The following piece was submitted by George Bowron. He obtained this work from the flyfishusa.com website. The article is based on an experience on the Deshutes River.

 

Team Hologram: by Kevin Reid

 

     Summer is a really amazing time to be a fly fisher on Vancouver Island. For me, as well as other club members, we wait all year for the warm days on the beach. One evening in particular stands out clearly. This one evening seems to capture all the fun, challenge, frustrations, and secret allegiances, which comprise summer beach fly-fishing.

     I had just finished two weeks of holiday time. The fishing for Pink salmon had been fantastic around the estuary of the Oyster River. Pretty much everyday I had been meeting fellow club members, Cliff, Tom, and Gerry – along with about 30 to 40 other fly fishers – at the mouth of the river. At times, there were so many people there it seemed like I was on Main Street.

     I was back to work on August 15 and all day all I could think of was going fishing that evening. At about 6:30 that evening I met with my uncle, the Reverend Melvin Davis. We suited up in waders and headed to the river mouth. While walking to our place at the end of the line of anglers I noticed Cliff, standing beside Tom, was hooked up to a fish.

     “What are ya using?” I asked as I prepared my tackle.

     “Hologram” he answered. Then his fish came unbuttoned.

     My uncle and I chose our flies accordingly and started fishing with great hope. Soon Cliff was into another fish, but it too was given a long distance release. Uncle Mel and I fished on without success. I switched my fly to one of my former best producers, still nothing. There were fish showing everywhere and no one else was catching any, save for Cliff and Tom, who happened to be hooked up to a fish just then, which he subsequently beached.

     “Was that on a Hologram?” Cliff asked.

     “You bet.” Answered Tom, as he released his fish.

     A moment later Cliff was setting the hook into his third Pink salmon since Mel and I had arrived. Tom resumed casting while Uncle Mel and I changed flies yet again. As fate would have it, Cliff’s fish gave him the slip.

 

 

     It finally dawned on me, this was not another typical evening of beach cruising, and something odd was afoot. The crowd of anglers along the beach started to become unsettled. Murmurs were heard, but the only word readily discernible was “Hologram.” Tom simply smiled, reefed back hard on his rod, and let the reel sing the praises of the Hologram.

     My mind raced, searching, what the hell is a Hologram? Like most everyone else in the line, I switched flies again. Tom was still playing his salmon as Cliff hooked up to his fourth of the evening. With that, Tom piped up, “You still on the Hologram?”

     “Yep, still the same one.” Cliff replied.

     It was about then things got really weird. Two young guys barged right into the middle of the tightly packed line of fly casters and started chucking out spoons with their spinning rods. The worst part was they lacked any control over their haphazard casting. The crowd of fly fishers suddenly turned into a surly mob, and if looks could kill, few would be left standing.

     Seemingly, no one would escape the strangeness of that evening. Even Tom couldn’t escape, as his fly line suddenly tangled into a bird’s nest while he was playing his fish. The mob of fly casters whipped the water at a frantic pace. The spoon chuckers tangled lines with a pretty ornery fly guy not far from them. All the while Cliff fought, and lost his fourth salmon in a row.

     I couldn’t stand it anymore. Tom clearly needed help in clearing his tangle. He had a salmon on and a large knot had formed in his line, between the reel and the stripping guide. I quickly reeled in, put my vest and rod up on the beach to reserve my six square feet of casting space. Tom had his hands full when I got to him and an extra pair would come in handy. I grabbed the fly line near the rod tip and relieved the tension as Tom frantically undid the troublesome tangle. Moments later he was beaching his second Pink salmon of the evening. Great! I thought, now I will get a look at the amazing Hologram fly. After all, everything in my fly box had failed miserably, and this Hologram pattern was making fools of at least 15 other fly fishers as well.

    

 

 

     Tom landed his fish, removed the fly from its mouth, and turned the salmon loose, then showed me the magic fly. He then reached into his fly box, withdrew two copies of the Hologram, and gave them to me. One for me, and one for Uncle Mel. Tom smiled knowingly as I thanked him profusely.

     Uncle Mel and I tied on our new secret weapons and began fervently casting. Within about five casts, each of us was hooked up to a fish. With that, the stink was off our rods!

     I’m not sure whether it was the lateness of the day or the lack of success but about then many of the other anglers packed up and headed out. Even the spoon chuckers made peace with the skunk before leaving. Just then, Cliff, who was hooked up to his fifth salmon, finally managed to beach it. He was going one for five. However, as fate would have it, this poor fish was foul hooked. Being the fine sportsman he is, Cliff gently unhooked the salmon and slid it back into the dark water.

     There may be a few morals to this true story of fly-fishing off the beach on one summer’s evening. Perhaps the one I like the most is, that beach fishing is best played as a team sport.

 

The Hologram

 

THE LEATHER LEECH by; Nigel Burden

            If you are excited by whips and chains, this may be the fly for you!

 

Hook:             #4 – 12 Mustad 9671, or equivalent

 

Overbody:    a strip of thin, dark leather (black, dark brown or olive), 3-4 mm wide at the rounded “head” and tapered toward the tail; the length will depend upon the real ones to be imitated.

 

Underbody:  thin, dark wool or chenille (see above for colour options); the main purpose of the underbody is to cover the shiny metal hook shank.

 

Thread:          6/0 coloured to match the body

 

Tying instructions:

 

·        tie on the thread behind the eye, leaving enough space to form a head; tie-in the wool.

·        wind the thread 2/3 the way down the shank and follow with the wool body.

·        tie-off the wool.

·        position the leather strip on the hook shank, such that the rounded head is located where the fly head will be; the tail will jut out from the shank by some distance.

·        tie-in the leather tightly and spiral the thread forward, ensuring the sides of the strip cover each side of the wool underbody, evenly.

·        tie-off the leather and form a small head.

 

Options:

·        for a deeper water penetration, weight the fly with lead or copper wire below the underbody.  In this case for small flies, the weighting wire should be covered only with thread or Uni-Stretch, to keep the body as slim as possible.

 

Comments:

·        this design was begun by the “Shammy Leech”, designed by Dave Hofmann, and illustrated in BC Outdoors Fishing, Nov/Dec01.  However, most inspiration came from a real leech that was apparently bent on sexual aggression toward one of our members, during a club fishout at Maple Lake in the Spring of 2001.  That is, the beast was observed climbing up the fisher’s wader leg, when we broke for lunch.

                                                                

OYSTER FRY FLY

designed by Nigel Burden

 

Hook:             #6 or 8 Mustad 34007, or equivalent

 

Hackle:          six pink and six orange hackle barbs, mixed

 

Body:             2 cm of silver slim mylar piping, with the core removed

 

Wing:             10-20 dark olive goat hairs, or equivalent, with fewer black squirrel hairs, above

 

Tying instructions:

 

·        tie-in the thread just behind the point where the head will eventually be.

·        tie-in the hackle fibres, with their tips extending 2/3 the length of the shank.

·        tie-in the piping; it will extend well past the bend.

·        even the tips of the goat and tie it in, with the tips extending just a little past the piping.

·        do the same for the squirrel hair, again extending a little further than the goat.

 

Options:

·        the hackle could be any colour or combination (silver doctor blue, or red or orange or pink, or ….), as long as only a few fibres are used.

 

Comments:

·        this design was inspired by real pink fry observed at the Oyster River Hatchery.  The mixed orange/pink is as close to the colour of the egg and subsequent egg sack, as I could manage.  While it is true that the fry lose the colour by the time they migrate to sea as trout food, I like a little colour on the fly and decided to keep it, true to life, or not.

·        it was originally designed to be fished in brackish estuarian waters, hence the stainless hook.  One could use a standard hook in fresh water.

 

                                              

                                      MY FAVOURITE DRY FLY by; Nigel Burden

The Stimulator

 

Hook:                   Mustad 9672, #4 to 8, 94842 #8 to 16, or equivalents

Tail:                      Deer, elk or caribou hair

Body:                   Phentex (polypropylene) yarn

Body hackle:     Grizzly saddle

Wing:                   Hair as above

Head:                   Wool as above

Hackle:                Grizzly

 

Tying instructions:

·        tie on the thread about 1/3 the shank length from the eye, and wind down to just before the bend, in a single layer; this will prevent the hair from spinning around the shank.

·        stack the hair and place on top of the hook shank, with the tips extending to the left about 1/3 to ½ the shank length; fasten with loose turns of thread, at first, to minimize flaring and tie in the saddle hackle and the wool (I usually do it in that order).

·        bind the hair down by spiralling the thread toward the eye and cut off the butt ends of the hair that are longer than the thread base; this forms the underbody.

·        wrap the wool to form the overbody and tie off with a couple of turns of thread but don’t cut off the extra wool.

·        spiral the hackle forward, tie off and pull both wool and hackle to the left and place a single turn of thread in front of them.  Keep the wool and hackle to the left of the wing tie during the next step.

·        stack the hair for the wing and fasten it on the shank right at the front of the body; try to prevent the hair from flaring.  As for the wing length, I usually make it longer than the body, for the larger sizes and a little shorter than the body length for the smaller flies.

·        cut off the hair butt ends as close to the thread wraps as possible and place a couple of turns of wool in front of the wing, over the wing butt, with 4-5 turns of hackle over the wool.  Tie them off; cut off excess wool and hackle and form a head.

Options:

·        many body colours are possible – olive, tan, and fluorescent green (size 12 or less for the tiny summer green stoneflies).  However, my favourite colour is yellow-orange, especially in the larger sizes.  This was inspired by a real stone that I picked up from the surface of a stream. From the top the insect was a grey-brown colour similar to that of wood that is left in the water to catch your fly, when you least need it.  But, its underside was the prettiest of yellow-oranges, hence, I guess, the Anderson stonefly nymph.  There are tiny winter black stones, but I have never observed any trout picking them off the surface, although the adults end up on the snow, on the trail from the fishing hole.

·        I prefer light elk or caribou hair to deer for this fly; it is meant to imitate caddis and stonefly adults.

 

Comments:

·        since most of the fly is constructed with material that floats, it will catch a number of trout before it gets waterlogged and needs a rest.

·        I am a lazy tyer, so I use the Phentex as a yarn, rather than dub it.  One advantage of the material is that, unlike normal knitting yarns, Phentex has continuous filaments, therefore one can sub-divide a piece of yarn to as small a diameter as one wishes without it coming apart.

·        the largest sizes are not a mistake – I have caught many trout on those flies. I believe that the fish actually cue on the sound of the fly hitting the water (I don’t care how good a caster one is, a #4 fly doesn’t alight very gently).  I found that the greatest chance of piscatorial interest comes in the first 2-5 seconds after touchdown.