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3. Hair Bugs

I hauled these out of the archive recently, getting back to some warm-water fishing with my oldest grandsons.
I started packing and stacking hair-bugs back in 1993 and caught a fair number of Large mouth and N Pike on critters like those in the attached pictures (lost a few, too- bugs AND fish) although the 'used' bugs really took a beating over the years. The ones in the pics are still in pretty good shape and some got packed away without ever getting cast. A friend introduced me to trout fishing some 6 years ago and I set aside the big bugs for dries and nymphs. BUT grandkids grow and now I'm breaking out the 8-wt more and more, even getting my double-haul back!
Sort of ironic but the friend who got me into trout has become a hair-bug customer of sorts, we've horse-swapped my bugs for his older reels and so on to get me started in gearing up for trout.

Tight Lines!

Roguerat

I Peter 5:7 'Cast your cares upon Him..'

Cool. The top flies are like the one Bob Clouser showed me for pike. Relatively easy to tie, and to cast, they work well! The sunfish is creative; how hard it it to tie?

When I started tying the Dahlberg Divers I used 1/0 hooks, just like in the videos (VHS!) I learned from. Experience made me downsize to sz 4 and 6 for these guys since the big Divers were tied for Saskatchewan or points north, and some truly BIG N Pike. The reasonable sized flies cast a lot better, not like a wet paint-brush...and they worked fine on the 30-36" Northerns of my part of Michigan.
The sunfish were more tedious than difficult. I used sz 4 'Stinger' hooks for these, and the bodies of the fish were spun, stacked, then trimmed in a horizontal orientation so the hooks exited the body on the side (visualize a saucer-shaped fly, on its side). I used a double-edged safety razor-blade to trim the hair with, along with very judicious use of a curved hair-scissors. The tails and fins were black goose feathers, coated with Flexament then trimmed and glued into slots cut into the deer-hair bodies.
I know I'm rusty as all-get-out but I've got a sz 4 hook in the vise, and I'm going to do some packing and stacking soon!

Roguerat

I Peter 5:7 'Cast your cares upon Him..'

Fun! I had one I called "B-52" a big wide wad of deer hair that I caught both my biggest fly caught SM and LM on. It was a bear to cast lol. Warmwater FF is sure a lot of fun. And I had circumstances bass fishing where the fly rod could match, or outfish, conventional gear -big hatch years of bass on ponds was one.

Agreed, it's fun to go after warm water fish when the hardware tossers are scratching their heads- and a well-placed hair-bug is really working!
I had to learn an open, lob-type loop to throw the really big bugs, along with a well-timed double-haul for long casts.
Is your B-52 online anywhere?

Tight lines!

Roguerat

I Peter 5:7 'Cast your cares upon Him...'

Nope! It was nothing special: A wad of of spun deer hair trimmed leaving some legs along the side. The head is popper like. Oh yes, some marabou for a tail. When cast, it sounded like a swan coming in for a landing. I only made the one. Skittered it around vegetation for LM and the big SM took it dead. I was looking elsewhere, fiddling with something, and when I looked up there was a big ring spreading out on the water.