Monday, May 2, 2011

The Killer Bug and His New Friend


The Killer Bug, Killer Kebari, and a fly to be named later
Last week I was reading a post by Karel at Tenkara on the Fly about how he made out with several flies he recently received via Tenkara USA fly swaps.  Karel and I have exchanged flies with each other in addition to doing the group swaps (if you like Tenkara flies, go check his site out, he has some great sakasa kebari).  I regret up to this point I have been busy testing out many of the patterns I tied this past winter I have not tried any flies I have swaped for.  However, that changed this past weekend when I tried a pattern I first learned of from Chris Stewart (a.k.a. TenkaraBum) and was reminded about when I read a post at Poudre Canyon Chronicles.  The Killer Bug was first created by Frank Saywer (of pheasant tail nymph fame) in 1930's (for more history on this bug, see the previous links provided, they both gave great info on the fly).  I elected to bring only two flies with me this past weekend to White's Pool, The Killer Bug and a derivation I came up with were the only flies I used and I made out pretty well.


A nice little rainbow
Catching trout on the Killer Bug is not too surprising but two of my catches caught me off guard. One was a small yellow perch, which are very abundant in the pool and an American shad.


Yellow Perch

American Shad

Shad with a mouth full of killer bug
 In addition to the Killer Bug I used a fly I tied this past week which will need a name.  It is essentially a Killer Kebari (a TenkaraBum creation) with a silver lined glass tyers bead behind the hackle.  I meant for this bead to act as a bubble, similar to my Bubble Kebari.  To me, the fly definitely has the look of a caddis pupa and was judged by at least one brown trout to be worthy of its next meal. 




Brown trout with my new fly.
 I hope to have a name soon for this little guy and will definitely plan on carrying a few of them where ever I go.  Now if I could only get more time to get to all of those other flies (next on my list is the Blue Poison SK and Shaggy Caddis SK from Karel) I have swaped for I would be one happy camper. 


My new fly, name and recipe to follow in a later post.


2 comments:

  1. Great looking flies! I tried to tie some killer's last week and they look lime 3yo would have tied them. I definitively have to invest more time to figure out how to make them appealing to the eye. I caught some more yesterday on the Killer Kebari, twichting upstream was the name of the game this time. What yarn do you use?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Karel, Thanks! The Killer Bug was Chris' but I have tied The KB, Killer Kebari, and my new fly with the same yarn and colored marker that Chris describes on his TenkaraBum website. My Hackle was indian hen not hen pheasant like his. These are great flies. I plan on using yours soon.

    ReplyDelete