Winter in NH. I'm not very attracted by ice fishing and there is no other option right now. temperatures rarely reach above freezing point. Ice is over 2 feet thick on the lakes. So I'm just waiting for better times and getting ready for the ice-out. And of course, for the trip to Romania, this coming May. I will only be there for 3 weeks and there are a lot of things we have to do, but I'm pretty sure there will be some fishing involved.
FLIES FOR ROMANIA
I already have some flies ready for the trip of their lives (some of them probably won't make it back). I tied some bead heads and also some regular Czech nymphs that worked very good last time I fished there. It will sound funny, but I don't have a lot of fly fishing experience on the Romanian rivers. I discovered fly fishing just a year before moving in the US, in Cluj-Napoca, where I still have a lot of friends. They did a good job, but the time to practice is short, since the season there only lasts from May 1st to Sept 15th, with some exceptions ( grayling season is open till Dec 31st, but most of the time, if there is trout in that river, they gonna close it in September). Now the things are changing, I don't know if in the good direction or not, but hopefully there is a chance of better times for the fish. Here are some of the patterns that I'm going to use, along with others that you've seen already on previous posts:
I've been tying some streamers, also for the spring. I've just discovered in 2008 that streamers can be very productive not only for salmon, but also for trout and I want to study this section a little bit more. Probably one of the best materials for streamers is the so-called "angel hair". I got a couple of varieties from WS Hunter last fall and they were a blast, so I went back for more. They are highly reflective, and have a very good presentation in the water. Not as fluffy as marabou but the stiffer material makes the streamer keep its shape a little better. I think all of them change color in the water depending on the viewing angle and that helps creating a very dynamic illusion even at low speeds of recovery.
Check this little movie clip to see how they move in water.
RIO powerflex nymph shock
Last time I went down to WS Hunter to grab some beads I noticed this on the leaders rack. It's a elastic shock absorber. It goes between your fly line and the leader and its role is to protect the tippet when the fish hits your nymph hard. It happened to me a few times to get a broken tippet when the fish picked up the nymph and then got scared and took off, without being able to spit the fly. That, combine with my yank in the opposite direction, a short line and a stiffer rod will put some pressure on the tippet. Well this should help. Also, it has a bright pink color which is excellent as a strike indicator. It's kind of funny to see people fish with those huge strike indicators that look like bobbers and in my opinion just limit the action of the fly and the depth it can reach. That's another reason I like this RIO product, it will not interfere with the movement of your fly and still be very visible, even under the surface.
METZ necks
I kept hearing good stuff about METZ feathers. especially their necks. Last summer I ended up by buying one from Cabelas, actually a half neck, #2. I paid the same amount I paid a couple of years ago for a whole Whithing saddle, silver grade, at WS Hunter. Unfortunately I was pretty disappointed by Metz. It has a few good quality hackle feathers, but most of them are poor quality, too big, soft, with a very short tip that can be used for dry flies hackle. I found though a better use for those long feathers: their centers make an excellent quill for quill bodies. The klinkhammer-like flyes with quill bodies were among my favorites while I was fishing for grayling in Romania.
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