Mr. Charlie, his brothers, and the damsels in distress

The beauty with most salt patterns, is that they can also be used on carp. The Crazy Charlie is no exception; meet his sane cousins:


I've tied a few charlies up over the years for use on smallmouth, typically using craft fur for the overbeard and using color variations of white and orange. While watching a classic episode of Sport Fishing on the Fly this week, they were fishing a Crazy Canuck, a charlie variation tied with Polar Bear hair for the over wing. Seeing as how you are no longer able to legally obtain polar bear hair, that is no longer an option for me to tie, but on these mini-fly patterns, kip or calf tails fit the bill. Last year, I tied up a few miniature charlies for carp, on size 6 and 8 hooks; catching the show gave me the great idea to resurrect this deadly pattern.


I monkeyed around with some of the short fibered glimmer flash chenille I acquired last week, and came up with a quick and easy damselfly pattern. The short fibered glimmer flash chenille formed a less bulky profile than estaz or cactus chenille. The thinner mylar and fiber strands on the thorax should present a more realistic approach, mimicking the breathing gills of a damselfly nymph. Another carp favorite.

"Gonna scare you up and shoot ya, Mister Charlie told me so."

sparkle sparkle

As promised in an earlier post, here's the dirt on the caddis nymph pattern that put me on to some fish the other day. The sparkle yarn caddis:


A simple pattern really; a beadhead, a dubbed body made from a custom blend of green sparkle yarn and short crimp aurora Angelina fibers, gold wire rib, partridge soft hackle legs/antennae, and a peacock glimmer flash chenille thorax. I tied this pattern on several different styles of hook, knowing that the hook bend and gape can present this fly in several different styles.

The hook styles were a 2X heavy scud hook, a small forged stainless salt hook (o'shaugnessy), a 2X heavy curved wire caddis/hopper nymph hook, and a 2X heavy egg hook. I liked the presentation of the egg hook the best, and the wide gape should allow for easier hookups and a deeper hook penetration.

I tied a variation with just wrapping the sparkle yarn on the hook. While it gives a more distinct profile to the pattern, I prefer the Angelina/Yarn dubbing blend. The Angelina should provide that extra bump that, when added to the teased out yarn, will mimis a trapped gas bubble, much like antron yarn does on a sparkle pupa pattern.

Fish on!

help a brutha out

Help Capt.Gordon, a North Carolina fly fishing guide, ban the use of commercial unattended gill netting in North Carolina.


Sign his petition online and be eligible to win a Redington Titanium CDL Reel for 7/8 Line from Fishing Jones. Capt. Gordon needs 1,ooo signatures in order to send it to the Governor.

Full contest rules can be found over at Fishing Jones.

roughfisher's vault 2009.02.26

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, Live at Keystone, July 22, 1974. Berkeley, CA.

One of the many Garcia & Saunders nuggets from that era. A very funkay Boogie On Reggae Woman, and a soulful rendition of Wondering Why. A chiiled out What's Going On jam caps off the show, and is definitely one of the most unique song selections of their perfomances.