by Brian Zinger on April 2, 2019
Spring will be here soon. The opener for VT regular season of trout is just 2 Saturdays away on April 13th. We’ve been having longer and warmer days. The snow is melting and the sweet smell of sugar shacks boiling liquid gold is in the air. Mud season is in full gear, and we are getting down to the last couple of fly tying night for the boys and girls of the castawayflies winter gang. Now is when we transition from tying time to fishing time. The time when we can take all of our creature creations that we produced by the wood stove on wicked cold nights, and put them to good use fooling fish and getting that tug that many haven’t felt since the fall.
Hopefully we will be able to have two more sessions before everyone would rather be on the water. I’d like to also get a session before the Ditch Pickle Classic to get some extra flies ready for that tournament. What important right now is that I get ready for the early season of trout. This week I’ll be tying a fly that doesn’t work, particularly in the early season. I don’t know why I keep them in my box. Maybe cause I like the name and the creator. The fly is the Double D. This year I’m putting some UV into the thorax to make it even less productive.
by Brian Zinger on March 19, 2019
Instead of meeting at Earthlogic tomorrow evening, some of the castaway fly tying crew will be heading to the Jericho Cafe and Tavern. I’ve been going there for years for there amazing food and spirits, so it will be nice to do that and twist up some flies with friends.
At JCaT I will be tying up a pattern that goes back over 25 years when Paul”Brown Dog” Brown Jr. was my fly tying mentor. We would get out of work Wednesday morning, go to his house and tie up flies that Brownie thought were “got ta have” flies or something we saw in a magazine. One week he told me we were going to tie a fly he saw in a book from a tyer out of Maine. Brownie liked it because it was said to work well on brookies. The author said “1st time I used it I caught 88 fish”, so he called it the 88. We sat down to tie it when Brownie realized he didn’t have some of the correct materials. What we wound up tying didn’t look much like the picture in the book.
The first time either of us gave the fly some water time was on a trip to the NE Kingdom with a couple of friends. By the end of day one all four of us were using the fly. By day 4 we wished we had more. The following weekend, I entered it as one of my two flies in the Winooksi River Duel fly duel. I was the only angler with that fly (Obviously). I wound up in 3rd and actually couldn’t believe anyone caught more because that fly crushed it.
We never gave the fly another name because we felt that it was equally as productive as the original was touted to be. They are easy to tie and even easier to fish. This fly is a “got ta have” in sizes 12 and 10, 14 optional. I’ve caught fish trying to change some of the materials but the recipe I give you is all you need.
88
Hook: Mustad 9671 #12 & #10
Thread: uni Camel
Abdomen: med gold wire
Thorax: uni stretch green
Wing: Mallard flank
Hackle: couple turn of 2x Grizzly