Smallest fly

[Dryrod]

[font "Poor Richard"][green][size 4]What is the smallest fly that you carry? If it is smaller than an 18 how the heck do you see the eye in bright sunlight? Or do use use a threader? That is what I use on much bigger flies.[/size][/green][/font]
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[flygoddess]

Dryrod, how ya doin'? The smallest fly I use is #32. I also use alot of #26 & #28 & #30's. I also use those flip down magnifiers. I tie them on Tiemco hooks in a wolf pattern except no hackle (Can't find any small enough) and I use snow shoe bunny feet for the wings. I do however add a shuck or tail and rib it. I will be at the Idaho Falls Fly Tying Expo tying these.
It isn't that hard for me to see the little white tuft on the water but alot of my old clients would us them as a dropper behind a bigger dry.
That is also why I like my full flex 4wt. seven foot rods. What you can't see, you will feel!
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[Dryrod]

[][font "Poor Richard"][green][size 4]Hey there flygoddess - I was going to say something about a 32 but then again one has to be able to see the darn thing first in order to make an appropriate comment. Oh I have a pair of 4x flip downs but that hasn't helped a heck of a lot. I remember as a kid my mother would ask me to thread a needle for her. I would say how come you couldn’t see the eye on that needle for it looks as big as a barn door. "Okay smarty your day will come." Yup it sure did.
I think that it is so cool that more women are getting into fly-fishing. Some of these stuffy guys think that it is a sport only for the men. Met this lady at a recent fly show that would put most guys to shame when it came to casting. Her verbal skills were excellent. Needless to say she was very popular with the crowd.
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[flygoddess]

I know what you mean. I used to be able to even tie the fly with no help but now in addition to the flip downs I also use a fly tying magnifier on my bench. The hardest part of this fly is getting the hook to the vise. Once it is tied you can grab the wings. I even put tippet on the ones I sold to my clients to help them out. Suprisingly enough I can use 6X on them but again I do a loop connection so the fly can wiggle.
I would love to hook up with you in 2006 and let you try one. easy to set the hook cause it is so tiny they suck it in.
Thank you Dryfly for the great topics and the nice words. Love chatting with you.[]
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[EvilAsh]

The smallest [inline TenCent32.jpg]
It's at the bottom of the dime.
And the largest. Guess!
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[Dryrod]

[font "Poor Richard"][green][size 4]Hi there EvelAsh - I took the liberty of reducing the fly as it was over a 1000 pixels large. Kindly keep your[/size][/green][/font]
[font "Poor Richard"][green][size 4]attachment to no more than 500 pixels wide otherwise in distorts the format. Thanks.[/size][/green][/font]
[font "Poor Richard"][green][size 4]That fly is so small I could never find the eye. If a trout were to inhale that dude it would probably wind up at it's tail end.[/size][/green][/font]
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[Dryrod]

[center][cool][font "Poor Richard"][size 4][green]My pleasure flygoddess. Heres wishing you a lot of bent rods and tight lines in the new year.[/green][/size][/font][/center]
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[tomc]

i wouldn't be able to hold on to it never mind find the eye[crazy]
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[flygoddess]

Dryrod, we got to get a new picture of you holding a fly rod. We know you can bait and spin, but I think a nice picture of you, by a beautiful river with hmmmmmm maybe a nice bamboo rod and maybe a Hardy reel. What you think?[cool]
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[Dryrod]

[blush][font "Poor Richard"][green][size 4]Oh I don't know about that. But I do have a bamboo rod that is even older than me. I believe that my Dad picked it up in the 30s. It was probably made circa 20s.[/size][/green][/font]
[font "Poor Richard"][green][size 4]I usually go fishing by myself as none of my friends are into bending the stick so to speak. Consequently there is no one around to snap a picture. However, a fellow who plays in my golf group happened to mention something about fly fishing one day. Well I jumped on that like a trout on a June bug. [do they really like june bugs?] Since he is a warm weather fisherman we plan on doing the Sierras come next Spring. Naturally I would be bringing my photo gear.[/size][/green][/font]
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[flygoddess]

Can't wait to see those pix. Hey! tight lines to you. Keep up the good work!
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[EvilAsh]

Thanks Dryrod, I'm still trying to figure out a few things on this site. It'll take a while. After all I fish.


EA
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[dabluz]

Where I live almost all the waters contain brook trout. Many only have trout....no other species....not even minnows. As you can imagine, the fly fishing is good from ice out till the end of the season. I did tie some size 28 flies. Most were "spent fly" imitations of black flies or tiny spent mayflies (small very dark fur spun body and hackle fibers tied crisscross on the thorax and splayed out on either side and 2 or 3 long hackle fibers splayed out at the tail). But I now don't go any smaller than size 24 on a 3/4 to 1 lb tippet. That's late in the season....usually an ant imitation. They are easy to tie and extremely effective. The trout sip them in and slowly move off to sip in a real ant or other tiny tidbit.

This kind of fishing is mostly watching for a tiny dimple on the surface of a lake, slowly and silently sneaking up in a canoe and intercepting the fish as it makes it's dimples on the surface. Most of the leader is greased and when the fish moves off with the fly, I can see the floating leader, at the end of the floating fly line, move away.
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[EvilAsh]

[size 1]dabluz, we have 1,000's of lakes up in the Uinta's. Some that are deeper have some big trout, but, you can catch 50 to 60 little 6"-12" easy. The flies that Evil Ash posted are my flies. I tie 28-32. The bodies are thread with the fibbet split tail and a thin wire or thread rib. I use snowshoe bunny feet hair for the wings, tied in a wulff pattern. The bunny is boyent as heck, plus you can get it in different color from off white to a dark grey which is nice on real sunny days. The most popular colors are tan, grey, black, brown olive thread and I have one that works killer on sunny days and it is tied with kelly green flashabou and a gold wire rib. I sometimes us pearl flashabout for the tail.
I am not sure what you mean by 3/4 lb tippet. I use 6X even on the 32's. I have used 7X but it breaks way too easy.
Where do you live anyway? [/size]
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[dabluz]

The leader material is made by Racine Tortue in France. The 1 lb test is measured in milimeters 8/100 m.m. and the 3/4 lb test is 6/100 m.m. It is much much smaller than a person's hair.

I use 2 lb test mono for trout fishing and the 1 lb test is less than half it's size. The 3/4 lb test is ridiculously thin yet quite resilient. It has quite a bit of stretch yet easily straightens out between my fingers before I cast. It also seems to be very abrasion resistant.

No strike is necessary, the small fly ends up hooked to the muscle that prevents water from entering the trout's stomach if I let the trout move off too far before lifting my rod tip. If I lift my rod tip soon enough, the fly gets caught in the corner of it's mouth.

I found that trout will fight harder if they are hooked in the jaw or corner of the mouth. Is it the fact that the hook is so close to be freed?

I live in the province of Quebec....about 2 1/2 hours north of Quebec City.

I just looked up a method to convert mm to inches. So the .06 mm to inches is .0023622 inches for the 3/4 lb test.

I also use these tiny flies for whitefish. The whitefish average around 3 lbs. They have a tiny toothless mouth. Their mouths are so small, I can't get my little finger in their mouths.

Whitefish are hard fighters. At first they fight on the surface...sometimes jumping....then they head for deep water...this is when you have to ease off on the tension. Whitefish are in the salmon family. I would guess that their closest relative is the grayling because like the grayling....they smell like cucumber.
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[dabluz]

I forgot to add that I use the "George Harvey knot" on my turned down or turned up eyes. Try it head to head with other knots and you will be surprised. However, the thread at the eye of the hook must fill the gap at the eye, otherwise the line could get cut.
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[flygoddess]

[size 1]dabluz, we have 1,000's of lakes up in the Uinta's. Some that are deeper have some big trout, but, you can catch 50 to 60 little 6"-12" easy. The flies that Evil Ash posted are my flies. I tie 28-32. The bodies are thread with the fibbet split tail and a thin wire or thread rib. I use snowshoe bunny feet hair for the wings, tied in a wulff pattern. The bunny is boyent as heck, plus you can get it in different color from off white to a dark grey which is nice on real sunny days. The most popular colors are tan, grey, black, brown olive thread and I have one that works killer on sunny days and it is tied with kelly green flashabou and a gold wire rib. I sometimes us pearl flashabout for the tail.
I am not sure what you mean by 3/4 lb tippet. I use 6X even on the 32's. I have used 7X but it breaks way too easy.
Where do you live anyway? [/size]
[size 1]I don't know how this post got under Evil Shes name, sorry.[/size]
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[flygoddess]

Man, how many times do you get broke off. I can't imagine using that tiny. Frogs Hair Fluoro 6X is .127mm and Rio fluoro 7x is .102mm. and I break off on the 7X. Like I said I use 32's on a 6X. How spooky are the fish up there?
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[dabluz]

So, from what I can see, 3/4 lb test smaller than 7x.

The brook trout up where I live, I am positive they are not as easy to spook as some heavily fished waters in the U.S.

Natural instinct makes most fish very nervous being close to the surface. But, I have often seen places where on opening day there will be 20 or 30 boats on a small lake and by the middle of the day, the fishing really slacks off for the rest of the day. The following weekend after a week of relative rest, the fishing is great again.

The brook trout fishing I do is usually in a very small lake. Near the end of summer, the larger trout are mostly found further from shore and if a person looks closely enough he will see a dimple like one made by a falling drop of water. So I silently paddle out and try to locate the fish. The dimples are usually about 4 feet apart so I cast in front of the fish....the appropriate length.

Fighting the fish....I can let it run as far as it wants and I don't have to horse it in. Brook trout will make a short run....then dog it...then another short run. The water is deep enough that I don't have to worry about the fish wrapping my line on something. They are pretty tired when I finally slip my hand under their belly and lift them out. They lay motionless on their belly in my hand. It's usually easy to pick out the fly with hemostats. The deeper hooked ones I keep. Size is about 8 to 15 inches.

I guess the fact that for over 30 years, I very rarely use more than 4 lb test mono on spinning gear.....about 30% of the time I use 2 lb test mono....makes it easier for me to use 1 lb or 3/4 lb tippets. A 1 lb test tippet is surprisingly strong on the end of a fly rod. 3/4 lb is "hotdogging", I guess but it is a lot more heart thumping. Losing a tiny size 24 fly when you can tie your own so simply (they are about the simplest to make) and quickly and knowing that the tiny hook won't harm the fish....I don't mind losing some fish.

Our quota is 20 any size brook trout. The ones I like to eat are the 8 to 12 inch size. I fillet and remove the skin most of the time.

The fishing is easy. There is no other food for the fish other than insects and maybe a few salamanders etc. The growing season is short. They don't seem to like eating blood suckers. The water temperatures at the surface rarely go above 65 F. A few feet below the surface....the water is quite cool. When swimming, the upper half of our body is in warm water but our feet are in very cold water. Fish revive quickly.

When fishing deep with nymphs, the trout hit very hard.....so they hook themselves.

And yes....they have those marvelous colours we see in magazines. Their flesh is almost red.
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[flygoddess]

We ahve the Uinta's were there is 1,000's of little lakes with brooks, rainbow, tiger trout, albino rainbows, and grayling. The brooks are as you say 6" to 18" depending on how deep the lake is. And the waters are gin clear. You can see the albino, they look like a gold fish in a fish bowl. Have you ever tried a royal humpy? The brookies eat that thing up, also a small red wooley bugger with burnt orange tail and burnt orange grizzly hackle.
I see what you are saying about the tippet being a challenge. I don't keep the fish (my husband won't let me cook it in the house cause he hates it) so that is another reason I don't use smaller than 6X. The fish get so exhausted, that they end up dying.
I have fished trophy lakes that are stocked with 28"+ fish. Six weight rod to me, but I have seen guys take their 3 weight and play the fish to death.
I use a 2 wt on the Uinta's alot for that same thrill, but I try to land them as quick as I can. Like you said you get to eat them[cool]
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