for the musky guys

[sandfly]

Heres a few for ya:

 

[Fredrick]

NIce what are they called ?

 

[sandfly]

fire tiger, perch, chub

 

[gfen]

Did you put the barring on the perch with a sharpie?

 

[tomgamber]

I use a sharpie but I just tie them as clousers...I don't catch too many perch on the surface.

 

[bam]

Nice! What size hook is that?

Ever think of tying in a stinger hook on those bad boys? I don't have any experince fishing for muskie, especially with flies but I get a lot of short strikes on soft plastics from pike in Canada. Can't wait to get up there with a fly rod...

 

[Fishidiot]

Nice ties Sandy.

Here's a few of the muskie flies I've tied recently.

I build all my own muskie bucktails (spinner lures for conventional fishing) and spinnerbaits and learned the hard way to include hooks toward the rear. In my experience fishing muskies with conventional gear, these fish often chase down a lure or fly from behind, bite down on it and promply turn to the side. With bucktails, I was almost always catching the fish in the corner of the mouth on the rear treble. I saw the same effect with plugs (most of the time) - fish was hooked on the rear treble. Now I mostly put just one treble in my bucktails. Based on this experience, I like a stinger hook in my musky flies. Most of my musky fishing is on shallow rivers around woody, shoreline cover so I also add a mono loop weed guard enabling the fly to snake over and thru cover a bit better. Some folks swear by enormous flies for muskies (and they do love big lures) but I keep my musky flies to usually under about 8 inches for ease of casting and include a wire bite tippet. As I've pointed out before, keep a muskie fly or two in your bass box just in case you see one of these big fellas while bass fishing.

 

[sandfly]

Tom they are not surface flies. they have lead in them. tied on 3/0 saltty hooks. used a sharpie. fishyidiot, muskies are tryin to bite the tail to stop the bait from escaping. I used to fish Noximixon lake in bucks for them in the 70's. Always hit the fly from the side, but seems a lure gets hit from behind. Maybe the speed is faster on the lure. will have to explore this some more since I'm making big wood lures for them as well.

 

[sandfly]

a few home made lures;
made from old chair legs,,

 

[beadhead2]

Bob
I am impressed , you did learn something while you were locked away lol

 

[tomgamber]

Sandy...where do you put the lead?

And I like your flies...I do the Clouser thing because it easier and I'm lazy. If they didn't have lead you could still fish them with lead heads.

 

[Fishidiot]

Sandfly,
Sweet lookin plugs!
Here's some musky spinnerbaits I tied/constructed recently.

 

[jayL]

Dave and sandfly,

You are both truly jacks of all trades. Great workmanship.

 

[sandfly]

thanks JL. Fishy we have to get together and swap ideas, lures. do you a pluggin rod or spining rod ?

 

[osprey]

Really NICE.........love those poppers for smallies on the susk , like dry fly fishing , when they're hungry sometimes you get 2-3 chances.

 

[sandfly]

uh, osprey you better look again they are 10" long. and 3/0 treble, if a smallie can swallow that i can't wait to see it.

 

[Fishidiot]

sandfly wrote:
thanks JL. Fishy we have to get together and swap ideas, lures. do you a pluggin rod or spining rod ?

For muskies I use a conventional rod with bait cast reel and 20lb mono. Of course, a lot of muskie guys these days use braid or dacron but I've always been comfortable with plain mono. I have only one musky rod.
I wish I lived closer to your shop - would like to see more of your lures etc. I too make custom plugs, mostly large poppers for surf fishing. These are easy to make on the lathe out of dowel sections. I load the butt end of the lure with lead sinkers and they cast a country mile. Don't have any pics right now as I gave away my current batch of lures to my nephew.

 

[osprey]

Sandfly........ooops didn't notice the ruler , they look kinda like pop'rs if you downsized them a bit the smallies would tear those up. They really are nice lookin lures man. You asked someone this question but i'm asking you , do you use a bait cast or spinning outfit to fish those?

 

[osprey]

Sandfly........my friends all say i'm crazy but when i lived in Liverpool on the susk i saw a female on a spawning bed that i swear went 30" there were a hundred 8" males all over top of her like soldiers guarding the queen , she was in an area where i had to drag the boat over rock ledges to get into , secluded , between two small islands in about 3 1/2' of water , i didn't try to catch it , out of season anyway but man what a fish.

 

[Millertime]

Sandy and FI

You guys are my heros. how many hours do you guys have in a day??

Everytime I turn around FI has a fish painting a classic salmon fly and now custom spinner baits. UNREAL.

I swear you there is like 35 hours in a 24 hour day for you guys. Really cool stuff.