Crappie Kebari

Tenkara has become my favorite way to fish for Crappie and other panfish.   I have converted one of my favorite, brightly colored soft hackles into a reversed hackle, kebari style fly.  I have had quite a bit of success with this pattern over the last few seasons.  Sometimes it performs a little better, other times the fish prefer the pattern tied as a traditional soft hackle.  On a tenkara rod this one feels right.

Pattern Recipe:

Hook:  Standard wet fly ( the one pictured is an old, no longer made Mustad with a wicked barb)

Thread:  6/0 Uni your choice of color

Body:  Chartreuse Ice Dub

Thorax:  Pink Ice Dub

Hackle:  Hen pheasant tied reversed

Variation on a Theme...The Warmwater Chub

Bob Jacklin's South Branch Chub

One of my favorite streamers for my local waters is Bob Jacklin's South Branch Chub.  Bob Jacklin resides in West Yellowstone, Montana and owns and operates Jacklin's Fly Shop.  Bob grew up in New Jersey and spent a lot of time fishing my home river the South Branch of the Raritan.  He developed a trim little streamer pattern called the South Branch Chub which proved deadly on this and other local rivers.  When he moved out west he took his patterns with him and they worked well in the Yellowstone region as well.

When I first tied this pattern it introduced me to a new fly tying material, Monga Ringtail.  Monga Ringtail is a wide striped (bared black & white) tail with average hair length of about 2".  It makes for outstanding streamer hair wing flies.  The fur is fine, easy to work with and has great action in the water.  The length of the hair it limits its usage to smaller streamers, which is possibly the reason it is not more popular as a fly tying material.

One of my most effective streamers last year for crappies and large mouth bass was a small streamer loosely based on this pattern. The fly retains the teal feather and black & white monga ringtail wing, but it is tied fuller and lacks the dubbing wax coating. The South Branch Chub is tied very sparse and the fibers are slicked back with a light coating of wax.  Changes were made to the body material, a red throat was added and doll eyes and an epoxy head replaced the fragile and expensive jungle cock.

The Warmwater Chub

I have never fished it as a trout fly but as a warmwater pattern it excels.  Pickerel, Bass and Crappie jump all over this streamer.

Recipe:

Hook: #8 TMC 777SP
Thread: Black UTC 140 denier
Body:  Pale Olive Bug Yarn
Throat:  Red hackle fibers
Wing:  Black over White Monga Ringtail
Over Wing:  Teal feather fibers
Eyes:  Small doll eyes coated with epoxy

This year I have been tying this pattern substituting Clear Cure Goo for the epoxy and have found it to be a great substitute.  I like to give it a finishing coat of clear nail polish to avoid stickiness you sometimes get with UV cured products.

Tenkara USA Ayu

I fished the Tenkara USA Ayu this week.  I took this 13' rod down to a local pond and had a blast tearing up the local panfish and bass population.

Since fish in small ponds are oriented to shoreline structure there was not too many areas I would normally fish that were out of reach.  Playing bluegills and crappie on this rod was a lot of fun. Even a 4" bluegill put a serious bend in the rod.  That same rod had no problem landing largemouth bass up to about 16", which is pretty amazing.  I did lose one bass about 3-4lbs but I think I would have lost that fish even if I was using traditional fly tackle.  I was not looking to target bass on this particular trip but they showed a fondness for a black foam spider that was meant for panfish.

These 12"-14" bass were a blast to catch.  I was surprised that I was able to leverage them away from cover with this rod, but it worked just fine.  As I said earlier,  I had a bass between 3 and 4 pounds blow up on one of those foam spiders and he parted that 4x tippet like it was sewing thread.
One disadvantage to fishing such a long rod from shore is the overhanging cover.  You definitely have to pick your spots if you are fishing a shoreline with a lot of trees.  I can't wait to try this rod from the kayak.  With the 13' of rod and 18' of line and leader, there is no place I can't reach.  I find on average I probably don't cast more than 15 to 20 feet in these situations anyway.  In addition, I may have found the perfect set up for crappie.  I did not lose a single fish today.  The ultra flexible rod keeps the flies from tearing out of those paper thin mouths. More on that later...