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Welcome to the Casting Around Fly Fishing Blog a blog about Fly Fishing, Fly Tying and various interesting and related topics. This Blog is best viewed in Mozilla Firefox. I’ve been made aware that it may not appear correctly in Internet Explorer. I’ll look into fixing this – in the meantime, if you things look funny in IE, check it out in Firefox for the best results. American Rivers announces America’s Most Endangered Rivers™ of 2010 June 2, 2010 You can see the full article at the American Rivers Site Here’s the List:
Just so you don’t think it is all gloom and doom, here is a link to the success stories – America’s Most Endangered Rivers™: 25 Years of Success I’d like to announce the birth of a new fly fishing magazine; Rise Forms: Fly Fishing’s Literary Voice. There are many fly fishing magazines available – most focus on “where-to” and “how-to” or they offer beautiful photos of gleaming fish and dream destinations. By design, Rise Forms will be a bit different from those fly fishing magazines already floating around. Rise Forms will be a place to read about the fly fishing life. As Fly fishing’s literary voice, Rise Forms seeks to find and publish work that conveys both the passion and contemplative nature of fly fishing through high quality, literary works of non-fiction, fiction and even poetry. Our website is under development but you can get a flavor of it from the About Us page and learn about the editorial board and more on both the general philosophy of the magazine as well as the specific topics we hope to cover. We are in the process of soliciting articles from a wide range of authors covering an array of topics. If you would like to be considered for publication, please read the Submission Guidelines. If you have any questions or comments about Rise Forms, please use the Contact Page. We anticipate launching in the fall of 2010. We look forward to reading your submissions. Anthony Naples,
I recently came across this website called BackpackFlyfishing.com. BackbackFlyfishing is the brainchild of Jason Klass and if you are a backpacker and a Tenkara fly fisher, you need to check it out. There’s a blog, forums and a gear shop focused on Tenkara. In a recent blog post Jason presents a simple solution for the problem of Tenkara line management. When moving along the stream, it is often difficult to handle a 12-ft Tenkara rod in and among the trees and brush. The solution is to collapse the rod, but then you need to deal with the line. Check out Jason’s solution: Tenkara Line Management from the backpackflyfishing.com Blog
When people speak of “pigs” in fly fishing, they’re usually talking about huge fish. In this case a pig is a pig. The Yellow Creek Coalition (YCC), in Bedford County, Pennsylvania is sponsoring a Pig Roast fund raiser to support the work that they do on Yellow Creek. Below are the details quoted from a post on the Fiberglass Flyrodders Forum. The Fly Fishing Only project water on Yellow Creek is a great stretch of water, and the YCC does a lot to preserve access to this water, which is located completely on private lands.
In addition to all the really cool stuff (fly rods, original art), I’m sending along some flies for the raffle. Here’s some pics of the flies I’ll be donating.  Shenk Sculpin  Tan and red czech nymph  Green and orange czech nymph  Yong Special  Black Thread Midge  Al's Rat  LeTort Cricket
Lately I’ve been messing around with tying “one-animal” flies. That is, all materials come from the same beast, excepting the thread and the hooks. The post that I did a while back on the Casual Dress, got me thinking about this topic. The Casual Dress almost makes the cut – but the ostrich herl head rules it out. The first animal that I attempted is Marmota monax; the lowly groundhog – or woodchuck as some of you may say. I’ve seen groundhog guard hair mentioned as a tailing material from time to time – so I picked up a patch of hog a few years ago, but never really used it. The guard-hairs are great for tails, but I found that the banded coloration makes for nice looking wings as well. The underfur is quite unruly, it is not easily dubbed – and you really need to use a dubbing loop to make it work at all. That said, it seems to float well. My “extensive” testing ( in a glass of water) revealed that it produces a pretty buoyant fly. I have to admit that these are some fairly ugly flies. But there’s something buggy about them – I think I like them. Please note that there has been no field testing of these flies. This is merely an experiment at the vise – I’ll update you on the results if and when these make it to the stream.
 Woodchuck Comparadun Woodchuck Comparadun: Hook: Curved Shank, 3X-long hook Body: Woodchuck underfur, tied in using a dubbing loop Tail: Woodchuck guard hair Wing: Woodchuck guard hair – I tied this in using a dubbing loop like a “fur-hackle”, then shaped it into the comparadun style “fan-wing”.
 Woodchuck Emerger Woodchuck Emerger: Hook: Curved Shank, 3X-long hook Body: Woodchuck underfur, tied in using a dubbing loop Tail: Woodchuck guard hair Wing: Woodchuck guard hair.  Woodchuck Floating Nymph/Emerger Woodchuck Comparadun: Hook: Curved Shank, 3X-long hook Body: Woodchuck underfur, tied in using a dubbing loop Tail: Woodchuck guard hair “Legs”: Woodchuck guard hair – tied in using a dubbing loop like a “fur-hackle”.  Midge#1 by Anthony Naples: done on iPod Touch with SketchBook Mobile Midge #1 Sketch is based on a photo from the Winona Fly Factory Blog. Well, I had been snowbound for almost a week. The children didn’t have school all week – and they were getting a little stir-crazy (me too). Normally with snow piled up outside, I’d have the vise out and be tying like mad. Well – I was mostly otherwise occupied (see above about children not having school).  50 cents worth of midges: A few hours of tying (3 doz. midges)
However, I did find one afternoon to get a few flies tied. Looking forward to some late winter and early spring fishing I find myself thinking about midges. This probably conjures different images for different anglers. For those of you out west, midges may make you think about the large tailwater rivers. For those of us in Pennsylvania (think Central Pennsylvania streams) or in the midwest (think the Driftless Region), midges usually mean smallish, limestone spring creeks. In either case, midges can be a blessing and a curse. A Blessing: It’s winter. You’ve been fly fishing deprived for weeks, maybe even months. You’ve gone through all your Gierach, you’ve read through all the latest magazine issues (maybe even ranted about all the articles about fly fishing for freshwater dorado in Bolivia – or is that just me?). Finally a little break in the weather, corresponding with a break in your schedule, and you can finally get on the water. For me, this usually means Spring Creek in central, PA, but for you maybe it’s the South Platte in Colorado or Waterloo Creek in Iowa. You’ve got the heavy nymphs, maybe some buggers – but in the back of your mind you’re hoping for midges. What joy these minutiae can bring. It’s just such a wonderful thing to fish to actively feeding, and maybe even rising fish in the dead of winter. A blessing and… A Curse: Maybe you have it all figure out – me I’m still schooled sometimes. You see the fish, actively feeding, you see the fish rising – you may not see the bugs, but you know they’re there. Sometimes, it seems like no matter how small your fly is – the natural is half that size. If you’re getting a little older – you may have trouble tying the thing on (I’ve given in and bought some cheater glasses this year). If you manage to tie the fly on, and manage to get a hit, you can’t get a hook-up. If you get a hook-up, you’re so excited (and out of practice) that you immediately break the tippet, or pull the fly out. Maybe it’s just me – but midge fishing can be frustrating sometimes (but a good kind of frustrating). The Patterns There are more midge patterns than fly fisherman. You could never tie them all (it might be fun trying though). However, there are only a few that I fish time after time. Maybe I could find “better” patterns – but after trying other flies and variations, I’ve settled on these as my favorites. Of course, I always tie up some new patterns before heading out, it’s always fun to experiment. These patterns are all pupa imitations – I’ll need to work on another post to feature some dries.
 Black Thread Midges: My Favorite
Black Thread Midge: Hook: Standard dry fly hook, sizes 18-26. You could use a curved scud-style hook, but I like to keep my hook selection to a minimum, so I just stick with standard dry fly hook. Body: Black Thread. I use Uni-Thread, 8/O. This is a bonded thread. Others prefer a flat thread that you can un-twist, to make a smoother body. I like the texture of the Uni-Thread better, it is not so smooth and has a little “bite” to it. It’s what I’m used to. But use any black thread you like. Rib: Small Diameter Silver Wire The black thread midge is my go to pattern for midges. Is it the best? Who knows, all that I know is that I use it and I catch fish on it. I like the simplicity of the pattern. I feel like the silver wire rib makes a nice contrast with the black thread. In short I feel confident fishing it. It may seem like a cliche but, you’ll catch more fish if you have confidence in the pattern you’re fishing. You can vary the color of the thread and wire rib of this fly. You’ll find a million variations on this basic pattern – but this is the one I’ve settled on for now. I like to site fish it underneath to actively nymphing fish, or fish it in or near the film to risers.  Al's Rat: Created by Pennsylvania Fly Tyer Al Miller Al’s Rat: Hook: Standard Dry fly hook. Size 18 – 26 or so. Body: Originally Brown mono-cord. I used brown Coats & Clark sewing thread. I like to twist the thread to form segmented body (like the Yong Special shown below). Head: Sparsely dubbed Muskrat underfur. The Al’s Rat was developed by Pennsylvania Fly Tyer Al Miller. Read more about it on the Little Lehigh Fly Shop Website. Being a Pennsylvania Fly Fisher I always have a special place in my fly box for PA patterns. Again, this is a nice simple pattern, tied with two materials. Thread and muskrat fur. I imagine you could change up the color scheme – but I usually tie it just as shown.  Yong Special (size 18 and 24): Created by Andy Kim of New Mexico Yong Special: Hook: Standard Dry fly hook, size 18-26. (Although a look at Andy Kim’s web page shows an improved Yong Special tied on what looks like a 3x-long curved shank nymph hook) Body: Coats & Clark sewing thread. Summer Brown shown, also cream, olive. etc. The thread is twisted to form a segmented body. Head: Black Tying Thread. Another nice simple pattern. Although magnifying those size 24 flies shows how they are not as neat as I thought – oh well they’ll still catch fish. Andy Kim is now selling his flies. Check out Andy’s Website.  Diamond Midges: Pattern created by Pennsylvania fly fisher Don Holbrook Diamond Midge: Hook: Standard dry fly hook or any hook of your choice. Size 18 to 24. Body: Underbody of flat silver tinsel, ribbed with a single strand of DMC Embroidery Floss. The floss is made up of six strands – use one strand. I tie them mostly in black, white, red, brown and shades of cream, tan and olive. Head: DMC Embroidery floss. Create head with multiple half-hitches of the embroidery floss rib. This pattern comes from a book called Midge Magic by PA fly fishers Don Holbrook and Ed Koch. This is a nice little book, it presents several new midge patterns and features some nice photos of naturals compared to the patterns. The focus is definitely on the subsurface imitations. Many of the patterns are tied with DMC Embroidery floss and Coats & Clark sewing thread. So you’ll need to make a trip to the craft store or sewing store. The nice thing about this pattern is that the DMC floss comes in dozens (maybe hundreds) of colors, so you can tie these flies in many subtle variations.
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