Match the hatch....I need help!

[fisherking]

The salmon schools at the heads are driving me nuts.....can anyone post a picture of a fly that has actually landed a few please?

[Jewhunter]

Haven't chased the salmon in Sydney for years.

Used to do well with a 3 inch bass minnow in pearl blue

cut down to an inch & super glued to a size 4 1/8th jighead.

Hope it still works!

Cheers,

Grant.

[jimmy72]

those fish can make you pull your hair out

its not always size of the fly.. they dont always need to be 2cms eyes flies for the fussy salmon ( but often they do need to be).

somedays you need no flash in the fly , some time UV flash, or silver, sometimes the fly needs to be offwhite .. not the bright white , sometimes black flies, sometimes its olive over white , or kelly green over white . ( go light on the flash would be a general rule though)

somedays its who *&^&%^ knows.. once a mate got 10 fish more that me after i caught the first 2 or three.. i ended up with 4?? my mate eleventy thousand or so!!! so who knows sometimes - that fly was a medium sized surf candy had grass green shoulder /back and white / clearish body. i had a polar firbe minnow of similar size and colour and youcould see the fish turn off when they got within a metre of the fly ?? then go and smash his fly??

get a few olive and green surf candies that are tied sparcely, say upto 5/6 cms long and take scissors to trim if needed when you are out on the water,- to trim, dont cut the tail off but cut into the tail form behind, horizontal to the fly -- cop into it like taht so all firbre end up diff length and it will maintain the taper

get some white BMS,& grey BMS, about 3- 3.5 cms long..they have saved the day for me more tahn once..

get some eyes flies , black eyes flies, tan eyes flies some with no flash some with UV flash and some with silver and pearl

if i can work out how to uploadimages i will.. it keeps giving me a grey haze over the thread and thats it ??

also its also the retieve and tactics

very important get upwind and or up current and slightly to the side of the school too ( you dont want to drift over the middle of them and spoil the action for everyone.. your likley to get a sinker in your boat or yelled at ) .. salmon near always feed into something wind or current .. you must have your fly swimming away from them .. bait does not attack pelagics!! lol

cast and strip as soon as the fly hits the water, cast to the most agressive bunch of fish within the school, make 4-5 strips, then pick up the line and cast in again, stripping all the way to the boat is often a waste ( but not always) - i think some times when they are fussy and you catch a few .. they eat your fly by mistake, or take it as it splashes down and they dont see it very well - e constant recasting just gives you more chances for that possibility ( no matter how good the flies are .. they dont really look like baitfish)

also dont always strip super fast,mix it up, if the fish are calmly sipping down small bait .. calm down and slow strip.. its hard to do but last week off balmoral i was winning with long (near 2m) very slow smooth strips, the fast jeky stripping was having the fish turn off - leaving boils behind the fly -- heart stopping but depressing

also note when using the tiny hooks , you can pull too hard open the hook up and loose the fish, and the small hoks / flies are usually are also fished with lighter tippets .. down to 8lb on the salmon sometimes

let me work out this image thing

cheers

grant

Edited February 4, 2013 by jimmy72

[jimmy72]

eyes fly 2 - 3 cms long - craft fur or polar fibre tail for the bodyUV cure resin or silicone over some silver flash for stomach sack then a lateral line one strand of silver flash

couple of BMS salts - originally designed by muz wilson - recipie can be found on google

couple of surf candys or is it candies??..tied nice and sparce.. avoid the ones that have no taper to the tail, and too much material. the grey and olive ones here are lovely and tied by australian tier chris beech..you can buy them over the net in a few places or direct from him. my mates fly that killed me was very similar but had kelly ( bright ) green on the shoulder with similar coloured flash.. it also had a similar effect on the kingies one day when i blanked on them ;-(

thing is the fish can move onto different sized and coloured bait pretty quickly.. and within 20 minutes refuse the fly that you thought was a secret killer lol.

go to youtube and search 'bait computer' by popfleyes .. its a short US vid from bob popovics (inventor of the surf candy/ candie lol and much more) .. you will see that the with bait fish from below often their bodies are well hidden with really only the eyes and backs,(and stomach sacks) showing as they swim ?? check it out silversides, rainbait and anchovy are pretty much same as what the harbour fish feed on here .. though there were schools of 7cms long slimies thick in the harbour around Dec

Anyway enough ranting hope that helps some .. sorry for the spelling i cant be bothered trying to edit today. cheers grant shoot nearly forgot the gummy minnow fly has been working well too a few patterns around.. google 'fred hannie hold the anchovies" for the pinnacle of gummy flies.. justin duggan of sydney flyfishing also has a good vid on youtube on how to tie a much quicker basic one

Edited February 5, 2013 by jimmy72

[fisherking]

Thanks Grant!

Super informative . Pull your hair out...Yes! I will blame them for my bald head ;-)

Cheers

Clynton

[jimmy72]

no probs, i can crap on all day about fly fishing

PS i'm told the salmon were smashing poppers & crease flies in the brown water on the weekend - go figure

Edited February 4, 2013 by jimmy72

[A.dawg]

Hi fisherking

Myself and a few raiders were able to get into them on small metals the first session we went 2 weeks ago and then the most recent trip they were being pain and more picky.

Changed to a 1/24th jig head and a 2" plastic and managed everything from bonito to salmon to mactuna and tailor.

Mate was using a 1/16th jig head same plastic and did not catch a thing.