Fly-Fishing in Wisconsin
Six Ugly Flies
JERRY KIESOW
Six ugly flies. Will they catch fish? We’ll find out this spring.
While at my fly-tying work space recently a thought came to me. “What if I used the odds and ends around me to create some flies of my own design? Who knows? They might catch some fish.”
I started this venture with a simple streamer, took some white bucktail and tied on a tail, over-wrapped the hair up where the body would be, and instead of trimming the hair off, turned it over to form a round head. I tied down the head and returned the thread to tie in the body, made the body of pink krystal flash chenille and that was all there was to it. I had tied a simple streamer out of left over material.
On the next fly, I used some of that same white bucktail for the tail. This time I made a silver krystal chenille body and used more white deer tail hair for the wing. I made a deer hair head and trimmed it like a muddler minnow. I don’t know if it will float or just hang there because the head hair is hollow and the rest of the fly is not.
Next, I discovered some grizzly hackles, used two of them for the tail – back to back – and palmered it around the shank of the hook for the body and put a deer hair head on it. I trimmed the hair a little bit bigger than the previous fly.
Noticing a little black marabou in my remaining arsenal, I used it for the body and the tail of my fourth creation. I used a smaller amount of untrimmed black hackle for the body and attached a trimmed, frog green, deer hair head.
The last two were tied similar to each other with soft hackle for the tails, yellow for one and pheasant for the other, a bit of hackle and the deer hair head. I liked the idea of a floating head and submerged body.
Will these flies catch fish? I don’t know. But I will find out beginning with the streamer, which I will drift, hold for a tad, and then bring back in short and/or long retrieves. Hopefully, the ones with the deer hair heads will float for at least a little while until they get “fish soaked.”
Please note that all of the flies I created were tied of #6 streamer hooks with #70, waxed, black thread.
See you in the river and keep a good thought!
Jerry enjoys all aspects of the outdoors and shares them through photos, words, and workshops. He has written two books, “Tales of The Peshtigo Putzer” and “Photos, Poems, and a Little Bit of Prose,” both of which are available at Orange Hat Publishing, Amazon, and his website: www.jerrykiesowoc.com.