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Tying knots in low light

Tying Knots in Low Light

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Tying knots in low light

Like many of you as I’ve aged, knots are more difficult to tie as the sun goes down. These old eyes aren’t what the used to be. Through the years, out of necessity, I’ve discovered a few tricks to make tying knots in low light  easier. I’ll share some of these below.

Tippet Spools

First and foremost use a lot of line. Be it monofilament or fluorocarbon it’s still the least expensive part of all of our tackle. When adding tippet use a longer than normal piece which allows to make bigger openings to pull line tags through. Excess line allows for a bigger opening between your fingers and the eye of the hook when tying a clinch knot. Give yourself plenty of material to accomplish the task at hand.

Headlamps

A quality headlamp is a must. I’m a big fan of red light as your pupils don’t dilate making you night blind when you use it. In addition to my normal headlamp I also have a red headlamp designed for predator hunters. It is much more powerful than a normal headlamp and being red light it does’nt blind me or my anglers when I  use it in the boat.

Glasses

I also carry a set of “readers” with higher magnification than my normal glasses. This is helpful as the sun sets, those hook eyes just seem to shrink! I put those one when I need greater magnification.In addition to the readers I also have a pair of Costa Silver Sunrise Glasses that are very good in lowlight situations.  They cut glare, are polarized and they provide eye protection!

Finally, I carry needle threaders available in any sewing department. These little tools are designed to thread sewing needles but they do a great job of threading hooks. As you can see in the video below you insert the thin wire look through the eye of the hook then put your tippet through the loop in the wire and pull the wire loop back through the eye of the hook and you end up with the tippet through the eye of the hook. Prior to dark I put a bunch of the appropriate flies on these threaders, grease them and I’m ready to go. Changing and or replacing flies is a snap with this set up.

As the lights go out just a little preparation will keep you in the game rapidly, effectively and efficiently.

Tight lines,
Capt. Chuck Hawkins

Drake, Isonychia, Hex Patterns

Drakes, Iysonychia, and Hex Patterns

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Drake, Isonychia, Hex Patterns

Drake, Isonychia, Hex Fly Patterns

Drake, Isonychia, Hex Patterns

Brown Drakes, Isonychia, and Hex Patterns

New Drakes, Iysonychia, and Hex Patterns

I am excited to announce a new partnership with Montana Fly Company and myself. I have recently released several new dry fly patterns from my arsenal. They are now available through Montana Fly Company this year. It’s been a while since I have put anything new out there. The flies that are included in the two series I have released are mainstays in my arsenal. They are for the Isonychia, Brown Drake, and Hex hatches and have provided countless memories for our customers. The flies are all foam based Mayfly patterns designed to imitate the Isonychia, Brown Drake, and Hexegenia species. You can fish them all day with some realism and an impressionistic silhouette fish can’t resist.

Here is a breakdown of the flies that are now available through MFC:

McCoy’s All Day Dun, Isonychia

The Isonychia hatch is one of our best and most lengthy hatches of the season. This fly is designed, much like the name, to be fished all day! It has a very realistic profile and is a great fly to fish over rising fish. This is also a great searching pattern throughout the day with or without actual bugs on the water. This one is a must have!!

McCoy’s Boondoggle Spinner, Isonychia

This fly just looks crazy on the water! Like the name, the Boondoggle Isonychia has a “fishy” profile and just flat out hunts . It often creates some chaotic moments of intense excitement. This fly is more of a searching pattern that has a silhouette that will get the fish looking up with or without bugs on the water. Once the Iso hatch gets started, the fish are always looking for it.

McCoy’s All Day Dun, Brown Drake

Brown Drakes on our home water of the Manistee are often a complicated puzzle, often leaving you scratching your head. We commonly refer to this hatch as the “Great Houdini” hatch as it can disappear for days and then suddenly reappear in epic fashion. This fly fishes great with bugs on the water, but I will do just as well fishing it blind during the Brown Drake season. This fly was designed to be fished blind or over rising fish. It fishes well even during the rare daytime emergence that we will commonly see a few times each season. This is also a great pattern during the spinner fall especially on the cooler evenings when they spin early.

McCoy’s Boondoggle Spinner, Brown Drake

Like the Isonychia version of this fly it has a very fishy appeal to it. I have fished it during both the daytime emergence and more typical evening timeframes and have had success with it in both situations. With the white calf tail wings it is easy to track in the low light periods and floats like a cork! It gives me all the confidence knowing my fly is still fishing even when I really can’t see it.

McCoy’s All Day Dun, Hex

The Hex hatch is truly the busiest time of year on our waters.  I wanted a fly that I could fish that was different from anything else. I wanted a fly that would work during the day and night, but more importantly when it was bright and no bugs to be seen. This has been my best daytime Hex pattern for a while now. When you get a rare, but not too uncommon daytime emergence, yeah…..this is the one!

McCoy’s Boondoggle Spinner, Hex

The Hex version of this series is where the template all started for me. The original versions were getting smashed in the evenings well before the hatch would start and then again after the bugs disappeared while fishing blind and hunting for sipping fish in the dark. I love this fly, it just flat out hunts!! It was so good over a broad spectrum of circumstances that I had to have it for the Iso and Drake hatches as well. Thus began the evolution of this series.

Fly Shops

Check with your local fly shop for availability. If you can’t find it drop us a line and we will help to get these patterns in your hands. Look for more to be coming out in the near future as I have expanded on some old favorites and I am constantly tweeking new stuff and expanding on my boxes. Good luck fishing this season and I am looking forward to the upcoming trout season and some summer like weather!

Tight Lines,

Ed

trying with beads

Tying Flies with Beads

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Tying Flies with Beads Alaskan Trout and Steelhead anglers have known about fishing with beads for years.  Bead fishing is an effective way to imitate fish eggs.  Fishing with beads has really exploded here in the midwest over the past few years especially when targeting fall steelhead . While most anglers use beads by themselves […]

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Sulphur Dun

Sulphur Hatch

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Sulphur Hatch

Sulphur Hatch

Many anglers that I know in Northern Michigan consider the Sulphur hatch to be the very best hatch of the year. It is a fairly long and usually very prolific hatch. It can last as long as a month in northern Michigan. Due to the usually large numbers of bugs, Sulphurs will produce some very large fish for the size of the dry fly.

There are two Sulphurs, the Ephemerella  invaria and the dorothea. The first to hatch the invaria is a size 12-14 and the next bug, dorothea is a size 16-18. Don’t worry, that’s the last of the Latin!

What you really need to know about sulphurs follows. It is good to carry Sulphurs from size 12 to 18. I’m a big fan of the Robert’s Yellow Drake pattern and use it primarily for my sulphur imitation. I carry it in all four sizes. Hatch times vary by bug and weather Sulphur Dunbut look for them anytime from mid afternoon until dark for the little guys. Fish can get very selective on these flies. At times you may encounter duns of one size hatching and spinners of another size falling at the same time. They can also get focused on emergers of any size. Close observation is key here.

Speaking of spinners, they are a different color than the duns. Instead of the sulphur yellow they spin having changed to a tannish to rusty color. So again you need to have three or four sizes of rusty spinners. Sulphurs will spin over riffles very late in the day, even at dark.

To effectively fish the Sulphur hatch a fly angler should have emergers, duns and spinners in at least two sizes, 14 and 18. It is better to carry them in all four sizes, 12-18 if possible. You should be on the water by 3:00 pm and stay until close to dark.  You need to be very observant because this time of year is generally the most complex time of year hatch wise. In addition to all of the sulphurs there are many other mayflies that may be present.

Good luck, see you on the water.

Hawk

streamer fishing

Upcoming Fly Tying Demo’s

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Scientific Anglers Muskie

Any questions about location or time, feel free to contact us and we will do our best to let you know more details.  Also feel free to call the shops, as they can explain the layout of each event a little bit more in detail.

We continue to work on the site, as you will see in the main navigation there has been a new tab added.  FLY PATTERNS, we are trying to make the navigation easier and have added three sub categories.  New patterns are being photographed and filmed now, we have added only 4 patterns so far, but new ones are on the way.  Check out the layout and let us know if you have any thoughts.

Thank you