The Toad Puppy

Olive Toad Puppy

Last year I was toying around with a new streamer pattern. I wanted something big and juicy that larger browns would hammer. I had some specific goals in mind when I started designing this thing: it had to be big, have a big profile that would move some water, and it had to have a trailing hook. Ultimately I wanted something that was going to get those big browns really mad. They have a tendency to bite at things that invade their territory.

I took some inspiration from some of Kelly Galloup’s patterns I put together a 5” long streamer out of rabbit strip with a head from Hareline Dubbin’s Sculpin Wool. I used a nice big hook for the front- my favorite streamer hook the TMC 9394 in size 2 and I used some beading wire with a size 4 TMC 105 as the trailing hook (turned up). This combination with some copper flash and and rubber legs to help fill out the space under the wire worked out really well. I put in bead chain eyes and lead wire to weight it. 

Toad Puppy variety pack

Kevin and I put it to the test in late April of last year. It was a week after the trout opener and it had just rained. The rivers which had been fairly low and clear because of an early snow melt were on the rise and discolored from some rain. Perfect streamer weather. We put on our rain gear and headed out. We armed ourselves with 6 wt rods and put on Rio’s sinking Versi-leaders on the end of our lines. Those leaders are the bomb for getting flies down. I have a trick I use with them to make it a bit easier to work with huge streamers. I tie off about a foot or so of heavy tippet (15-20 lb) to the Versi-leader, tie a small swivel onto that, and then finish out with a couple of feet of 12 lb Mirage tippet. I use a non-slip mono loop knot to put the fly on the end of this rig.

Spot with Toad Puppy hanging from his jaws

We hit the river fairly early in the morning. The water was cold- about 40 degrees F- and stained grey with about a two foot visibility. Basically, it was great conditions for what we were trying to do. We headed to a place I knew a big brown was hanging out. I had caught him there the year before. Sure enough as I swung that fly through the hole he had been hanging out in I had a hard take. A few minutes later Spot was in my net and after a couple of pictures he swam away once again. Kevin had a hard take at the tail out of a pool a couple of hours later but a dulled hook spoiled his hookset.

The following day I headed back out to work the river again. I ended up landing two more fish- both browns- in a matter of 45 minutes of one another. I thought the second was a rainbow at first because of how it jumped. I would not have hooked that fish if it weren’t for that trailing hook too. Shortly after that I had another fish on.

Pike like the Puppy too!

Big trout like that are often called toads by anglers and I had told Kevin that we were going toadin’.  With that in mind my fiancée Beth came up with a name for the fly- the Toad Puppy. This fly has proven its worth on big browns (nothing under 20” so far!) and on pike. I haven’t tried it on bass yet, but I suspect it will be a killer.  If you are interested, I have them for sale on my website.  Time to get out toadin’ is just around the corner!

MadDog Trout Unlimited Raffle

For you folks who are local to Vermont and would like to come to a meeting of MadDog Trout Unlimited this Thursday (tomorrow) check out the flies I have donated for the raffle. I am a member of the board of directors of this chapter and we are a great bunch of folks trying to do all we can to improve coldwater habitat in Central Vermont.  We meet at The Steakhouse Restaurant on the Barre-Montpelier Road at 6. Joe Norton, with the TU Connecticut River Home-waters Initiative.  Joe is giving an update of his work and presenting part 2 of Steelheading in Idaho!  Joe is the lead on the TU Connecticut River Initiative and a former fly shop owner and guide in Idaho.

Here are some of the goodies I tied up. They are split into two groups- 18 streamers and 24 nymphs in a waterproof  fly box.

Olive Toad Puppy (one in black too)

Big Eye Mickey Finn

Big Eye Black Nose Dace

Yellow Saranac Stone

Caddis Pupae

Weighted Nymph Box (almost all tungsten beads)

Tungsten Eye Woolhead Sculpin Bomber

Conehead Bugger

Wire

Gotta love them tooths....

I like to fish for fish that have serious teeth. Predators with bite as it were.  To be able to successfully fish for these fish you need to do something to protect your tippet from their teeth. There are several options:

1-    Use wire bite tippet.
2-    Use hard nylon bite tippet
3-    Use fluorocarbon bite tippet
4-    Don’t do anything and hope for the best.

See the wire?  Use the wire.... jackass...

Now, unless you are a complete moron, you will opt for 1-3. I know of one jackass who almost always opts for number 4. He lands about 50% of the pike he hooks which means that he potentially kills 50% of the pike he puts a fly into. Yea, the fish might be able to get the hook out or it could rot away, but why take the risk? No question it is unavoidable to leave flies in fish from time to time. They fight hard and will occasionally break off. It happens. But to start off with no protection from bite offs when intentionally targeting toothy fish like pike is just not good practice or ethics. The best part about this guy?  He guides. Tells you all you need to know about him doesn’t it?

Well, what do I use to prevent bite offs? I have used wire for years and it works. I have tried hard nylon and had some success, but I will take wire over it. I have heard a lot of good things about fluoro and I intend on trying it this year. I guess it is the price that has kept me from trying it out until now. I have used a variety of wire over the years, from single strand to plastic coated and the new multi-strand knotable wire. I definitely have my preferences! I liked the single strand stuff in it’s simplicity but it kinks pretty easily and the large loops that it need to be stored in makes it less practical for a wading or canoe bound angler. And it isn’t as easily available. I have used mostly the latter two for the past few years.

"I thought it was a frog.... seriously..."

Most brands of both the coated wire and multi-strand are fairly similar to one another. I really like the new low diameter knotable wire. Great stuff to work with. I just wish it wasn’t so expensive. $1 foot is a bit steep. I love to use it for topwater flies though. I like the reduced weight in those situations. What is on my leader most of the time now is Climax wire. I have used this stuff a great deal over the past 15 years and it has not let me down. It is inexpensive, widely available and easy to use. If I have to clip off the wire I have on because of kinks or twists I don’t feel like it has cost me a ton of money by the end of the day. And I am more likely to change the wire when it needs to be changed.

Another material I found last year that I really like is called Beadalon. I found it in a craft store. Yea, I am one of those guys that frequent craft stores for tying materials. It paid off. For about $7 I can get 80 feet of 20lb wire. It accepts knots well and I haven’t had any break offs with it yet either. Good stuff. Works great for other applications too- like fly tying...

Ken Capsey- the other reason to use wire....

The system I use most is pretty simple. I tie my leader directly to a small swivel, then the wire and either directly to the fly or to a duo-lock snap. The knot I use for both ends of the system is the non-slip mono loop knot. It is not difficult to tie and it holds well in the wire. The leader system is nothing too special. I suspect that a few people might ask why I use the barrel swivel. Well, two reasons for this. First noticed a lot of line twist when fishing bigger flies and the swivel helps out with it. Second, it is a lot easier to tie onto the swivel instead of tying the Albright knot. Nothing against the Albright- it is a great knot that I use frequently in some situations- but it is nice to tie a simple knot quickly sometimes.

I won't be surprised to get a bunch of feedback from folks about what they use and that hard nylon/mono is much much better than wire for this and that reason. I know that folks say that pike can be leader shy. Well, I have not found that to be the case around here. I think that if a pike or musky wants to smash something they are far more focused on their victim than the bit of line in front of it. Here is my biggest dislike of hard mono, especially larger diameter (80-100 lb). It floats. Plain and simple, it is buoyant. I use a lot of sinking flies and leaders. Why the hell would I put something buoyant on a sinking fly?  That just does not make sense to me. With a fly you want close to the surface, sure... 

The final reason to use wire is that it helps you get your flies out of trees. Take this last photo of Marty... without wire on the leader he never would have been able to climb up into this tree to get his fly back.....

Yes, he is in there and yes he did get it back...

Namaycush Bachelors

Beautiful sight in the early morning

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to get out twice with my good friend Kevin to chase some big lake trout in Lake Champlain. I got the inside skinny on where a whole lot of them were hanging out (lets just say that the population estimate in the area is in the neighborhood of 30-40,000 fish). These fish are there to spawn, which takes place primarily at night, so during the day they school up and swim in big circles near their spawning site. No, I won't tell you where this is. 

A great start!

We got out there Saturday morning and near this drop off in about 10 feet of water we started to see fish. The day was calm, the light was perfect and Champlain was pretty clear. It was not too long before I got into a nice fish- 27" and it put up one hell of a fight. For years people had told me that catching lakers was like pulling in a boot. I suspect that is true when you are using a pool cue trolling rod on a downrigger at 100 feet with 200 feet of line out during the summer. Well, lakers on a fly rod in 46 degree water is a blast! If these guys are boots, then sign me up for a few pairs of size 10's!

My second fish came pretty soon after the first.

These guys were a lot of fun on my Hydros 8 wt. Put a good bend in the rod for sure. It was a whole lot of casting practice too. Very different ballgame than is typically played in the 802 with a long rod. I don't want to give away too many details since I plan on dialing this in nicely to offer something different for clients.

It was a while before Kevin got into his first fish. But in the mean time we were definitely getting a lot of bachelors. I can now hear a lot of "huh?" from the readers. These fish were following but not committing- hence lifelong bachelors. Pretty good name for them I think.  Kevin's first fish wasn't big, but his second....  take a look and tell me. Definitely Master Class material. The Master Class program is new to VT. I will tell you all about it in a future blog entry, but for now just know that a MC laker has to be at least 30". Kevin's was 31 and a few pennies. Right on Bullpout Moosecrack! (inside joke)

Me doing my impression of the Bonefish Whisperer

I could not let Kevin get the only fish over 30, so toward the end of the day, after many more bachelors, I got a spawned out fish. Not as fat as Kevin's- you could see more ribs on this fish than you see during a catwalk fashion show- but at 30 1/4" I was pretty pleased. It was on a new style fly that I was pretty unsure of but I have since tied up a few more of that fly and I plan on a lot more in the future. Stay tuned for more on that later.

Just an awesome day on the water! Both of us would have loved to have caught more fish, but they really seemed to be in the bachelor mood. I don't know if there was much we could do about that. We tried different style flies, different retrieves, different colors. Seems like typical salmonid spawn behavior to me. It was crazy to see a huge fish just chase the fly right near the boat then swing and miss.  

I hope to get back before these fish are gone, but I don't know if it will happen. Really weather dependent being on the broad lake in a canoe. We were blown off the lake on Sunday. Champlain is a touchy lady at times. We did get into a couple of fish before that though! And slaying perch over decaying weeds is a fun time too....

This sums up my feelings about the weekend's fishing!