is better, and 8° to 10°C is about optimal. This usually only occurs at certain specific times of year of course, and under quite specific circumstances, and in quite specific places. You must know these circumstances and act accordingly. In summer, the "coldest" water will bring the best results. The same applies at night of course.

Much the same effect on the fish (they bugger off!), may occur if water of higher salinity is blown in towards water of lower salinity. Remember, seatrout cannot tolerate high salinity water at low temperatures. The effect is much the same, just the cause is different. I now have a small electronic salinity meter, which I take along. I have not much experience of it yet, as I have only actually used it a couple of times, and only for a couple of seasons, but I am hoping that it will eventually provide me with as much useful, indeed often vital!, information as the thermometer I carry at all times. Buy a good and robust thermometer by the way, it needs to be accurate!

Even relatively slight changes in salinity can have drastic effects on a particular spot. Some claim to be able to "taste" the difference, and perhaps they can. I have never been able to do this with any great degree of accuracy. Of course I can taste major differences. If I am fishing near a freshwater outlet or similar, and the wind changes, and the water almost immediately becomes salty, then I can taste the difference, but subtle changes in salinity are beyond my abilities to determine (or were up to now). The fish notice them immediately of course, and react accordingly. If you want to try this, avoid eating salt and vinegar crisps, pickled eggs, baked beans, Vindaloo curries, and similar stuff, before you go fishing, or indeed while you are so engaged. This may help your waders last longer as well!

As a not entirely unimportant aside. Toilet facilities on the coast are often virtually non-existent. If you are caught short, it is also not a lot of use making a mad dash for a car-park three miles away, (only to find that the toilets are closed for the winter season!). I always carry a small folding aluminium-alloy trowel, and some sheets of toilet paper in a zip lock bag. If you have to go, you have to go, and there is no point at all in being coy about it. Nevertheless, leaving your lumps in various prominent places for others to view and step in at their leisure, is not a good idea.

Many of the angling considerations above, are mainly applicable to seatrout of course, this is indeed one of my primary target fish, but they also apply equally well in many other situations, and just as well in reverse! Many marine fish will generally not put up with high inflows of fresh water. They will also not tolerate higher temperatures. Various areas of the Baltic, due to its rather unusual configuration, and the behaviour and capabilities of its inhabitants, may be more severely affected by such things than other oceans, but the general principles involved apply everywhere.

These causes and effects must be very carefully considered and weighed as to their particular relevance to the target fish. The conditions may be very propitious for one fish, and lousy for another. This may require a change of tactics, or a change of venue to suit.

Strangely enough, although these effects and interdependencies, and the reactions of the fish to them in salt-water, are quite complex, one may nearly always reach a logical conclusion based on the facts, and this is invariably borne out by experience. This is by no means always the case when freshwater fishing. I believe this is because much more subtle weather and other changes affect freshwater fish much more than their marine brethren, and many of the effects of these subtle changes are not known, or are not as yet directly measurable. At least not in a way practical to anglers.

As we all know, wind and other weather phenomena are the result of changes in barometric pressure. The type of front moving into, or across an area, also has an effect on the results. A warm wind moving over warm water, will not have the same effect as a cold wind. There are any number of combinations, and they all have an effect on the area, and thus on the fish. Some effects are almost immediate, others may take some time to have an effect at all.

Direction and speed of such fronts is also important. Unfortunately, although anglers and others have been trying since time immemorial to set up general guidelines, witness the following rhyme for instance, most of these things are pretty useless in actual practice.

When the wind is in the east,
Then the fishes bite the least;
When the wind is in the west,
Then the fishes bite the best;
When the wind is in the north,
Then the fishes do come forth;
When the wind is in the south,
It blows the bait in the fish's mouth.

This rhyme, and a host of variations, have been in use for untold ages. There are lots of other "folklore" type sayings regarding fish and weather, but most are pretty useless, for the simple reason that the effects of various types of weather may indeed be highly localised. Basically entirely dependent on where you happen to be, and what you are trying to achieve. There are no simple general rules for everything.

Barometric pressure (as well as temperature of course) also affects the ability of water to retain dissolved gases. This affects the respiratory and osmoregulatory systems of fish, and insects, including various marine fauna. Unfortunately, just exactly how it affects them, in terms which would be of practical use to anglers, is not sufficiently well known to make it a calculable factor in most cases, although experience can of course help a lot here. If you have always had reasonable success using a specific fly in a certain place under certian conditions then the chances are good that you will do so again.

Best fishing conditions, at certain times in certain areas, may be, for instance, constant medium pressure and temperature. A relatively stable high in other words. Too high a temperature however, reduces the dissolved oxygen content in the water, and a fish which is unable to breathe properly will also not feed properly. Occasionally a rain storm or similar will bring fish on to feed, especially just before or just after one. Very acid rain may however have the reverse effect. This is mainly dependent on the buffering capacity of the water in the affected area, and the volume of precipitate involved.

Rapid changes in pressure or temperature cause fish problems, and they require time to adapt. Even in prolonged "poor" conditions, fish will usually be eventually forced to feed at some point, but it may take a long time before they do so. The larger the fish, the longer it can go between feeding times. (This is also species and habitat dependent). Some fish can survive for weeks or months without feeding. Marine fish are usually avid feeders in the shallows, this is why they move in to the shallows at all, because they often provide rich feeding conditions.

Once again, many of these things are the result of very complex interdependencies, and these may vary very considerably from place to place. If you keep a diary over a longer period of time, and you fish the same place regularly, (including in what you may consider poor conditions), then you may well see certain tendencies over time. Some research information is also available on the effects of barometric pressure and other factors on fish. But it is not really of much practical use to anglers as yet.

In much of Western Europe for instance, Easterly or Northeasterly winds are usually said to be bad for fishing (or at least for catching). This is not to say you wont catch anything if you go fishing in such circumstances, indeed you may catch the fish of a lifetime, it is just considered less likely. I usually ignore such prophecies, they have an unfortunate tendency to be self-fulfilling, and rely on my experience and knowledge to help me in whatever conditions I might meet. Looking for excuses why you wont catch anything, before you even go, is not a good idea anyway.

Only now is it becoming possible to predict the weather scientifically with a good degree of accuracy, and all factors are by no means known. Much the same applies to the factors which affect fish behaviour. One is more or less obliged to rely on the factors one knows and can "calculate", and basically ignore the others.

So, I hope you enjoyed reading this, and perhaps find some flies or tips which will help you out with your own fishing.

Regards and tight lines!

Mike Connor