The weather last weekend was pretty wet and wild throughout the entire country. I drove over the Hutt River on Friday and it was running high and very brown. While the rain subsided on Sunday, the wind was still tearing through the mountains, so we decided to stay bundled up in the house instead of trying our luck on the river.
We’ve also had some reports trickling in that Taupo is finally starting to fish well, which is encouraging. If the weather behaves this weekend and we can actually get out for a fish, this may be one of the last weekends on the Rangitikei for a while. We’ll be shifting up to Turangi for weekends if the fishing is actually descent.
Finding fish on the Rangitikei is not a challenge, although landing the larger rainbows is. I thought to mix things up a bit I’d tie up some new flies and fish exclusively with those this weekend. With some of the ideas I’ve had floating around in my head from the flies I’ve been posting over the last month or so, I thought there was an opportunity to have some fun on the vice and maybe get some of those ideas actually in the water and catching fish.
After work I tied two bombs and two point flies, each with a different twist on some features I want to explore. The first, above, is tied on a size 12 jig hook with a 3.5mm black tungsten bead. The tail and body are standard for us, although the thorax is a dark brown hare’s mask dubbing from Knapek. It’s topped off with a dry fly hackle for extra “legs”. This is a mild modification of our standard green Czech nymph, although the body is a bit darker than what we normally tie.
The next fly gets more into the wet fly territory. It’s also on a size 12 jig hook with a 3.5mm bright copper bead. The tail and body is our standard green Czech nymph. The thorax is a deep olive dubbing with synthetic additives, from Hareline I believe but the label has long since been lost. The hackle serving as legs in this case are duck. What kind I have no idea. The feathers came in a bag that was given to me from a friend. His kids had shot various birds over a weekend and they saved me some feathers. Whatever they are though, I’ve had excellent luck with them in the past on experimental flies. Here’s hoping for a repeat performance.
The next fly is a bomb. It’s tied on a size 10 jig hook with a 4.6mm gloss black bead. I’ve used Veniard Centipede Legs for the tail and legs. The fly is tied upside-down as it will actually normally fall this way in the water. The green ribbing was the only green wire I had and is a bit bulkier than I’d like. The body is our standard green and the thorax is a mix of natural hare’s mask with the dark brown Knapek dubbing used above. The wing case is a dark olive latex, split by a thin strip of pearl mylar. This fly is pretty bad ass, but there’s a few features I’d like to refine.
The second bomb is a close variant of the first. Same hook and bead size, although I’ve used copper bead on this one. The body is a much darker green and the ribbing is X-Small Ultra Wire. There’s no rubber legs on this one (aside from the tail) but the wing case is the same. The thorax is a very scruffy hare’s mask mix.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, green is “the color” for the Rangitikei. We’ve caught most of our fish on green flies and we don’t even bother with other colors now. I’ve poked around under rocks in the river and found the biggest, juiciest green caddis I’ve ever seen. They are almost the size of my pinky. This probably explains why green is the color of choice.
Juicy
Fingers crossed that the weather holds for the weekend. Maybe I’ll tie up a few more this week so I have one or two more sets of flies. Luckily with the Rangitikei being wide open and relatively snag free I actually don’t lose too many flies over a day, but it pays to be prepared just in case.
AK CUSTOMS 