Corpusfishing.com

[RPool]

My old friend, oral surgeon Dr. Tom Perry from Ohio, sent me a very nice shrimp pattern he created when he fished Baffin. Tom's Shrimp uses mixed dubbing and palmered hackle for the body to create a very "shrimpy" profile - little works of art!

For the past year, I have been tying a really simple shrimp-like pattern out of synthetics I call the "Laguna Thing" and it has attracted reds like mad, rarely rejected. It uses black bead-chain eyes, a synthetic body out of palmered crystal chenille (Estaz) and sparse bucktail plus sillilegs for the tail. Not the work of art that Tom ties, but easy and functional. Here are some colors that have worked very well in the lagoon.


[


These make for a great shrimp box:

[hickroots07]

Very nice. Just started fly fishing. Thanks for the info!
_________________
Great captains, the stuff of legend, are made not by what they have caught, but by what they have given back.

[Jetty Bandit]

Thanks for sharing! That's one of the many things I like about fly fishing, I've caught some good fish on some really weird looking flies.
_________________
"I never had an Easter, but I've always had a bunch of speakers" - Beardo

[Tyler]

Nice flies Rusty!
_________________
Like Corpusfishing.com on Facebook!

[RPool]

Thanks, Tyler. But as Mike Singleterry told me, he once caught a red with an old piece of radiator hose in it's belly, so I quit feeling so good about my fly toying ability!

[ROBDOG]

Nice looking flies. I wish I could get some time to sit at the vise.

[BayFly]

Thanks for sharing, and especially for posting it here! It is so seldom anyone posts in this section you would think no one fly fishes here!

[oscar@CBF]

I like those. What size hook do you tie them on?
_________________
Fish HARD or stay home with Mommy!

[RPool]

Anywhere from 2 to 6. Mainly 4 but have caught a bunch on 6's.

[bulldog1935]

these are great fly patterns, especially all the kicking shrimp ideas.
Wanted to say that first.
Unless you're trying to match a size 28 midge, catching fish is never about the fly, it's always about how it's fished.
There are some things about flies that can make them look natural.
Soft hackle and epoxy both look like crustacean shell in the water - so does plastic V-rib.

What cues us onto flies isn't always what cues the fish. I made the ugliest epoxy crab that sight-fished the biggest black drum I ever sight-fished - 25".
It was just some loosely spun bucktail, burned end mono-U tied along the hook. If you watch a crab, they walk sideways holding up their defense claw behind them. Trimmed to that basic shape, slap on a little epoxy and final trim to shape after the epoxy cures. It was an ugly fly, but imitated the action of a crab walking sideways along the bare sand and holding up his defensive claw behind him - a long tail of bucktail.
One day throwing the same fly at a red over bare sand, the fish saw me, turned away, shuddered, ran back and grabbed the fly.

here's my kicking shrimp, which may not look like much, but has always worked for me.
Size 6 hook.
krystal flash and bucktail tail, stainless bead chain eyes, palmered (spread wide and wrapped with thread) rooster hackle over shrimpy kevlar thread.
The wing is a pair golden pheasant crest feathers (for the shrimp tail), finished with a collar of pheasant rump soft hackle (which has beautiful natural blues and reds) - they virtually give away the pheasant skins, because most people are just after the tail fibers for tying tiny nymphs.

this one has been fished - it looks weird, but it acts like a shrimp


If you think about the action of stripping a fly line, you're already imitating the action of a kicking shrimp.
My favorite thing is sight-fishing big specs in skinny water.
This was the second cast of a morning in the back of Allyn's Lake - the first cast was a bigger spec that tore the hook out on her 2nd run

fishing the same kicking shrimp pattern and of course, stripping hard.


Some basic patterns I always have for the coast are roaches and high-ties.

[bulldog1935]

here's a great kicking shrimp rig for your baitcaster - smear on a little stink gel and hang on. I posted it so you get the idea of the action. Slap your thumb against your fingers and you'll see it.
A shimp kicks with his tail, then swims with his legs - this rig duplicates both actions. A settling fly after you strip it also does the leg-swimming thing.


But it needs a Stazo flex-jig - somebody needs to start making these again.



ps - here's my nickel-size crayfish for freshwater - this fly came off my fly patch, and caught 25 Guadalupe bass the day before I photographed it.

[ziacatcher]

Very interesting post, guys. Thanks for sharing!

[BayFly]

Bulldog, you are obviously a creative guy, and I look forward to more of your posts, especially one showing the side walking crab you referenced. Keep up the good work.
BTW, your creativity reminds me of a friend of mine who developed and owns Flexcoat, and is the father of the young men who developed, and still own a portion of, and run Yetti today!

[bulldog1935]

thanks - I can't take the credit for the flex-jig kicking shrimp rig - it was on the original Stazo flex-jig package.

made me go back and look at the epoxy crab - all that's left of it is karma on my hat.
I did notice I used small hen hackles for claws at each end of the fly.
The problem with epoxy flies is they can be heavy to turn over.

But any flies I tie in the near future are going to be for white bass...
We're going to have a Medina run this year, and I'm excited about that.



if you want to see a little more about the cat's whisker fly (just above), this is me fishing my home water with Kevin Townsend
https://vimeo.com/83257262
not only is KT fishing my rod, he's carrying my bag and wearing my shoes...
I can't take credit for the cat's whisker, either - it was designed by David Train as a Scot Loch fly, I found it in Mike Dawe's book, then wrote an article with the pattern for the GRTU newsletter (and contacted David Train and Mike Dawes for permission).

[BayFly]

I looked on google to learn where Bulverde was, but I did'nt see any stream. What are you fishing "at home"?