Golden Nymph

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Comment by jim cosgrove on December 8, 2013 at 12:58pm

tooty try the tungsten beads on a few of your bugs.i think tipped with a spike they would be killers thru the ice.try em in sz 12 or 14.tthose marabou bodies and bright colors i think would do great

Comment by jim cosgrove on December 8, 2013 at 12:55pm

me too too tooty,i always say i flyfish because i love it,most times not gonna be the most productive way to fish.like most things that are difficult on purpose it is much more rewarding whe you get all of it right.there are those days tho when they are feeding on top when i do outfish every one,and my tungsten bugs tipped do catch more fish than bait by itself.when i go to sara every spring my cousins steal all my bugs and they dont flyfish

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on December 8, 2013 at 12:50pm

You're right, Jim. You just never know for certain, so must be prepared.
At the same time, there must be SOME constants we can hold. Yore boys had an inkling shrimp would work, for example. They took shrimp instead of pastrami for a reason- They suspected it, had heard of it, had used it before, etc.
We must play to what strengths we have.
As for trout flies and bluegill, I have criteria I select by. I don't just grab them at random. In the case of this beaded nymph, it very much resembles aquatic nymphs I already know are in my waters. It still requires a little tweaking; it is, however, proof of construction concept.
I like your way of thinking.

Comment by DAVID L EITUTIS on December 8, 2013 at 12:32pm

COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MY SELF JIM C. MY personal slant on tipping is this : If ya like tipping do it , it's that simple. I don't cause the only true measure of a bait is natural un tipped if ya will . Jeffrey once in a while fishes my baits untipped , but not much. He still catches fish he says and that's good enough for me . And yeah I agree with ya Jim he is the most prolific harvester of gills on here , period........

  Tony seems very interested in the minimalist approach and there is a lot of merit to his trying to figure out how little he can get by with . I'm with him on that , however , I have another wrinkle to it . Spring when the fish are really hungry and chasing food from a long winters slow down is the test of when a bait should be tipped and also in the fall when there is no spawn going on .

   Alll us tiers on here try to come up with a bait that catches fish , at least I do as an untipped bait. If it catches fish from spring to fall , not tipped , then it's a worthy bait. Just my opinion here and I really don't care what anyone does with my baits , just give em a fair chance is all I ask of anyone . DDDDDDDDDDDDon't try em this time of the year and expect results through the ice like ya get in May or June for that matter.
  It ain't going to happen . Is there a universal bait that catches fish all the time everywhere , HECK NO AND NO ONE WILL INVENT THAT . REMEMBER THE BANJO MINNOW ? HHHHHHHHHHHA HHHHHHHHHA ANOTHER GIMMICK TO CATCH FISHERMAN AND NOT FISH . I spose they work somewhere sometime but have never actually seen one or anyone using one for that matter....

  NOW THE BAIT THAT SCRUFFY JUST CONCOCTED IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF WHAT A GOOD BAIT SHOULD LOOK LIKE. NO DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT HE HAS A WINNER , SPRING AND TIME WILL TELL , BUT IF I WAS A BETTING MAN I'D SAY GO GET EM BUDDY...

   BACK TO THE MINIMALIST APPROACH: it is good to have these discussions on here cause every time I read a new or old rehashed blog I take something positive away from it . HHHHHHHHHHM HOW ABOUT A PLAIN JIG HEAD UNPAINTED OR TIPPED? BET SIR JEFFREY COULD CATCH SOMETHING ON ONE OF THOSE ........

Comment by jim cosgrove on December 8, 2013 at 12:23pm

my son got into those lake perch again this morning.8 degrees out and a strong east win .all caught on shrimp pieces on crappie rigs.they would not touch minnows.my point is shrimp do not live in lake michigan ,minnows do.a crappie rig is not exactly a finesse rig.you are not supposed to catch fish in lake michigan on an east wind.they got15 apiece some 14 inchers.you never know what is gonna work.

Comment by jim cosgrove on December 8, 2013 at 12:13pm

i think the minimalist approach is fine ,as far as the ice fishing goes 99% of ice fishing is done with bait tipped lures or jigs.gulp and pwerbait count as bait.the idea of adding legs and such is to give your offering movement and attraction to your bait.same goes in open water.seems jeffrey our most prolific fisherman here uses a combination of bright jigs and flies tipped with a healthy amount of live bait.he also fishes many different places and public water.trout flies are fine but many are for moving water which is a lot different than still water.

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on December 8, 2013 at 11:04am

Some good comments, fellas. Thank you.
Im in a phase where I agree with BOTH of you. Im certain there is a bare minimum of features in a bait that, if included, will entice fish.
We must remember Metabolism, too, since each fish's activity its tied to the temperature of its surrounding waters.

That acknowledged, presenting the things that "personify" food is subjective once the minimum is met. Take this nymph pattern of mine, for example. We know the real aquatic creatures it copies exhibit a certain number of identifiable attributes:

Head
Thorax
Abdomen
Legs
Coloration
Size
Movement
Seasonal "correctness"

As long as we include enough of these features in our simulation, we have created "triggers" so the fish see our lure as -

- Maybe food,
- Probably food, or
-Yes food.

It is that simple. As JE Pritt suggested, we cannot create a living thing, but we can create a simulation of Life. Fortunately, we are aided in this because fish cannot scrutinize all potential food items with a microscope. They must take their meals where they find them, or lose out to another.

During "glut" periods, aka hatches, selectivity is likely. But even then, certain triggers if present are likely to exhibit a strike response. The trouts' apparent relish for ant patterns at any time is one example.

Since food is the main motivator we employ to catch fish, it seems prudent that we strive to understand the What, Where, When, Why and How of this food. Given that understanding, the angler may minimize - or over do the thing- to his own hearts' content.

Of course, you could also just dangle a worm, cricket, or minnow in their fishy faces and be done.

Comment by dick tabbert on December 8, 2013 at 9:25am

Tony I know there are thousands upon thousands of lures that catch more fisherman than fish. I also know there is lots of marketing that goes on to sell the fisherman on why you should,t be without it and in all reality fish is the farthest thing from there mind it called marketing to sell to you the consumer. I know there is merit to lots of what you say but there is always that little something that helps to catch that fishes eye and help improve your catch ratio. I know we discussed it before and as a tier I'm always going to experiment it's in my nature. The biggest thing to me and I know we have discussed that before also  is the eyes.  You really picked  some interesting subject mater. Really in my experience when we fish our waters there is always a food source and as a tier and that's my opinion  I believe in matching the hatch with the most realistic lure/fly as possible and if we can do as such I think we will be pleased. Sometime as tiers we tend to go overboard and our flies/lures tend to get big and gouty. Most people think fish can't see small so we tend to build them up. There is no wrong or right answer here cause any lure will catch a fish but the right word here is consistency. I think that's were the realism come in you know matching what the fish are eating making that bait as real as possible.GOOD FISHIN....

Comment by Tony Livingston on December 8, 2013 at 8:11am

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Interesting comment David.

I'm working on a hypothesis that suggests BG are, at least part of the time, far less concerned with tails, hackle, legs, and wings than they are with color, and simple shape, where jigs are concerned. I'm proceeding under the assumption that seasonal patterns, geographic location,  technique used by the angler to display the jig, and water temps hold influence in this regard.

One need look no further than a basic ice jig to see demonstration of this. Many, many thousands of BG are taken each winter on simple, metallic, teardrop jigs. And I might add, there are ice anglers who utilize those same jigs all year round, and catch their share of our favorite fish.....I'm in that camp myself.

My goal is to try and reduce the frilly jigs down to the bare, fish catching basics....what exactly is needed in order for a jig to produce? How much care and attention to detail instilled by the individual tying the jig/bug is actually required for his/her creation to produce, and how much is there due to "tradition", or because it looks "fishy" to the person tying it?

Comment by Slip Sinker on December 8, 2013 at 12:18am

Great stuff David.... you took to this fly tieing like a fish in water

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