I wrote a blog about matuka flies late summer last year, diving a little bit into the history of the style. Our resident, fly tying factory, Håkan, has made a step-by-step instruction on tying a matuka, so let’s take a more detailed look at the fly.
Continue reading “Matukas and zonkers”
Fishing trout in still water has a lot in common, whether it’s salt or fresh water. The trout live much in the same way: The feed and grow to maturity in the large still water and migrate to streams to spawn. Whether fresh or salt, the habitats also share some of the same types of prey – gammarus and baitfish/fry being two of the notable ones. In both fresh and salt water you can even be lucky enough to find trout feeding on terrestrials.
Continue reading “FRESH OR SALT?”
To me there are few flies that embody the whole essence of “a fly” as old, classic wet flies. There are plenty, hundreds, to choose from and I’ve featured some of them in previous posts. A few decades ago, most new fly tiers began with a Red Tag and once the basic techniques were in place, next on the agenda was learning to tie feather wings. Usually the subject was a March Brown wet. It’s simple (until you get to wings), catches well and challenges the fly tier. Hen pheasant wing slips aren’t hard for the experienced fly tier, but they’re not the easiest either.
Continue reading “Old Wets”
Not the ones you find on every self-respecting car owner in the rural areas, no – the ones used behind flies. A trailing hook – as in a hooks that hangs “behind” the fly, further back than the hook would be, had the fly been dressed on a wetfly- or streamer hook. That is sometimes an advantage.
Continue reading “Trailer Hooks”
From the entire team at Ahrex HQ, we wish you a Happy 2022 and at the same time, thank you for 2021.
Continue reading “Happy New Year”
It’s not uncommon for new flies, styles and patterns to emerge from combinations of other well established ones. Some turn out really well – some not quite as well. But when you combine the superior mobility of a zonker with the basic principle of the upside down properties of a a jig hook, I say we’ve got something good.
Continue reading “Jigs and zonkers”
Our friends at Hökensås Sportsfiske have been organising their popular Trout Safari events for a long time, and they usually sell out very quickly. In the last weekend of October, we have partnered with Hökensås til to put on a Trout Safari together.
Continue reading “Hökensås Trout Safari”
It’s not as serious as it seems, but it was the general thinking behind the first Intruder-flies Ed Ward, Jerry French and Scott Howell tied, sometime in the early 90ies. They discovered that big flies would illicit aggressive strikes – because the “intruded the personal space” of big fish, without spooking them. To begin with they used them for king salmon and then slowly transferred the style of fly to steelhead fishing.
There are so many new and exciting flies to try, and many of them you discover in the most unexpected way. That is especially true if we as fly fishers and fly tiers are open to new ideas and think outside the (fly)box.
One of the innovative and very creative fly tiers out there is our friend Brian Ratcliff from England. Among all the flies he’s sent us, especially one pattern caught our attention a little bit more than the rest and we were curious how Brian fishes this fly and how it came about.
Continue reading “Old Man’s Earplug Daddy Muddler by Brian Ratcliff”
Soft hackle flies are some of the most universal and, for me at least, some of the most important in my trout/grayling flyboxes. I fish them as teams of two in the rivers and I often use them as droppers in stillwater. While the old, English masters of the tradition actually were quite specific on which insects their dressings imitate, they are often good year round.
Continue reading “Soft Hackle Flies – The Swedish Tradition”
