The Arsenal

The Arsenal

Heading to the Muskegon River this Saturday for my first real attempt at a Michigan Steelhead on a fly.  I hope one of these things works.

Stonefly Search Results

Here are the results from the stonefly search I did last month on the Huron River.  I had collection sites 26 and 51.  As expected pickings were slim.

Go to the link to see the results and the history for each location.

http://www.hrwc.org/2015/02/stoneflies-cute-and-educational/

Flying Tiger of Steelhead Flies

Flying Tiger

I think it needs more orange.

The other day I was in Schultz’s Outfitters and I saw a pack of tiger striped rabbit zonker strips.  I couldn’t help but think of all my Flying Tiger Spike Spoons and I started to wonder if I could make a steelhead equivalent.  I bought some orange guinea hen as well and put them all together.  The design is based on a Zudweg Wicked Leech.  His design is a pretty easy tie and the color combinations are endless.  Now all I have to do is to see if a steelhead will eat it.

 

More Steelhead Flies

I got to spend last Saturday with Captain Kevin Feenstra, Smallmouth and Steelhead charter captain on the Muskegon river.  When he wasn’t giving me information on how to swing flies for steelhead he was showing me and several others how to tie the flies he likes to use.  Again these designs are like nothing I have ever tied before but I’m beginning to warm up to them.  From what he told me the Shrew and Christmas Sculpin work well on Smallmouth as well.

Let me know what you think.

Articulated Hex

Blue Goby

Christmas Sculpin

Dirty Grapefruit

Metal Detector, I think.  Could be a Crevice Dweller.  I can’t remember.

Shrew

Better than spawn

Back at the Tying Bench Again.

Well since Super Bowl Sunday turned out to be Super Snow Sunday I decided to sit at the bench again.  Figured it was the best place to be since I could care less about either team playing and the thought of shoveling snow was even less appealing.

This was actually the first day I have been tying in a few weeks.  I have attended a couple of tying nights, one at Sidetracks in Ypsi and another at a gentleman’s house in Rochester Hills.  Learned how to tie some more steelhead flies and a foam popper for bass.  New areas of tying for me but fortunately they are pretty simple patterns so the learning curve isn’t to bad.  Let me know what you think.

 

Still can’t believe a Steelhead is going to eat something that small.

Ribbit.

Interesting design for this one.

Zudweg Wicked Leech modified for the materials I have.

Zudweg Wicked Leech.