X-mas gifts getting you down.

Was this holiday not what you wanted?  Did you get socks, or something for that tree you put up once a year?  Well its not to late, e-mail me about a order of custom flies made special for you!

This could be you!

E-mail me at Krippes@hotmail.com if you are intrested.

Fly development

When I decide to make new flies i start out with either something already tied, or some bait chucking mimic fly.  So here is what i have been working on.

Let me know if you want one!

Divers, better for monsters.

Fly fishing for predators is the most fun you can have in the world of fishing.  Knowing the monsters you have casted at could take you line spinning deep into the backing, and maybe even take all you line with it.  Eighty bucks out the door.

What flies get predators to act like they do?  Well, its normally big, ugly, often flashy, and more often… cute.  My girlfriend has often call most of my most effective patterns cute.  And often lake I’m picking them out of the mouth of something big and mean.

My favorite fly for getting monster to be monsters is hands down the Dahlberg diver.  The fly is just a big bunch crazy with a lot of noise and a bunch of bubbles.  Bubbles are good, or more over, sound good.  The sound calls big predators to feed.  Bass, pike, Muskie, even trout and many more tend to come to call from this sound.  When you rid this fly with a sinking line, you get a dying swim then float that screams easy meal.

My most used and most popular divers are small.  I call then crappie divers, or smallie divers.  There are on average one and half to three inch long divers trimmed so small you can throw them on a five weight without any trouble.

They seem to work great on hybrids.

One pattern I have been using is a gar rope lure designed to tangle in their teeth.  There are fish out there with jaws like cinder blocks.  Then there are fish with a jaw like solid steel and only as wide as a size two hook on a fish over fifty inches long.  So you have two choices.  One, rig a fly with a small and super strong as well as sharp trailer hook, often having to be a treble hook to get the chance of putting the hook into the jaw.  Or two, you rig up a rope fly with loops, and strong tippet to bring in the beast.  I use both, not at the same time, but I find a nearly 95% tangle rate on the rope and a 50% rate on the treble stinger.   The other issue with a treble hook is it sucks to ditch a cast and put that into the back of your head.  Rope flies tend to need less shots after words.

But they work!

Bizzare fly tying

Here is a shark fly video!

Thanks for good time on the bench

Gearing up for some lake run Brown and steel head near Chicago, i have been tying alot.  Some of the fish here eat nothing but big chunky prey, fun times to some.

This is the Famous Sasquatch, i thought i would try it out op here.

meet my version on the chubby muffin, i made this to look like the round Goby.

Alewife flies.

This fly is one of my patterns known as a Silly Rabbit.  Its a good streamer that is easy on the caster but has lots of movement.

This last pattern is a new unnamed one meant for a variety of fish.  Its super easy on the cast and it's craft fur in neutrally buoyant, it won't float and will get right into the strike zone you want.

Some times is is just better to tie for confidence rather then the flies your buddy is using.  Tie and use what you believe in.

Warm blooded prey!

             Standing knee deep for most the day I took to the far bank for a bit of drying time while I scouted a new spot.  It was a feeder creek, tiny, maybe four feet across at this spot, but nearly a foot deep.  I had good results fishing spots down river.  A few Hybrid stripers, white bass, and a nice smallie had been landed.  The low water was moved past large beaches exposed by the low water.  It was by no means super low, but this semi-large river was now very wadeable with a steady current.

After I had fished some nice spots lower in the river I went north and tried this small feeder creek.  As I approached, about 30 hybrid stripers came flying out of the creek and into the pool.  Most about two pounds.  I saw one fish maybe over fifteen inches.  As I approached the lower bank where the creek meet the river, something happened I will never forget.

We have all herd of mouse being eaten by fish, but seeing it something else.  Most of us miss this.  And I have never heard of Hybrids eating mouse before.  But as I approached the bank a small mouse found himself trapped, I had not seen him there.  He turned and took to the river.  After about five feet of slow swimming, a Hybrid rolled on it and the mouse was gone.

Now if you ever fish small mouth water, you should have mouse flies, even in winter.  I had three.

The fishing was unreal.  I maybe got fifty fish on mouse patters alone, and after my mouth flies wore out I tried every top water fly I had on me.   It was epic!  Fish where blitzing the flies.  I lost a monster on a crease fly and a few others on my remaining mice.  All my top water flies where tore to pieces.

After that I started changing flies like made till I found a streamer that was perfect.

Meet the Iychymimus!  (means fish  mimic)  It is one crazy fly and is one of the patterns I dish out on orders.  Its about three inches long and is great for predators.  I got about fifty fish on this one really long lasting fly.

Skinny water fishing!

Times are hard in my neck of the woods.  Drought has hit the entire part of the country where I am.  Rain is light, rivers and lakes are down.  Some more than others.  This region is full of giant river run reservoir.  Their water outlets are more for the flood control then energy, so we get a lot of fish flushed down into the tail waters.  This had made for some great fishing in a small area.  But when these rivers lose all flow, and hardly run.

This can make a sixteen foot deep river run a foot or two and become only about six feet wide. 

Some days can be slow, and some can be turned around with just two fish.

 Got him on the dropper of a hopper and dropper.  Had this massive hook stuck in its mouth, was about a 6/0.

Drum love crawfish flies.

Some times six or seven fish is great, but some times one or two make four hours worth it.

Welcome to the Bizarre

Fly fishing is a sport that has been wrapped in tradition and placed inside a small can with little room to move.  Up until the last twenty year, most fly fisherman have use small insects to catch trout, and streamers for saltwater fish.  Most often we would use a drift method, but often I found this too little, too boring, and far too little of fish caught.  Trout are fine, but the places and season you can fish for them are limited.  I decided to become part of the revolution.

I’m talking the fisherman who are gunning the fastest rod they can find, the biggest lines and big, ugly flies that they keep moving.  Guys who trade trout for smallies, and leave the tiny streams for massive Muskie waters.   Guys who are looking for monsters, mean like gar, or deadly like sharks.  This is not a place for purists.  It’s a place for those who love predators.  Those who love the monsters that make us remember why we have backing.  To men like us, nothing is off limits and we try everything.  We don’t hate a fish because we are purists, we hate them because we are just don’t like them.  Welcome to the weird, the strange, the Bizarre.  These are White shark custom flies, and this is Bizarre Angling.