silly winter tip !

[Wildcat23]

I enjoy fishing throughout the year, and with the absence of real winter weather it has afforded us glorious "bonus time" this year.
One little winter tip that can help to replenish your fly boxes without extra time at the tying bench : look carefully at the barren trees and bushes as you move along a stream or wade into casting position.
You are likely to find numerous examples of "other people's errors" caught up in the branches (lord knows I have left enough of my own ) . Just being cognizant can add a half dozen flies or more during an outing.
It will also show you what some of the" regulars" are using on a particular stream or river, and with the low flows we have experienced most of this year, its easier to wade into places you may not usually have access to.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Good idea. GG

 

[DavidFin]

There's a branch at my local spot with a necklace of my flies on it like ears collected from dead soldiers.

 

[LetortAngler]

There's a certain decorated tree downstream from Benner Springs that has the largest collection of flies tangled mid-stream about 20ft above the water. Whoever scores that nest of flies will need a new fly box.

 

[Cornholio]

Make sure to pull the tangled line out. Those things are deathtraps for birds.

 

[salvelinus]

Once on the Allegheny I freed a bat that had tried to eat a fly hanging from a branch. It wasn't barbless and the bat would have died. I hope he lived.

 

[PennKev]

I've seen other people's flies.


I don't want them.

Much less when they are covered in rust and crud.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

I collect spinners I find in the trees in FFO sections. I have quite a collection.

 

[krayfish2]

+1 to Kev's post. In 30+ years of fly fishing, I don't think I've found 10 flies that I'd actually fish. I'm usually shocked when I see the stuff others are using.

 

[JackM]

I harvest, but usually further dissect, rescuing beads and cones. I have found and harvested fresh flies in the past and fished them successfully.

 

[McSneek]

I too harvest flies if easily accessible and the hook is in good shape. I'll take them home and strip off someone else's creation and replace it with my own.

Have quite a few spinners I've accumulated out of trees too. Should ind someone to give them to.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

I only ever found one fly that I used. Same day. Nice big bushy caddis. I said "funk dat", and tied the sucker on. Caught many, and then lost the fly in a tree. 'Tis the destiny of that fly, I guess.

 

[salmonoid]

I've harvested a few castoff flies but they usually have rusty hooks and end up in the Piopod. The two that I have fished and caught fish on are a yellow and orange egg fly with a beadhead that I found on Donegal. The stocked rainbows in other locales loved it. This was back in the day when I had maybe a few dozen flies to my name. The other fly was a Zonker with a metal tube body, also ironically from Donegal. I fished it at night under a hopper and took a 14" brown on the Zonker dropper.

I've donated my fair share of flies to vegetative holders, for the next passerby to find. I like to camouflage them a bit thought, like putting a mouse fly in a tree with dead leaves

The ultimate in accumulating flies and other random hunks of shiny metal or duller colored lead has to be the Lake Erie tribs. Not only can you harvest from trees and underwater branches, if you catch a fish, you're bound to be able to extract one or more piercings from that poor fish as well.

The biggest net haul in flies was when I was a kid and my brother found a fishing vest at Scotts Run Lake, complete with a whole fly box. We turned it into the park office, and no one claimed it after some specified amount of time, so we ended up with a box full of flies, which was a king's treasure at our age. No respectful fish would ever have taken those flies, they were gawdy blue, red, pink and yellow colors that matched nothing (except maybe in form), but we were sure proud of acquiring them.

 

[pete41]

I can see the flies in trees as I once made a bad backcast[memory fading,may have been twice] but how do all those spinning lures get up there on the telephone,electric wires? That is a mystery.

 

[Swattie87]

pete41 wrote:
how do all those spinning lures get up there on the telephone,electric wires? That is a mystery.

Bassmaster style hooksets.

 

[salvelinus]

One opening day long ago our crew was fishing at a bridge. Of course many others were there too, mostly the first-day-and-done crowd. One in particular was having a difficult time of it. He had an open face spinning outfit but he would hold it upside down and reel backwards despite our trying to help him. Casting was erratic to the point that one went up on the bridge deck. A car happened to be passing and picked up the hook. Never heard a drag scream like that.

 

[salmonoid]

pete41 wrote:
I can see the flies in trees as I once made a bad backcast[memory fading,may have been twice] but how do all those spinning lures get up there on the telephone,electric wires? That is a mystery.

Uncoordinated people attempt to fish. Or folks that don't understand the physics of trajectories attempt to launch a spinning lure or bobber at too great of an angle, with the end result being a lasso of a telephone or overhead electric wire. There are a fair amount of tangle ups on boundary wires that cross streams too, such as refuge areas, private property markers, etc., which is one part for the same reasons outlined above, and one part anglers trying to bend the horizontal plane that is formed if you draw straight down from that line.

 

[BrooksAndHooks]

I harvest them year round. Some you find good flies, like I found a few this year that must have been lost earlier that day...

I do this for a few reasons.

1) free flies
2) see what patterns "locals" and other FF in general use
3) scavenge parts, such as beads or hooks if they are rust free
4) clean up the stream so it doesn't look like a christmas tree, and take the old line etc and throw it away, along with any other trash I find.

I have honestly considered getting an extendable pole with a small saw blade on it to go around and cut flies down, some streams have a ton. The little J at the end of the year when the winter water levels set it has probably hundreds. I haven't done it... yet.

 

[lestrout]

Not just in the winter, but I harvest tippet, leaders and spinning line, from parking lots, bushes, etc. My original motivation was to keep them from trapping and killing birds and bats. But then, being a conservationist at heart in many ways, I began repurposing them for my working leaders. When you are using 8X at the end, even seriously degraded spinning line and tippets are quite adequate as part of the leader.

 

[724flyfishing]

I should start looking. I know I donated a tandem PT and zebra midge yesterday on the Loyalhanna DHALO. About 10' up a tree from a bad back cast lol. Not FF, but I found a huge jointed rapala, musky lure at Loyalhanna Dam spillway when I was in high school. I put it on and caught the biggest largemouth bass I've ever caught to this day. It was real big, especially considering it was from a river. I remember my fist could fit in its mouth. I would of got it mounted but it was a few weeks before bass season so I released it. I ended up losing that lure that same week. Maybe someone else found it and made a good memory.