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First up there are two Peter Hayes in the flycasting world, one who is British and has written the book "Fly fishing outside the box" and the other who is a very famous flycasing instructor in Australia. And of course in true Sexyloops style both will be on this month
This is the Peter Hayes, the author.
Welcome Peter!! Well I've read your book, for me it's one of the best flyfishing books I've read. In that kind of how-to thinking genre I think of, when I think of Goddard and Clarke, Bob Wyatt, Arthur Cove and Steve Parton. All vastly different, I believe!
There are two things that really struck me in your book. One was the use of black wing cases, and the other the nymphal activity post sun-down. Can you elaborate please? I have never fished nymphs after dark for trout. I'd love to learn more.
Paul Arden wrote: I have never fished nymphs after dark for trout. I'd love to learn more.
Hi Paul.
One of the tricky questions in the EFFA exam was: "When do most caddis flies emerge?"
They wanted to have the answer: "During the night" - while most candidates answered with a specific month instead.
Besides that fishing for grayling during the (summer) nights works fantastic. Streamers and nymphs both worked excellent for me here.
Welcome Peter!
A pity I have not yet read your book.
Don't think I have come across it here in Germany. Is it possible to order one via amazon or some like that?
Paul got me curios!
Cheers
Bernd
Thanks so much for the invitation and the welcome Paul--and especially for the enthusiasm about my book, which set out to corral a thundering herd of alternative and often heretical thoughts about the relationships between the fly fisherman, the fly, and the fish.Don't know if I succeeded but the process was fun and I wouldn't change a word --but love to be asked questions about it.
So thanks for starting the thing off.
[There are two things that really struck me in your book. One was the use of black wing cases, and the other the nymphal activity post sun-down. Can you elaborate please? I have never fished nymphs after dark for trout. I'd love to learn more.]
Black wing cases.Here's the gen. Upwinged fly nymphs in the last stage of development, ready to make their vulnerable journey to the surface with their wings tightly folded up, have a bulging pair of wing cases that are noticeably dark in colour and often black.I'm not alone in believing that this is a key that fish look for--something that experience has told them is a feature of the fattest nymphs that are most vulnerable and available. Mottram had noticed the dark wing cases and specified the tips of dark grey cock hackles tied on top of the thorax pointing backwards, in 'Fly Fishing, Some New Arts and Mysteries' exactly 100 years ago.
Earliest sunken nymph pattern? A caddis pupa with a black silk head, Robert Venables 1668. Observant chaps, our forebears!
Stuart Crofts, given half a chance, will demonstrate memorably with a magicians handkerchief how the wing cases bond with the underside of the water's surface before the pair split open and the hydrophobic wings burst out into the air.
The tiny new meniscus, bending the water surface down to the edges of the wing cases, forms a prism-like effect that Gary Lafontaine drew attention to and imitated with foam, after taking hundreds of videos of the process swimming upside down! We can't quite get that perfect, but if we use a hydrophobic material for the wing cases on a nymph fished right in the film (e g greased nymph, greased tippet) we can get close enough to fool some selective fish.
Yes, selective, Bob Wyatt--not always, but frequently!
I use doubled black pheasant tail fibres, or a buoyant, water-shedding black yarn.
Sometimes I burst a clump of grey cdc through a split between two clumps of fibre or yarn.
Does this work better? Honestly, I don't think so, but it satisfies my need to be an imitator and a pernickety old fart.
Nymphs after dark. Stuart and my fellow members of the Cressbrook and Litton FFC, the boys and girls on the Derbyshire Wye, go nymphing after dark and swear by it. I have tried it and it works. And when I fished with Jack Kos on a NZ spring creek that I took him to in December, he was out at night fishing successfully in the surface film. But I'm more usually in the pub.'Hayes must do better'...
so cool. You are famous - I know you from TV :-) -- some months back I stumbled upon this brilliant video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVeoNWf9Q7Q and we actually discussed it here on the board.
I must say I really liked it ... specifically the very entertaining and physically expressive way you taught that audience.
Paul Arden wrote: I have never fished nymphs after dark for trout. I'd love to learn more.
Hi Paul.
One of the tricky questions in the EFFA exam was: "When do most caddis flies emerge?"
They wanted to have the answer: "During the night" - while most candidates answered with a specific month instead.
Besides that fishing for grayling during the (summer) nights works fantastic. Streamers and nymphs both worked excellent for me here.
Welcome Peter!
A pity I have not yet read your book.
Don't think I have come across it here in Germany. Is it possible to order one via amazon or some like that?
Paul got me curios!
Cheers
Bernd
Hey thanks Bernd.
Now you mention summer night grayling fishing, it takes me back to Finland, Norway, and the Kola nearly 30 years ago(too long!); and yes surface film fishing with floating nymphs, dries and emergers, especially caddis, was a blast.
Clever creatures, caddis--they know how to minimise their vulnerabilities! Mass hatching in the night is one way, and the rising pharate adult is the form they're most vulnerable to fish in, hence the invention of the Klinkhammer and it's sweeping success, I believe. But other, rising, pupa patterns work better than we give them credit for, I think.
Then, flying about in the hatched form, they're mainly living in safety from fish until egglaying. Many species, especially the Grannoms of the UK, Europe and America (Brachycentrus) crawl down protruding structures to lay, and then drift spent under the surface covered in a layer of air. Ralph Cutter describes this well in his work on video at:- https://vimeo.com/90025213 .
The book Paul refers to is available for a look-see at :- http://www.flyfishingoutsidethebox.com/
and to buy at(don't go to Amazon, you won't get it cheaper and my publisher will get chiselled!):- http://www.anglebooks.com/fly-fishing-o ... esies.html
Enjoy!
so cool. You are famous - I know you from TV :-) -- some months back I stumbled upon this brilliant video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVeoNWf9Q7Q and we actually discussed it here on the board.
I must say I really liked it ... specifically the very entertaining and physically expressive way you taught that audience.
Cheers,
Thomas
Ah , no, sadly for me Thomas that's my friend by hands across the sea, the other Peter Hayes from Tasmania--by comparison I am a reclusive hermit-like wannabe with pretensions to be an author in England. Hopeless at teaching casting too.
Deffo, not cool either.
Sorry!
Excellent first post Peter!! I'm looking forward to this week very much and will ensure I'm online every day.
In your book you make a big thing about the direction flies are facing due to the wind on rivers and offer flies in reversal as well as conventional tying. Do you have conclusive proof in your mind that this matters? I really can't say one way or another but since reading your book I haven't had a chance to observe this either. I'd love to hear more about this subject.
Did you post Haysie a copy of your book, Peter? I hope to have Haysie on in a week or two after his guiding has slowed down. I would be quite funny to have you both on in the same week but I thought better of it
We've had Stuart Crofts over for talks and a tying workshop at Bolton Fly Tying. The depth of his knowledge on entomology is amazing. He's really down to earth and passionate about sharing his knowledge. I've been tying and fishing Stuarts fly patterns which are effective, robust and easy to tie.
The collective entomology knowledge on the Derbyshire Wye must be very high! I look forward to reading your book.
Tell Stuart Chris said hello and thanks for all his tips recently. The Mageyes he recommended have really improved my tying!
Paul Arden wrote:Did you post Haysie a copy of your book, Peter? I hope to have Haysie on in a week or two after his guiding has slowed down. I would be quite funny to have you both on in the same week but I thought better of it
Cheers Paul
Woooo...that would be, like Godzilla meets caddis larva.
Think I'll stay in my case.
I'm looking forward to this week very much and will ensure I'm online every day.