SilverDoctor

Jungle cock is a standard on most classic full dressed salmon flies if you follow the full pattern. In my view it has always added a bit of style to a pattern. Nowadays however its pretty much anything goes. The price of Jungle cock is high even in low grades so you can always pick out a dedicated tier when they use it in fishing flies. There is now other substitute that is close to the feather.

I used elastic band at one time but found the water sun and weather seemed to affect them. The deemed to dry and crack. Maybe it was the variety of band.

good Idea.

well said!!

I find that they like to get out of the heavy flow and in tighter to shore or back eddies.

Count me in on the dark computer bags, wish you could buy em.

I like to carry my net handle up, that way the lower part of the net dangles and gets caught up in bush effectively tripping me, yanking me back by the shoulder or snapping back and nailing me squarely in the back. It also acts as a great catcher for flies on a bad back cast. Mind you it has carried my lunch, water bottle, caught dragonflies and the odd errant indicator. It's been a basket for mushrooms, blueberries, and saskatoons. I once used it to scoop up a large rattler in BC to get it out of the way. My net is a bit of a comfort to me as it gives me promise of willey browns yet to enjoy it's webbed interior. I like running it under a trout that will not fit inside, smug joy. I often never use the little wooden sidekick but feel lost without her, so she hangs behind my shoulder encouraging me to take just one more cast in the failing light with promise of things to come.

Thanks for posting, it's not the quantity of fish but the fishing experience. Sounds like you had a great experience.

Black or dark colors are the key, upsize you flies a couple of sizes and fish closer to the bank.

Welcome and see you on the water.

I love the south end also. In the past I would just park in the Sikome lot and walk in.

Depends how you approach it. You do need an outlay of equipment and materials. Just slip down to a local fly shop and you can get an Idea of costs. If you do a search on the old forum I did an article on fly tying. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll post it again.

Hi Don, you have the the sequence of materials dead on, great eye. Yes the center section is Birch bark. I dried the bark and peeled it. Not much sap in the bark. I could trade you the info for a bamboo blank .... Ha ha. I actually had to experiment a bit with some smaller sections before I got it to work. But I think I have it down now. I have some simple notes I kept on it to remind myself for next time. If you pm me I will dig them up and email em to you during the week. I did go through a bit of bark to find the right stuff. Have to get out this fall and find some more fallen deadfall. Maybe on a Raven trip.

Was planning on going but got called in to work for an hour. Also I'm suddenly committed to going to Ikea with the wife today. Ah well, will spend some time tying flies this afternoon. I need to finish up an order for a shop in BC. of 200 Steelhead flies.

And another one

another one

I've built about 12 to date, If you want to chat just pm me.

Thanks for posting, I also fished the Miramichi river many times with my Dad. Some of my fondest early memories where in that area.

Rain, That mens I'll be out tomorrow morning for sure.

BUT DON'T DRINK THE WATER!!!

Just to add a bit to all the excellent posts here. I'm also big on trying to imitate the bait fish on the water. look in the shallows for what is on a stretch of water. Remember baitfish grow. Start with smaller imitations early in the year and size up as the fish grow. I love to target underwater boulders and other areas a predictor may hang. Streamers generally fall into two categories, imitators and attractors. When streamers and also bucktails were designed to imitate baitfish, such as black nose dace, creek chubs and smelt. Today and you will find plenty of impressionistic patterns such as Zonkers and Woolly Buggers rather than imitations of natural forage fish. At times it's nice to go to the classics for a great imitations. Impressionistic patterns tend to have trout strike by aggression or as a territorial response. The way I tend to fish streamers is my imitating a small baitfish out of it's shallow area. I like to swim it in a couple of short quick jerks then pause in a safe spot like small fish would then zip to another spot. Sometimes a small split shot 4" ahead of the streamer will make say a muddier or bugger swim with an erratic pulse. Be the minnow. With the spey rod I love to zip a minnow combo behind large submerged boulders way out. I try to throw a mend so the streamer pauses for a few seconds before the water pulls it across. What you want is to give the trout a good broadside look at the fly. You can keep the fly swimming broadside, across the current, through the entire drift by casting slack line and mending until the fly completes its swing. It is possible to cast quartering upstream with an upstream reach cast and keep the fly drifting broadside by mending upstream until the fly starts to pass downstream of your position. Start mending line downstream when the fly passes below. Keep mending line away from the fly until it comes to rest directly below. Let it hang in the current for a few moments before picking it up as trout will sometimes follow the streamer though the drift and hit after it stops. Make sure to keep enough belly in the line to keep the fly swimming. Mend enough to keep the line tight, but not slack. You can control the speed of the fly by the amount of mend you put in the line. Flick the tip of the rod through the drift to tease the fly. Vary the action according to the type of fly you are using. Fishing an undercut bank can be deadly. The trick is to get the fly to swim along the bank instead casting directly across and retrieving the streamer away from the bank. Make the cast directly across but use a wide reach cast, mending as much line as possible in the air before the line hits the water. This will put the line at a right angle downstream from the fly. Tease the fly as it swims downstream along the bank, keeping tension as the current pulls against the belly of the line. Take trout from a slow deep pool by casting upstream and retrieve the fly back down. The fly must swim slightly faster than the current with action and strips. Dart the streamer ahead and pause to dive toward the bottom. Sulking trout will turn and lunge downstream to attack the streamer when fished in this way. The downstream retrieve is a great method for sculpin imitations, which which need to fished near the bottom to be effective. Sculpins try to take the path of least resistance when threatened, which is downstream. Trout feed in different ways. When trout hit a streamer they aren't sipping it like a mayfly or nipping it like a nymph but they often try to kill it with a quick smash to stun the prey then a take. I often have a brown do a double hit. This double hit is really fast and may often seem like one strike. Remember that the streamer hook is long. It acts as a leaver and you can loose a fish easily by the fly levering out of the fishes mouth. Keep that tension on, and keep that hook sharp. I will sharpen a streamer two or three times with a small ceramic sharpener while fishing especially if I feel bottom, weeds or just because. Fishing streamers is actually more complicated than it seems. It tends to have a lot of subtle variations that can make or break a presentation, strike and battle. But it's a lot of fun. By the way Toolman have you had a chance ot ry that little bug eyed "Doc's Dodger" streamer yet?

I had ordered some fly tying stuff from Bill at the Fishing hole, it came in yesterday and they gave me the sale discount. A class act down there. Noticed a few fly rods at 40%. Lots of goodies on sale.

Best wishes to your family. You definitely have the best catch of the year.

He does beautiful work, does he still live in Cape Breton? I remember seeing an article on him in Fly Fusion.

There have been 3 or 4 hopper threads recently, try doing a search.