First Trout on the fly!

[SleepySheep]

After bending tiny fine tanago hooks with hemostats and messing up the snell knot, I went searching for something better and was lucky enough to get some of the Drennan micro disgorgers before things got beyond ridiculous with eBay and freight from the UK.

Now eBay forces sellers over there to use eBay's freight partners and they want about $30 to ship something that costs a dollar or two.

I've been trying for a while now to get a couple of extra of the "match sized" disgorgers which sometimes work better on bigger fish. There is a US based Drennan dealer but the freight cost is still a joke unless I build an order to get free freight but I don't need anything else...

I have also used the "midge" size of the Ketchum Release but the Drennan micro disgorger still works the best. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to fabricate something but you want it to be super smooth so it doesn't hurt the fish.

FWIW - Because I have fat fingers, I need a disgorger on almost every micro I catch. I found that having them at the ready is key to releasing the fish quickly. For that reason I have them hanging from my neck on a lanyard I made.

Thanks for the links! I also have fat fingers, so I pretty much always have a small pair of hemos *and* some tweezers ready to go when I'm microfishing.

 

[Kyle]

congrats on your first. many more to come!

 

[Phillyfisher]

I hope you ate Steven, that guy has been hogging up all the best parts of the pasture.

I can't be a purest though, because I'm a life lister. I do fully intend to explore the limits of what fish will take a fly and what species won't. Do you think there is a fly that darters would like? Has anyone here ever caught a spotfin shiner on the fly? What about suckers?

Caught one of these little guys in the Smokey Mtns

 

[SleepySheep]

Caught one of these little guys in the Smokey Mtns

That's a nice shiner! Yeah, I imagine chubs, shiners, fallfish, and their ilk will happily hit on a fly, but darters and some smaller species of shiners I think could be difficult. Won't know until I try it tho!