Panfish Flies

[Baron]

I know I didn't want to tie my own but it sure was satisfying tonight when I caught a few bass and a gill on flies I had just tie recently. Size 12 Clouser w/red head.

 

[coyoterahn]

Ya"all got the fever! It gets better too!

 

[Baron]

Coy, what the heck, 5am? lol, wow you're an early bird. yes, I'm infected for sure.

Below is the little guy that slew last night's fish:

 

[JerryC]

I wouldn't call it a Clouser but it's still a nice fly and it caught fish which is important.

 

[Baron]

Haha thanks. Its packed with lead wire so it falls quickly. Without the lead it may have more or less resembled a mini Closer.
here is a #10. Better?

 

[Dave_W]

Baron wrote:
Better?

That's a good looking Clouser!

 

[JerryC]

Baron wrote:
Haha thanks. Its packed with lead wire so it falls quickly. Without the lead it may have more or less resembled a mini Closer.
here is a #10. Better?

Yep, nice little Clouser there. The first one you posted looks very much like a couple different pan fish flies I've seen.

 

[Baron]

Its still not proportionate but the sparseness is better. stacking hair is an art I need to practice for these mini sized Clousers.

Caught One very large gill today and three Perch today. Feels good to catch stuff on ones own flies.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Baron: I'm not sure if it's "propper", but I don't stack hair for my clousers. To my eye stacked hair looks too unnaturally even. I do try to even the hair as much as I can prior to cutting from the bucktail. I also "clean" the hair by firmly gripping the tips and removing short hair. You can also lay the hair on a smooth surface and push any very long hair back to generally even it with the clump.

Bottom line: a bit of unevenness is good. Your tie looks fine in that regard.

If I were to make a suggestion or two, I'd say go either a bit more sparse on the dark hair or a bit heavier on the white hair, depending on how fast you want it to sink. More material = slower sink rate.

Another suggestion: keep the krystal flash more or less sandwiched between the light and dark hair. I don;t think this greatly affects the effectiveness of the fly, but it would be more "correct" in terms of the traditional recipe.

 

[Baron]

Fly, I appreciate that suggestion. I need to do something about the long wild hairs when I select the deer hair. I was thinking to stack lightly but your suggestion to lay it out and get rid of the strays would be all that I need to do to get it under control and yet stay natural looking.
On these Clousers It would seem that using little enough is the issue.

I tried bottom fishing for panfish today at Mauch Chunk Lake today. Using the flies I tied I caught only one big Gill. It took a poorly tied Matuka. Saw a 20" very fat Pickerel boated and some perch and small gills. but all those fishing agreed it was a slow day. It seems we're stuck btwn summer and fall fishing conditions. Furthermore fishing 30' deep for gills on a flyrod is not fun. Thought I'd try it.

 

[afishinado]

Baron wrote:
Fly, I appreciate that suggestion. I need to do something about the long wild hairs when I select the deer hair. I was thinking to stack lightly but your suggestion to lay it out and get rid of the strays would be all that I need to do to get it under control and yet stay natural looking.
On these Clousers It would seem that using little enough is the issue.

I tried bottom fishing for panfish today at Mauch Chunk Lake today. Using the flies I tied I caught only one big Gill. It took a poorly tied Matuka. Saw a 20" very fat Pickerel boated and some perch and small gills. but all those fishing agreed it was a slow day. It seems we're stuck btwn summer and fall fishing conditions. Furthermore fishing 30' deep for gills on a flyrod is not fun. Thought I'd try it.

Try using a hair stacker to align tips >

 

[Baron]

Thanks Afish. In this video they're using Hyde hair whereas I'm trying to stack tail hair which is over size and long. I will continue to learn.

 

[JerryC]

Baron wrote:
Thanks Afish. In this video they're using Hyde hair whereas I'm trying to stack tail hair which is over size and long. I will continue to learn.

Generally, I stack my hair when tying Clouser minnows. It's not going to even up the tips of the buck tail. Also, it will highlight any extremely long piece of hair. Once it's stacked you can trim the bottoms even. This will make it easier to tie in.

 

[Baron]

I'll try that JerryC.

 

[Baron]

Has anyone actually used the Skip Morris SMP?

 

[Fly-Swatter]

IMO, all good advice. It depends on the tail.. I have some that are naturally even and some that have a few hairs per clump that are 30% longer than others. All I was getting at is you don't need to be OCD about stacking bucktail for clousers. The same is not necessarily true of deer body hair. It depends on the pattern.

YMMV

 

[Baron]

Yes it seems to be somewhat different btwn Hyde and bucktail stacking. Having them sparce and natural looking seems key to clouser tails. Whereas when tying short tails on other types of flies stacking may be more effective and appropriate.
The challenge is that when trying to tie under 2" clousers the randomness of the bucktail hair length makes it almost impossible......you ent up with only three hairs in the fly.

 

[Baron]

SMP. Image snagged from Panfish on the Fly.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

If you're tying such tiny Clousers (jiggy flies), consider other hair such as squirrel tail and/or calf tail. It's not hollow (sinks better), finer (better movement when short), and you shouldn't need to stack it (I'm not sure you can due to kinks in the hair).

Marabou, as you showed above, is great for small flies, too! Rabbit fur is a bit stiffer than marbou but still very lively in the water.

Now you see how fly tiers can get a lot of materials accumulated. None of these are expensive and should last for many flies.

 

[Baron]

Aha! I have Calf hair. White and Reddish Brown. that may be helpful.

I understand about collecting fly materials: