Depth Charged

How deep can you get?

I enjoy going off the Texas coast and fishing the oil rigs, wrecks and other structure laying on the bottom of the Gulf. Using 5, 6 and 700 grain sinking lines to get as deep as you possible can looking to hook up with the leviathans from the depths. Never knowing what you have on the end of your line till it nears the surface. It could be a snapper, amberjack, cobia, jack, grouper, kingfish, and so on. Some folks don't like it much, its not visual enough for them, it doesn't entice them enough, they may not have confidence in what they are doing or the casting of such heavy lines is to much work. I've always enjoyed it because you have to have a lot of faith in that what you are doing will result in catching fish. There is no way of seeing how a fish reacts to your fly or presentation. With today's high tech fish finders you might be able to pinpoint fish, but are they the targeted species, are they feeding, or is the fly just not interesting them. Are you getting deep enough to reach the fish? There are a lot of factors that play into this. What is the speed of the current, how fast is the boat drifting, how deep do you need to get to put the fly in front of the fish. To start off with a heavy grain sink tip line can only do so much. If the fly isn't weighted or is inadequately weighted to the the point it hinders and slows the sink rate of the sinking line you begin to contradict what you are trying to do. I've looked a lot at how people have weighted flies, lead eyes, wrapping lead wire around the shank of the hook, adding split shot to the leader and so fourth. To be able to get 50+ feet deep a lot of times takes more then those options. Especially if the current speed and the boats drifting speed aren't ideal for the depth the fish are at. I figured there has to be a better way. So this is the fly I came up with.    

For when you need to get deep.

Tungsten is heavy and you can find all different sizes in
the bass fishing section of most sporting good
stores. On this fly I am using 1/2 oz but
have flies tied with up to 1oz.
Start by painting it white
with some nail polish.

I picked a bunch of these bucktail teasers up for next
to nothing a few years ago. I have been able to
find a lot of uses for them.

I've kinda got an addiction to adding curly tails to flies right now. 

I figure its a great way to add motion to the fly, and since the fly
will be sinking for 45 to 90 seconds before I start my retrieve I
wanted something on the fly that would give it some action.

All you need to do is thread a grub onto the hook.

Next I take about 10" of 60lb wire and double it over 

while putting it through the eye of the hook.

Take a bucktail teaser and slide it over the wire.

Take your tungsten weight and slide onto the wire.

Add another bucktail teaser.

I like to have rear hook with hook point down, and
the front hook with hook point up. Put both
strands of wire through the eye of the hook.

Start wrapping down securely and fold back the wire
and cut off the excess. Add some super glue
to hold the wraps tight.

These IBalz are the largest eyes I know of.

 Secure them in.

Your basically tying a clouser from here on out.

There is plenty of flash on the bucktail teasers.
So I'm not going to add anymore.

Obviously this isn't going to be the best casting fly.
But when you are trying to get really deep, you
are typically just casting 30 or so feet and
 then feeding line as the head and fly sink.
Roughly 6"-7" fly.

A Whole Nother Level

Taking the Game Changer to a whole nother level.
So as some of yall have seen my curly tail clousers using the tail of a rubber grub to add lots of motion to a clouser. So why stop there. I had Pat Cohen tie me up some of his big Game Changers. They are over 8 inches and tied with 2 Partridge Predator X hooks. So I got them in the mail today and this is what I did.

So I had Pat tie me up some of his Game Changers. I told him to just have the 

material flow freely about an inch past the last shank. Normally he makes

a real pretty tail to put on them. So The bottom fly is how Pat 

sent them to me and the top fly is with the curly tail, that 

willbe shown how to attach in the next few steps. 

 So this little screw is called a spiral lock. You can find them in the 

bass fishing section of most major sporting goods stores. 

They hook into the eye of the hook and then screw into 

soft plastics so that they last longer while fishing.

We are going to use it for the same thing.

Put your game changer in the vise

Use a clip to fold back the fibers and keep them

out of the why.

Attach the spiral lock to the last Blane Chocklett 

big game shank. 

Use some thread to lock it down. I'm using

GSP for toothy fish and then adding 

some super glue.

Take you a grub, these are 8" offshore grubs.

Cut the body off so your left with just 

enough tail to screw into the plastic.

****Warning****

I am a little concerned that the 8" grub tails will over power the fly.

I'll find out this weekend. If they do I'll replace it with a 6" grub tail. 

These flies are about 12" with the tail. 

Pond Hopping

James and I had plans on taking the yaks out to Fork today to look for some spawning bass. High winds made us decide to not make the trip. Yaking and flyfishing in highwinds is just to much of a pain in the ass. So we decided to stay close to the house and hit a few ponds in the area. I bought a 1wt TFO Finesse series last fall and never had the chance to take it out. Today was the first day I was able to really take it out and fish with it. With 30mph winds it was kinda hard to tell exactly how it was casting and what kind of distance I could get out of it. We will find out on a different day. It did get broken in the right way on its first day out. Right off the bat I hooked up with this nice catfish that put this rod to the test. It didn't take as long as I anticipated to land this guy. No matter how light the rod is, if you use the boat section of the rod to fight the fish you can normally whip them down pretty quickly.   

James left his fly rods at home do to the high winds and only brought his baitcasters. He wanted to get one of this cats on the 1wt so I handed it off to him and it only took a few minuted for him to hook up.

 A few minutes landed he had his cat on the 1wt. 

Caught lots of these guys, they are getting all colored

up and ready for the spawn. Its been a slow 

warm-upthis spring but they will be on 

their beds with the next full moon. 

The best bass of the day.

The Go Getter

So here is a fly I've been working on. The concept behind the fly is that I wanted a fly with a lot of movement and also pushed a lot of water. Over all I am very happy with it. I have caught a lot of bass on it so far this spring. It is a good mid sized streamer that is roughly 4" and is very easy and quick to tie. It doesn't have any flash for a reason, but you can easily add some if you'd like. I have a lot of flies with flash in them but wanted a fly that was lacking flash because I believe on some days the fish aren't interested in a fly that is real flashy. Below is a full SBS, hope you enjoy. 

  "The Go Getter"

I am using a Gammy 2/0 SC-15 

Start your thread wraps.

Next tie in some ostrich herl about 1/8" from the eye.

You'll want to use more than less because once

ostrich gets wet it becomes very string like.

Palmer one strand of marabou.

Wrap and tie off.

Not only did Blane Chocklett hit a home run with the Game Changer.

He hit it out of the park with his Big Game Shanks.

I'm using the 28mm shank.

Tie in some lead eyes, you can play around with the size 

depending on how much of a sink rate you want.

I'm going for a slow sink rate.

Tie in some deer hair.

All the way up the shank and tie off.

Trim up and shape the head.

Give it a try, I think you'll like the way it fishes.