I’m either going to have to start taking flies apart or stop at the shop on Tuesday to buy more hooks. Practice makes perfect and that’s what I’ve been working on. Sure, I have a long way to go but what a fun thing to be learning!

Since I got off early Friday I picked up some more fly tying goodies including some foam sheets. I picked a nice light green to make my own grasshopper flies. I don’t know if I’d bite if I were a fish but they sure seemed to like it today. I ended up catching 10 nice bluegill on this fly.

There really is a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment catching a fish on something you fashioned with your own hands. The feelings are further amplified when it’s a repeated success. There were more strikes than those I caught which tells me it was working incredibly well. The fish were hitting it hard and fast almost as soon as it hit the water. I just need to work more on setting the hook and landing the fish.

Even though I didn’t snag them all I had a great time with my son and was thrilled to see how well the fly was working. This is the first guy pulled from the water on my DIY hopper.

I suppose in the spirit of full disclosure I should say that my son pulled in 12 of his own fish on his crappie pole. He’ll tell you 13 but that’s because I caught one for him and let him pull it in. I’m surprised he didn’t count the three I let him pull in with the Tenkara rod. 🙂

Hoping that I’ll have time to work on some more flies with my day off tomorrow I hit Barnes and Noble with the dream of finding one or two fly tying books. To my surprise they actually had some! Unfortunately all but one were fairly specific to trout, salmon, and other non-Florida gamefish. Fortunately they did have a copy of Essential Saltwater Flies which has excellent pictures in their step-by-step narratives. I don’t have the supplies to work on many of the included patterns but I should be able to knock out a couple.

In the meantime I decided to try my hand at a slightly larger fly than what I’ve been making for the panfish. Using a #6 hook, some black chenille, and white hackle I created my first Wooly Worm.

I’m not 100% satisfied with it but I think it turned out pretty good for working from scratch. This one wasn’t in the book I got but I’ve seen several variants of it.

So there ya have it. I can’t wait to hit the trail again. This time I’ll have an arsenal of flies and my Tenkara rod!