Selecting THE right fly

[Michal Duzynski]

Hi guys
Im not sure how many of you fish in the situation I described below, but I've asked this question on the australian borad where the guys are knailing sw species.
....but I want to know the SEXYLOOPS approach.
there it is:
I would like to ask you about your fly selection criteria.
In situation where you approach place like river mouth, where there is a chance for jewfish, jack, tailor, flathead, travelly, what are your criteria of choosing a fly?
Are you selecting the fly acording to the species you are after?
Or if you feel like "pink thing" pink thing it is. Let consider there is plenty baitfish around.

My example from yesterday, Noosa river, murky water after rain, some bait fish around, but I open my box full of different paterns and choose clouser- cought nothing....
I would like to know your opinion on this.
Cheers
Mike

[Paul Arden]

I only use three flies, Mike. A chartreuse and White Clouser in various sizes, a crab and a popper. There may of course be a call for other flies, I once fished to spanglies eating grasshoppers in Exmouth - and caught them on grasshoppers, but generally speaking I haben't had the need for anything else. Size can be important I think but that's about it. There are people who argue you need a Deceiver too.

It's not trout fishing where I need 100 patterns!

Cheers, Paul

[Michal Duzynski]

That is what I thought, bit slowly Im learning some new itresting staf about it. might put it in life and see what happen.
As my fishing trips are mostly few hours long, and knowing that clouser for example is a general pattern, Im kind of afraid to experiment with changing the fly in order to not loose to much time with the fly in the water.

Time for some experiments.
cheers
mike

[Paul Arden]

I think time of tide and location are the most important things. Obviuisly how you position and move the fly matters but SW fish eat baitfish and crabs. Size matters. But I personally don't believe you need lots of patterns. If it's not working more often than not it's not the fly that's the problem. Either there are no fish or they're not feeding or something else is wrong.

There are exceptions. There are always exceptions! But at least this is one thing I think you can simplify - where you are fishing anyway! Bream are very different of course.

[Michal Duzynski]

Good one, Morsie said exatlly the same.
time to experiment
cheers
mike

[Brad Y]

Our southern black bream are a real PITA to tempt on fly. This past summer I have locked in on a surface pattern for them- Paul Vogl's devilled disco shrimp. Its an absolute ripper. Sub surface is harder, but Ive made up a blend of different colour BMS blend dubbings and it seems to work well in the hammerhead and tungsted bead BMS flies. The key was getting colours that are really reactive to UV light. And also fishing the rio in touch sinking lines on a LONG leader to get the flies into the bite zones and detect strikes. Im still playing with crabs for them as well- just for something different.

As for exmouth, the 1/0 chart or yellow over white clouser is great up there. I also keep a tan crab, pink surf candy and 1/0 gotcha in the box for up there too. For off the beach I like a smaller and more silver #2 clouser. The little queenies and swallowtail and trevally around the shore seem to like them.

[Paul Arden]

Interesting that they lock on to UV. Are you using UV blends? There are lots of trout patterns incorporating UV. I think it's something I need to get back into. There are even some all-UV flies that can do very well indeed. I'm thinking baby doll in lime green UV during low-light for example. Those things positively shine in the box. I used to catch well on them but haven't really experimented down that road since then. We also used Vivas, which has the same tail, and Christmas Trees which had the same plus a red UV throat. My Grenadiers have UV orange seal fur... but I have only a few small pieces of the puzzle in place in this regards.

Something else I really need to try is painting the hook shanks white before tying these and other flies.

Cheers, Paul

[Stu Jamieson]

It's not trout fishing where I need 100 patterns!

Heh, Vince turned up to Uncle Billy's last weekend to fish for trout with only 3 flies - and one of them was a clouser!

[queenfish]

That's the only one you need Stu.

[Stu Jamieson]

Haha, I remember your exchange with Glenda at the club meet the other night:

"What flies are you taking, Vince?"
"Just these three."
"What about spinners?"
"No."
"What about damsels?"
"No."
'Mrs Simpson?"
"No."
"Christmas tree?"
"No! Only these 3, that's all you need."