Big hopes with big flies on a big weekend.

Hello folks,Once again the weather has made a U-turn,Two weeks ago driving to work noticed temps like -6 degrees and now it's lying on +10 degrees so it seems that my season goes on for a while,no complains about that.
Have tied a couple of Niklaus Bauer "Laken" style flies and done some testing with them.



Awesome movement on these.They measure much about 30 cm:s.You can fish them in really shallow areas and because there is no material tied on the under side it hook fishes very well too,not a single dropped fish yet on these so far.
They also got an awesome hang in water,I use to fish them with a Int.line and in three ft water level you hang it in water for a loooooooooong time,perfect in cold/freezy conditions.Tied up in some different colors.



Don't they look funny :) But they really work in waters where I fish.
Not only praises for them,I'm a bit concerned about their durability but will be go on testing if there's some materials that should be changed.
They will be on a real test forthcoming weekend,really waiting for this,fishing on Saturday with Espoon perhokalastajat in Kemiö,south western parts of Finland,those places is known as very good "pike waters".
Sunday I will fish with two young but very experienced guys from Salo in some unknown places but knowing their fishing history and often read and heard their fishing reports with photos I can't help my expectations raising to the moon,really hoping that my miserably autumn season could get a U-turn just like the weather.

Yesterday I took some time to do a maintenance on my boat motor and soon it will be covered for winter storage and my rest trips will be with kayak or tube.
You will see some big modifications on my boat and trailer later on wintertime.Have some plans for next summer.

Small fishes with big ties.

I have noticed on different fly fishing sites some kind of a trend of growing flies,some of them are not huge,they are gigantic.
I had seen big flies before too,my first contact with them was couple of years ago by watching Mr Simon Graham tying in my opinion huge flies for muskies.
It took me some time before I thought I could do my own version of them,my own version in this case meant I just made them a hell lot smaller.
Get a small bunch ready for a few trips which was left before the ice covered my spots.



These flies worked well,very well in fact,they had a awesome hang in the water,Study the internet wonder world and found Brad Bohens Hangtime optic minnow fly and my winter was saved,tied a lot of different test flies based on it ready for springtime fishing but unfortunately I had my worst spring ever when nothing worked.

All those flies went to my "second setup" when I seriously started to tie on tubes again,but are in use again by my brother who has had pretty good fishing with them,many of them are pretty chewed by now.

Muskie(style)flies impressed me much but it was time to move on,but one thing that stands is the size of the flies,I ended up tying 20-25 cm flies in Niklaus Bauer sheepshead style which has been very successful and when I saw Niklaus ties in don't remember was it Big Daddy or in Mean green fight machine my "big"flies suddenly looked very tiny and small compared to his gigantic ones,still they were tied in that sheepshead style,man they looked awesome,and with SBS tying videos from kanalgratisdotse it was more than easy to if not copy but at least get good ideas to your own ties.
Anyway,Mr Bauers newest tie called "Laken" was the turning point,I just had to try a BIG tie,not just big but the biggest possible with the materials I had in stock and even if I had to make compromises in color way I'm very satisfied with the result.



40 cm....my biggest tie ever,I was so inspired by this that I had to try that "Laken" pattern too,even if I didn't had the right materials.
I just kept tying and suddenly I noticed that clock was 02.30 am,3 hours before I have to get up but no matter,need to let it go when you feel for it.



Had these flies with me on my weekend fishing on Sunday and every single of them delivered fish or fishes as my 40 cm long fly did,I was surprised how easy it was to cast a fly big as a seagull.



And "Laken" then,it's awesome in very shallow areas,you cam easily fish with it in places where's no more than two feet water and still use a intermediate line,now when water gets colder it will be a killer,need some more colors of them.

Autumn 2013 coming to end.

It's time to face it once again,winter is closing in,while sitting and writing this post I can see some sleet falling down.
Have already have some cold mornings even in southern parts of Finland with temps on -4 degrees.
I'm living in a hope that I would be able to go on a one last trip this weekend before it's time to put my boat in winter storage and take my kayak and floating tube to action for the rest of my trips.
My brother called me yesterday from his cottage and reported of a storm wind around 16 m/s and if it's not calming down then my boat season is over,I also need to check out the traffic,not funny to drive around on a slippery road with a boat trailer behind.

Have done some fishing too since my last post with variable results,last two trips has been tough with only nine small jacks landed in totally 12 hours fishing.
But in other hand I have also had some good or excellent fishing with "better" fishes landed.



A remarkable thing is that flies have delivered far more fishes than lures and that "new" colors also have stepped in beside old reliable black/silver/white.
Swedes always praise for green/gold which hasn't been a "must" color in my boxes but it really saved my trip here the other day.



I have to admit I was a bit surprised how well it really worked,I had a fly VS jerk on my own casting five casts with lures and fifteen casts with fly,ten casts more for flies to compensate the facts that it was heavy wind and I did not choose any fly or lure spots especially and you also can cast against the wind with lures so your'e able to cover a bigger area.
Anyway the result,zero with lures against four to flies wasn't really a result that I was expecting and of those four three was caught with green/gold.
As a result of that is that I need to clean up a bit in my boxes and make some space for also that combo.

I have also took a lot of video material which still waiting for some editing but I think it will have to wait to the winter and will be ended up as some kind of a compilation of my Autumn fishing.

A memorable incident was also when I was testing one of my new creations.



All the same as so many of my already chewed flies but added some UV-light purple flash to it.Not because of that but still three pikes with six casts made a smile on my face.



And finally some random photos.

Trouble free fishing.

So after two trips called disaster I finally managed to do a session without any problems with my new boat,even if it was just a couple of hours it felt good with some insane attacks on my flies and a total amount of almost twenty landed pikes included some almost big guns.
The wind had changed from north to south so water level had raised fast to almost normal,and the weather was warm even if you can feel the autumn in the air.
Also recorded some videomaterial which still need to be edited but this time because the battleship worked fine I also had time to take some photos too.



Now two days later I got my car and boat packed again for some fishing tomorrow,the wind have pushed some water into the shoreline for couple of days now so my hopes are high for a nice day out on water,biggest issue right now is the wind,not direction but speed,promised 9 m/s will make me leave my fly rod home and grab my jerk baits instead,at least for the morning.
Later forecasts said 5 m/s which will suit me better if I decide to fly fish too.

New ties

After my time in hospital I wasn't able to go fishing for a while and sick leave for a month has been a pain in the ass for me now when I have a job that I really like.
Was not able to drive a car either and in too bad condition to do anything useful I spent my time watching old Fly VS Jerk films and like about thousand times before I got inspired to tie some flies,even if I don't need them =D

My eyesight was very bad and my hands didn't obey my mind either so no beauties but good therapy for my mind anyway,still need to be tested.




First and last ones is some kind of "old school ties" with only Bucktail and Big fly fibre as materials,and some flash of course,but fast and easy to tie and very effective too.
Second one is inspired from Calico cat lure colors.Third one....well,you can never have too many of these colors were I fish.

And when I started to feel better I ventured to try something smaller.
Even if I'm a piker to the bone I still feel I would love to do a sea-trout trip this autumn and I probably will,I had to make a try on some easy shrimp fly and honestly I have to say that I'm very pleased with the result,even if I don't have a clue if these flies will work.



Also had some other flies tied with sea-trouts on my mind but still need to take some photos of them.Planned trip 9 November so still got time to fill the boxes.