Hi all...new member here. Fished occassionally but with not a lot of success probably about 3 or 4 takes in a 4 hour session here and there, up till now. Anyway,
I was reading a thread on here somewhere about using strike indicators ( not wanting to get into discussion re the whys wherefors...) and tied a couple of green and white marabou flies , went to Kingennie at Dundee on friday and had a go. Well the upshot was I had over 30 takes (lost count at 33) and landed 8 fish, ( kept 2 and carefully returned 6) my best day ever. I used two flies on 6 feet leader suspended.
Question is........is this a normal percentage of hook ups??? I reckon I connected with 1 in 5..........whats the best way to deal with a take ..all advice accepted as I ended up quite annoyed at what I was doing wrong!!!
I know I did ok and was well pleased with what I caught.....but c'mon.help.what do you guys do??

Try varying the speed of your retrieve, and lengthen your leader..6ft is very short.

cheers Diarmid.

I'd guess if you fish flies static suspended your take to hook up ratio will be less as you aren't in direct contact with the fly as you would be during a retrieved cast. I don't fish 'under the bung' so I'm no expert at this method of fishing, though it would seem reasonable.

sounds like most of your takes were biting the marabou tail.

Mate if your fly has a long marabou tail chances are the fish are nipping at the tail.If you are fishing the sightbob,you may not be getting the takes you think,weed may be to blame or fish may be swimming into the line.Your hookups may be better than you think.

Keep in contact at all times and feel for the takes as well as seeing. Same rules apply as if normal fly fishing, strike firmly and solidly and don't flick the rod, usa a steady upwards movement.

Flyinghigh

Thanks for replying guys. The surface was dead calm and I'm sure the point fly wasn't dragging the bottom at any time as where I was its about 8 ft deep, and the bung wasn't drifting. There was definate "twitches" and sometimes I let the indicator go under for a while, sometimes I lifted in slowly when I saw it move, sometimes I connected,(all in the lip) mostly I didn't! I was thinking the same about the fish just nipping the tails and maybe fish touching the leader. I'm going to experiment with shorter tails.......but keep the ideas coming.....thanks.

Mate I dont know what leader material you use may be an idea to look at that.
Maybe actually an idea to scale down your flies in size not just tail length,you seem to have the right patterns with the interest your getting.

Sightbob.........was using 6.6lbs froghair florocarbon and yes I think I will make the flies smaller. Cheers.

Al

Sometimes when fishing the bung, it will twitch a fair bit before moving away or drawing under. Perhaps I am wrong but I feel this may be the same fish and therefore the same 'take'.

Personally, I generally only lift into the fish when the bung moves off or draws under. I wonder, too, if the twitches are like 'line bites' when carp fishing; i.e. the fish has hit or swirled at the fly but not actually taken it and hence these register as twitches on the line.

Anyway, well done on your good catch but a lengthening of the leader to 8'+ should help and, remember, loads of takes are better than no takes at all !!



Ben

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