Hello all does anyone use glass beads to suggest an air bubble on there emerging emerger flies.I am thinking about incorporating a glass bead on a few emerger patterns i use to see if it makes any improvement.If i was to try this what colour or type of glass bead would suggest an air bubble best.I was looking at these & wondering if this would be along the right track.
http://goo.gl/PpLAI (http://goo.gl/PpLAI)
Any advice welcome .Cheers
Those beads look OK. The main difficulty is finding beads of the right size to fit the hook. If you try to "force" glass beads around a hook bend they will break so plastic might suit you better. Also, the glass beads are quite heavy so are not the optimum choice for emergers. Lots of people use various flies with various beads now. There are a lot of various beads available, I have tried a few myself, ( although not recently), but didn't have much success with them.
TL
MC
Those look like the ones I get, often called mercury beads over here. Clear glass with the inside being silver, to represent the gas bubble.
White is popular as a head on chironomids, I also use the very small red and black on midge larva/pupa patterns and annelids.
Also tied on top of the hook, and it does work :)
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff507/Darwin9999/Scintilla-midge-2.jpg)
I was planning using it on a couple of snowshoe emergers that i use.But i do want them to float well enough as i use them often as a searching fly & would rather see the wing sticking out the water.I have some glass beads but in transparent gold already i can try & see if they will float.If they don't float i guess it will have to be plastic then.Cheers
It's pretty certain you wont get them to float. You need plastic beads for that, and they need to have some positive buoyancy at least. Can be very hard to find.
I found a few some years ago but I gave up pretty quickly after trying them. One thing I found that worked well were "Plopper" ( cast to land in the water with a "plop"), beetles dressed using them, but these flies had fairly specific and restricted uses. I still have a few in a box somewhere but have not used them for years.
TL
MC
What about a few turns of silver tinsel with a small blob of clear UV resin on top to represent an air bubble.This fly tying malarkey isn't always as straight forward as you first think sometimes.Cheers
Same problem, the resin is too heavy for floating flies. Even a small blob will sink a fly.
TL
MC
I guess then it's going to have to be Duo style then with a sight-er fly on with a glass bead emerger on the point.Might not be a bad thing anyway as i often fish more than one fly.Cheers
For "suspender" type flies, especially emergers, I generally use something like this;
http://www.illawarraflyfishers.com.au/flytying/suspender_nymph.htm (http://www.illawarraflyfishers.com.au/flytying/suspender_nymph.htm)
also works extremely well as a "klinkhammer style" this is very effective indeed;
http://www.danica.com/flytier/tzuellich/foam_hare_klink.htm (http://www.danica.com/flytier/tzuellich/foam_hare_klink.htm)
TL
MC
I tried a few flies with Styrofoam balls a few years ago & did catch fish but found them hard to see when fishing white foam feeding lanes.The klinkhammer one you linked is very good i used something similar last year tied with rabbit guard hair .I know you like your soft hackle flies.(Whats your thoughts on this one bubble kebari ) http://www.tenkarabum.com/kiwis-tenkara-flies.html (http://www.tenkarabum.com/kiwis-tenkara-flies.html)
I bought a Tenkara rod 2 years ago & have never used it will need to give it a try this year.
Tenkara flies are used with specialised techniques ( Tenkara of course! :) ) and so adding various weighted stuff like beads and so on does not have the same effect as when such flies are used with conventional gear, although it of course affects how the fly behaves.
Of course many Tenkara flies will work on conventional gear but usually not as well. While I am not averse to experimentation with anything at all, I tend to design flies with specific properties for specific applications, and although I have tried a lot of things I have usually found that many designs are simply less suitable for various purposes.
The idea of the "bubble" sounds attractive but there has always been a great deal of discussion and controversy about it. ( See Gary LaFontaine among others http://www.flyfishusa.com/flies/cadlarva.htm (http://www.flyfishusa.com/flies/cadlarva.htm) ).
http://www.troutnut.com/topic/2211/Lafontaine-sparkle-pupa (http://www.troutnut.com/topic/2211/Lafontaine-sparkle-pupa)
http://www.flyline.com/tips_trivia/all_that_glitters/ (http://www.flyline.com/tips_trivia/all_that_glitters/)
I corresponded with Gary and others on this subject for quite a while and have been involved in various discussions about it in various places over the years.The simple truth is that most flies don't have such bubbles and so adding one might well make a fly less effective. The only way to find out is to dress some and use them, but I would be very surprised if they were any more effective than good "conventional" flies. None of those I tried were.
TL
MC
As it happens I use a number of techniques which are very similar to Tenkara style fishing. This basically involves the use of a long rod ( I usually use a 14 footer), and various techniques and flies suited to it. This is however completely different to what is now considered "conventional" fly-fishing, the casting, lines, flies etc are all quite different to what most people use.
This book is a very worthwhile read if you want to try some "advanced Tenkara" style fishing;
http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16986.0 (http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16986.0)
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=The%20Angler%20and%20The%20loop%20Rod (http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=The%20Angler%20and%20The%20loop%20Rod)
I also use specialised teams of flies for this, among other things, ( but never more than three flies ), and various weighted flies are used for specific purposes, some info on that here;
http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16756.0 (http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16756.0)
this is also one of the reasons that discussing various flies divorced from the specific application is always difficult. What you use is largely determined by how you use it.
Flies with various beads do work but my opinion on that is that they usually work because they sink further. On very many occasions surface flies simply don't work because the fish are feeding sub-surface or even hard on the bottom. The only way to catch such fish is to get down to them. This is why bead heads and similar work so well. There may be some extra attraction from the "glint" of metal or other beads but the primary reason they work so well is the weight which allows them to actually reach the feeding fish.
TL
MC
Interesting read Mike i have read about Webster & the loop rod before & it looks very similar to Tenkara anyway.I tend to fish similar to this like the Americans with there high sticking often crawling up the river on knee pads with as long a rod as i can get away with & lifting as much of my line & leader off as possible.I find this my most effective method by far but it sure takes its toll on your body.Cheers
Do not quote me but I seem to remember on the advertising blurb some years ago that the
drying agent/desiccant Frogs Fanny will impart an air bubble if the fly is in the least bit submersed. You might want to look into that one. Weight will certainly not be a problem if that is true.
Tight Lines
Quote from: Rabmax on January 07, 2012, 01:45:21 PM
Interesting read Mike i have read about Webster & the loop rod before & it looks very similar to Tenkara anyway.I tend to fish similar to this like the Americans with there high sticking often crawling up the river on knee pads with as long a rod as i can get away with & lifting as much of my line & leader off as possible.I find this my most effective method by far but it sure takes its toll on your body.Cheers
I don't crawl or kneel much any more, my knees have unfortunately deteriorated quite a lot in recent years, but I still stay back and in cover as much as possible or at least with trees or bushes or even just a high bank behind me, although I don't wade much any more either, not a major loss as I usually preferred to avoid it anyway if I could. I also skip one or two places I would once have fished as crawling or kneeling would be necessary there. I certainly catch fewer fish in some places as a result, and forgo a few larger ones too, which I once would have caught, but that's how it goes. I still catch plenty so it's not really much of a problem yet. As long as I can still fish it doesn't matter if I have to skip some places. The method itself still works well and I use other methods as well which are not quite as strenuous but are also less successful. Being really stealthy requires one to be really fit, and as I wrote, my knees are going now, and a slipped disc doesn't help a lot either! :)
I definitely agree that keeping casting line off the water is often of paramount importance, something you just cant do with modern "short" rods and plastic lines. Indeed, this is also one of the reasons Tenkara is so successful, it causes far less disturbance.
TL
MC
Quote from: Highlander on January 07, 2012, 02:13:00 PM
Do not quote me but I seem to remember on the advertising blurb some years ago that the
drying agent/desiccant Frogs Fanny will impart an air bubble if the fly is in the least bit submersed. You might want to look into that one. Weight will certainly not be a problem if that is true.
Tight Lines
I cant remember where but i remember reading somewhere about people treating nymphs with Frogs Fanny to impart air bubbles & they reckoned they caught more fish. Worth a try Highlander