I had a strange day at Kilnsey Park on Sunday. Having been at a friend's Birthday party the night before I was a little late setting off. A couple of Forumites I know had been the day before and had had quite a few out. My club water is as hard as nails at this time of year so I thought I'd brave the crowds and give it another go.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I pulled into the car park around 10am and there was no one fishing. I had expected all my favourite spots to be occupied. I started expectantly, with the flies that had worked last time (like you do) and to cut a story shorter had worked through many patterns and methods by lunchtime and had had only a couple of pulls and no fish. Stranger still nobody else had turned up to fish. Bu66er! I thought, I might have the place to myself and end up blanking! After a coffee and a sandwich I remembered that I'd caught a couple on buzzers the week before so tied on a couple of black buzzers I'd tied for a buzzer swap on here last year. I don't want to bring up the old 'bung' debate but would like to point out that I was fishing them straightlined on a ghost tip. Those out there thinking that buzzers can only be fished static ought to give pulling them a go.
Within a couple of casts I'd broken my duck. A nice feisty Blue of about 3lb that fed four of us for supper last night. A little while later fishing on the lower pond I hooked this 'skinny lunker'. This fellow had obviously been in the water some time judging from his fully mended tail, and had lost a bit of weight being away from the freeby pellets dropping through the stock pens in the upper pond. God knows how many flies he's seen and rejected before he grabbed my sz14 buzzer. A good illustration of what happens to stocked fish with insufficient diets that is going on in another thread. It was 2ft long and 6.55lb (measured on the fishery's digital scales). In the afternoon I continued catching on buzzers, adding an orange Blob to the point as the light faded and ended up with a respectable ten, all but two to the pulled buzzers.
Inspired by the pattern that broke my duck I've been tying up a few variants using various tinsel bodies, or black thread with a tinsel rib, died goose biot or red holo cheeks, and pearlescent lurex or tinsel thorax backs. The first batch were varnished with Sally Hansen's but I experimented with Unibond Power Epoxy for the second batch, as the HAN was getting thick and I had had the epoxy for months and never tried it. I can see if you were to specialise in this pattern one of those rotary driers would be handy but the results are not too messy for a first attempt.
Give them a pull through clear cold water, you never know what might grab them!
Tied on a variety of hooks. The barbless ones are FTB "G" Hooks from Phil at Flytying Boutique. The starting pattern was the Epoxy Buzzer in Peter Gathercole's The Fly Tying Bible.
SharkeyP
Flashy Buzzers
Linear Mode
