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Bait Tailer reacted to a post in a topic: Getting into saltwater 2h in a budget
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Bait Tailer reacted to a post in a topic: Fly fishing for snakeheads
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Even with the 292, I suspect you'll need a longer stiffer front section to get the jerk changer's action. I've been using titanium wire rigs. Another idea from Gunnar... Instead of linking the front shank (or shanks) to the hook, tie them along a strand of wire. Stiff mono or a tube rig also works, but I don't like how the extra diameter eats up brushes. The real challenge is the balance of buoyancy and weight throughout the fly. A lighter gauge hook will help but I've found foam and weight placement to be just as critical as profile. The commercial jerk changer has this balance built into the shank and hook configuration. With hook up front, you need foam to unweight the hook and weight in body to destabilize the fly and force the action. To really glide the fly must be neutrally buoyant, have a level balanced attitude, and resist pulsing. Siliclone/Airhead/Goodspeed style head coatings go a long way towards the later.
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Bait Tailer reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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@HillTop is the unicorn flat or round? It looks promising. Translucy is flat. Like a magnum flashabou.
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Bait Tailer reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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Yeah I don't have the barring down yet. Especially for EP or Bonnie. That stuff just wants blend together. Something that might help is putting Gunnar's dropper jig keel rig in the body. Usually several tungsten beads on mono wrapping the brush between mono and beads just like the foam in SWGC. Usually I over do it and cut a few out.
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I haven't tried that bucktail changer on musky town. That's giant fly. Blane uses body tubing in the body and head in his too. For those hover changers I did standard ties in tail with belly hair. Then reversed belly hair to build it up in the middle. I didn't have belly hair long enough for shoulders and head with the 3" tranlucy brush so I grabbed some super hollow bucktail from the base of a tail.
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Went for mammachog tonight but still suck at markers and photos. I'm adding way more peacock to bonnie for the next one.
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At the end of the day there's 37 pages here because theyre sexy AF. tiers love them because they take time and they have their own angles.
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Bait Tailer reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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That's where I saw it too. I don't know if it's worth the price but sounded simple enough... Muddleresque support for tranlucy brush veil. My hack jobs were worth it. On platform over recipe. I got hooked on game changers because they surprise me. Once I got the basics I realized I could put anything in a dubbing brush or loop as sparse or dense as I wanted. Most of the time the brush density, material and feel determines the shank sequence. Flies get longer or shorter or thicker or bulkier based on what I'm working with. Then my brushes get better at wasting less material and building the taper and fly in the brush.
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Bait Tailer reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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P.S. this is very cool Water Flow about a Swimming Fish By Moe William Rosen · 1959
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Thanks TSA. I’ve seen a few on Gunner’s hook with his mono split rig (shank-mono-shank). These are on a light flexible tube in the gap instead of a shank. 6/0 assault heavy and BKK titan. I’ve done a few on jig hooks too but liking this rabbit hole. I agree on the jerk/glide turn semantics. Too many similar flies with similar names and completely different flies with similar action. That cycling drafting analogy is interesting. I think we need the big head vortices to kick the tail, but the head also moves slightly around the main pivot point. The other angle I’ve been thinking about came from Mike Bucca from Bull shad. I asked if/how to get his baits to swim on a slower retrieve. He said the floater swam the best at slow speed, but to swim at the slowest possible speed, he said you had to tune it to sit perfectly level low float so all the body sections were just under the surface… He went on to describe his baits were designed so the water would “catch” the front edge of each body segment. Instead of water flowing around the bait sending vortices down a narrowing body, he wants each left/right front edge to “catch” water. That kicks it to the side and opens the angle for the next right/left front edge to “catch” water. His baits are thicker than most and his angles are more open and the “face” of each segment as a sharp corner. Very hard to describe, but each front edge of each section essentially creates its own drag. When the joint angle and each segments width and length are spot on you get the bull shad, which swims wider and kicks harder then any other bait. I have a hunch this contributes to the SWGC swim and to some degree Blane’s Hover changer and other translucy changers. With the SWGC Adams wants the foam exposed. With the Hover changer Blane is very particular about the angle of each translucy ramp, going as far to set the angle with UV resin. Maybe I am crazy lol
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pittedsopitted reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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JRT reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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Bait Tailer reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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I should also say I think the main advantage of these flies is how they feel to the fish. Every long fly before the beast rellied on long whispy materials. Every fly that pushed water rellied on a big deer hair or synthetic head for a big bow wake I'd bet what makes these flies so effective (at least for my dirty and/or night conditions) is they have the bulk along the entire length of the body. They're the only fly that moves water with the entire profile. Every section pushes water. It's not just the tail reacting to the disturbance of the head.
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I almost forgot about the swimbait hook. The hooks are already heavy for fishing around pilings (2-3g) so I don't want to add too much more weight. I'm brainstorming where to sneak in some foam.
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Yeah the more shanks the more chances to wiggle. Something about the water ramping over more edges. Like popovics always said about more tips. I still don't know what to call all these glide/jerk style flies... Gunnar has mega-jerk now Blane's jerk changer. There's so many in the musky world, but many have been duds for me. Anyways I'd call any fly that changes direction and carries its darting action side to side a glide or jerk fly. That squid I posted a while back is the widest "glide/jerk" fly I've been able to tie. It's essentially an extended airhead with foam and a rattle. Still nothing compared a slug-go, fluke or jerk bait or glide bait or glider but it will move a foot on a good jerk strip and long leader. That fly is the only one so far that doesn't cast like a wet sock. To glide the fly can't really compress, pulse or kick. Jerk/glide fly needs more weight and rigid material than anything else. If all the material holds water it's a wet sock for at least the first few false casts. I'm not sure what to call my issue with the jerk changer's shanks-hook-long shank layout... Musky guys know that front shank will get mangled but they're willing to deal with it. It's worth it for them... Sure you can bend it back but will you get it straight? Maybe in a boat with clear water. Its easy enough to bend to "tune" the glide. It's also easy to bend too far and turn the fly into a propeller. When stripers put on the feed bag I don't want to be fiddling with tuning a bent shank on a rock in the middle of the night. Well see about the foam. It's 4mm with E6000 so fingers crossed. I need to do a bunch of airheads this week so expect the predator dubbing blends and some other goodies soon
- 577 replies
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Suave reacted to a post in a topic: Chocklett's Finesse Changer: how to...
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Nailed it. Its a platform! There’s no one changer to rule them all. IMO/E. The more shanks the better the swim (given right materials and profile). When going for glide I’ve had more success with one or two joints. My best jerk fly has no articulations, but as size gets bigger you run into issues with length and flexibility affecting hook up ratio and durability. Hook placement is definitely species dependent but can help or hinder action. My changers with two hooks didn’t swim as well. I blame more weight in the rear for subduing the kick. But for jerk/glide style you need some extra mass somewhere around the middle of the fly. Profile does a lot. I’m trying to do a swimbait hook changer for a spot with pilings and a lot of other junk. I had to remove more and more material from the head for sufficient hook point exposure. Then more material from chin and belly for keel. I ended up with a fly with flatter horizontal profile and more up and down than side to side swim. BUT material on top and bottom IMO has as much to do with keeling. My new favorite changer is a hover changer… deer belly and bucktail support with a translucy veil. I trimmed this one to adams profile but the extra deer hair buoyancy in the tail wanted to flip the fly. After a few test swims and trims I got it so the tail wants to flip but the 6/0 ahrex beast keeps the fly riding true for slow to moderate retrieve or swing in slow to moderate current. The effect is a big wagging flipping tail. It wants to roll but never flips so swims wider than most.. On the flip side ; ) Generally the SWGC swim better than my other changers. I’m guessing the foam is doing more than reversing the keel. It “unweights” the tail but the tabs disrupt a lot of water. Blane always talks about not letting water through the head. Chris found a way to do that for the entire body, but I also heard Blanes been using disks for body support for a long time. It would really interesting to see how the fly would swim if you only used the foam tabs in the beast style SWGC layout. My guess is it would still kick. I gave the foam disk support/material damn a shot with translucy and swam great for casting weight. Did a SWGC and bigger BT brush this morning. have a hunch they’re going in my top 5 for spring…
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Mike Oliver reacted to a post in a topic: Getting into saltwater 2h in a budget
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TopStriperAngler reacted to a post in a topic: Getting into saltwater 2h in a budget
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Someday I’ll pull the trigger on a proper TH… I picked up the conversion kit for a TFO TICRX 8wt, extending it to 11’. Its fairly forgiving but sweet spot for me is around 450gr. I’ve tried several other 11ish rods from Beulah, Echo, even a T&T and don’t feel the need to upgrade yet. When the $300 TICRx combo meets the wrong rock, Ill definitely replace it. TH is so much more efficient for heavy lines and big flies and frankly fun as hell. Between videos here and elsewhere TH overhead came MUCH more naturally to me then single hand power application and haul timing. Spey casts are still a work in progress. I wouldn’t hesitate to try it. IMO how big you want to go really comes down to where you fish and how far you want to push conditions. For 90% of my out front fly fishing the 11’ gets the job done, but when the conditions get too gnarly I go back to spin. If I was hardcore fly, I’d most likely pull the trigger on Mike’s. Several guys here have tried the NFC blanks and various carp mods with ok results. Everyone I know who’s tried his raves about them.
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Its a great platform, one of my favorites. Have you seen Jonny’s video on kinky squids for bears den? It includes a lot of material and fishing considerations. I’m always fishing from shore and usually find smaller groups of squid hunting small baits. I think about presentation in terms of the predators squid are. Just like stripers they’ll hang on edges anywhere they can easily ambush prey or each other. Depending on the edge and current, I’m usually swinging a floating line or sink tip… stacking up current mends for a greased line swing and/or feeding line back into the swing, slipping drifts as described by Ken Abrames and @The Fisherman Sometimes they want more action or speed and I’ll throw in some snaps and hard strips for sharper changes in direction or a two hand strip to get it up skipping on the surface. there’s so much you can do with kinky squid to match the scenario. They can be tied with a shank or tube off the hook, or head on a hook with body on a longer tube or shank. Along with material density and buoyancy, you can add weight upfront so they nosedive to depth and/or weight in the rear to balance or unbalance the hook. Same for foam in the head or body or a slick siliclone style coating. it’s definitely worth checking out @The Graveyard Shift ‘s posts on tying and fishing his versions of Rich Murphy’s shortfin.