Renaissance Redneck: The eyes have it!

By DAVID KITTREDGE
By David Kittredge

According to Alfred Lord Tennyson, “in the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to love.” But an angler’s fancy turns to fishing and an even older man’s fancy, such as mine, turns to tying flies for fishing. The still cool temperatures of the air and even colder temperatures of the snow melt fed rivers and lakes are the reasons for my hesitation. I bide my time for wading the rivers until black fly season, a scourge non-trout fishing folks detest, but a sign to the trouters of the world that the waters have reached the magical 50-degree mark when the fish are stimulated from their winter state of semi-hibernation. I am even hesitant to troll for salmon until a couple of weeks into the season until the ambient temperatures hit the sixty degree mark.

In the meanwhile, I am content to remain in the comfort and confines of my home researching new fly patterns to tie and or replenishing my supply with old reliable patterns. The old “reliables” don’t always work though, often times a fly that was hot one year turns out to be a frosty dud the next. So, I like to add a few new choices every year to be on top of the game. In the last few days, I have been tying new smelt fly trolling patterns for salmon, lakers and rainbow. The northeastern part of the United states is unique in that many of its lakes are populated with rainbow smelt, a type of baitfish.

One pattern I have been tying with a few revisions is called the “One eyed Poacher,” originally tied by Bob Upham of Maine. The fly was named for the antagonist of game wardens in books by Edmund Ware Smith. The original slightly sight impaired fly had only one eye painted on its head, but I have decided to give the fly full twenty-twenty vision and to change the hue of the fly a bit to a greenish tint. Upham’s fly looks like a good fish catcher, although I personally have never caught a fish with it, so I am tweaking the design a bit.

Studies have been done and polls have been taken regarding the subject of eyes on a smelt fly imitation and the eyes have it. Flies with jungle cock eyes catch five times as many fish as lures with no eyes and flies that have painted eyes on the head catch twice as many fish as those without. Jungle cock can still be purchased on eBay for about a dollar each or capes are offered for a couple of hundred dollars apiece and up. If you are not a fly tier and simply purchase trolling flies, they will probably not be dressed with jungle cock these days because of the lucrative cost, you might want to paint eyes on the heads of your flies to make them better attractors.

The easiest method of painting eyes onto the threaded head of a streamer fly is to flatten the ends of a round toothpick, with one end slightly larger than the other. Start with the larger end of the toothpick and dip it into a dab of thick paint that has been squeezed out of a tube onto a piece of scrap paper, then simply place a dot of paint on each side of the head. Colors used for this step are white, yellow or red. After the paint has dried, use the smaller end of your fashioned toothpick to dot a pupil onto the iris using black paint. It is best to do a number of flies at once so as not to waste your paint. You can then coat the head and eyes with clear fingernail polish for durability.

Another option for fly tiers is to use is imitation jungle cock which consists of a photo of the feather imprinted onto a piece of plastic which is very realistic compared to the natural feather nail but doesn’t seem to have the durability of the original according to fishermen that have used them.

Many lakes in New England have smelt imitation patterns that are unique to them in regards to color and design, which suggests to me that the smelt in each lake vary in color a bit. Unfortunately, the best patterns used on most lakes are ones that were designed and tied by locals and many of these patterns were never published or recorded in the many books on the subject. To find these patterns you must seek out the folks that fish the lakes and ask them gently and politely what color streamer flies work best on the lake you plan to fish. Another avenue is to visit local fly shops and inquire within as to what might work on your intended place to fish.

To have a successful fishing trip, try to have a fly box that has streamers in a wide assortment of colors and if the fishing is slow, twitch your fly as it glides through the water to give it more action. Good luck and tight lines.