Full Dress Clousers (30 Degree Jig Hook)

Hula wrap and 30 degree jig hooks for extra pizzazz!

Peppers & Soft Hackle Flatwing

Gizzard Shad

Gizzard shad (Dorosoma cepidianum) is a common forage fish. I captured this specimen in Lake Pepin while fishing for white bass. The first photo shows the natural and the Clouser Minnow, which works well enough, but doesn't imitate the silvery, compressed body quite well. Below is the picture of the anatomically correct floating gizzard shad imitation.

T-shirt Design

A couple of T-shirt ideas...

The Best Solution

...for measuring shooting heads and custom tips, readily available on Ebay. This particular model measures down to 0.01 gram or 0.15 grains. That's more precision than you'll ever need for flyfishing!

Casts and Boils

More jetty madness and more fish activity! Fish boiling, bait spraying, sometimes a vicious strike on each cast...and suddenly, everything would be quiet again. Most white bass caught were between sizes of the fish pictured. A couple of saugers were a nice bonus...

Lake Pepin Jetty

We visited a nice jetty on Lake Pepin today, and fished from it for a few hours. I was hoping to run into some white bass action, and even though I found some fish, the fishing was slow... I rigged my bass rod with slow sinking "hover" head and fished with small shad imitations-jig hook clousers, and craft fur minnows.

While I was fishing, Amy took a bike ride around the park. These cool looking blue bikes are available for everyone to use for free!

I saw several boils-whites were chasing baitfish, but very sporadically. This little guy came to my fly about 30 minutes upon my arrival. It was the only white bass for the day...

These guys were more common, bumping my fly often.

Just when I was getting ready to leave, this sauger attacked the fly in the rocky shallows... a pretty little fish!

On our way back, we watched a pair of cranes in the valley. We have been observing them already earlier this spring. They have been nesting in the valley for the past six seasons. Amazing birds, indeed! I took several pictures from the car, and even though not great (they were pretty far from the road), this one turned out the best. We'll be back on the lake soon!

Orange-nose Minnow

A modern classic... Sculpted slinky fiber/flash blend, jig hook.

Casting Fun

Lake water was still too cold and high, but I had alot of fun casting the bass rod from the wooden dock. Waves and wind made my casting platform oscillate and shake wildly! I was throwing Crystal Schminnows and small Jig-hook Clousers, without much happening. With nice temperatures we've been having, it shouldn't take much longer... On a side note, trout fishing has been good-I had some nice action on both dries and nymphs a couple of days ago on a local spring creek.

Long Fly

A non-floating variation on the theme, with long , flowing hackles...

Red Foam Gills

More floating baitfish... These have floating foam pads made of red foam-they represent gills perfectly!

More Floating Flies: Firetiger

Mustad vs. TFS Jig Hook Comparison and Bill's Foamberg

Yesterday I got a nice surprise in the mail... I received a beautifully tied foam diver and some samples of Mustad 32786BLN jig hooks from Bill Ninke (aka wildwilly on Stripers Online forum.) Foamberg, as the fly is called, is a foam version of the classic Dahlberg Diver, and it looks like a perfect fly for many predatory fish species.


I took some pictures of various hooks. All of my jig-hook flies are tied on either The Fly Shop TFS 5444 hooks or Gamakatsu 60 degree models. I have never tried Mustads, though. As you can see from the photo above, Mustad 32786BLN hooks are shorter in length and have wider gap than comparably sized TFS 5444 hooks. The finish, sharpness and consistency between TFS and Mustad hooks are very similar.

On the bottom photo you can see how TFS hooks compare size-wise to the more popular saltwater fly hooks.

From Fly Archives

Nothing really new in this post, only photos and old scans of flies tied in the early 2000s. Top to bottom: KT Squids, Kinky Minnow, Gurgler & Bass, Circle Hook FPF & Surf Candy, ALF.

Just Worms

Baitfish/Crayfish

A combination of styles...baitfish shape, prawn or crayfish colors.

Articulated Crease Fly

Articulated version of the popular crease fly-weighted in the belly and towards the rear for erratic swimming action. (Upper picture added on January 31. I included the split ring for better hook connection.)

Bunny Bait

Rendez-vous with Mr. Pike on Jeremy's Lake

We arrived on the lake little after noon. The day was perfect-clear, sunny and with the slight breeze-a welcome relief for this moody spring weather. Jeremy skillfully navigated his boat toward shallow grass flats and undewater humps, searching for pike and elusive muskie. We were positioned upwind and started to cover the water methodically, varying our retrieves. When a good location was thoroughly covered, we would move to the next likely spot.

The water had a good smell, which reminded me of my happiest fishing days chasing striped bass in Boston Harbor. The salty tinge was lacking, but the fresh smell of grass and shoreline trees made up for it. Swallows were low, looking for insects, and a pair of grey herons flew up from the cattail field. I was fishing my retro-glass "warmwater-special", falling into its laid back rhythm, and teasing the red-yellow-white flatwing streamer, so that its long tail would sweep sideways. After several short strikes on the fly, I had a solid grab. Short glass rod was deeply bent, while the fish made a run straight toward the boat. Despite of the knot which formed in the line after the fish took off in a hurry, and Jeremy helped untangle, the handsome and healthy first pike of the day was landed.

Soon after this fish, Jeremy landed another one and slowly but steadily, the action was unfolding. We would change the location and find quick action with short pause between takes, or pick another spot which could be devoid of fish. After dropping two consecutive fish on flashy ALF-perch imitation, I decided to switch to my trusty Loomis Megataper graphite and the intermediate line. We were fishing slightly deeper water, and with the steady breeze, intermediate line was a better choice for achieving consistently deeper and straighter fly path. The line change proved to be a good choice, since it resulted in renewed action for both of us. We both got some fish who would run straight to the boat after feeling the hook. One flat showcased a magnificent muskie, who was obviously spooked by our presence, but confidently swam slowly under our boat.

Soon after, I tied to a fish who seriously strained my rod. It felt like a serious oponent-we both thought it could be a muskie, since it would not move too much, but felt like incredible weight at the end of my line. After changing several angles, I felt it moving, and started reeling in. It proved to be a smaller pike who ran so deep into weeds and logged itself into it.

We finished the day on the beautiful weedbed flat, where Jeremy hooked and landed a powerful fish. The richly colored pike smashed his big red streamer and gave out a spectacular fight, thrashing madly on the surface. Looking at each other, while approaching the boat landing, we said almost at the same time: "It was a good day!"