Fly Selection

[robbie]

Looking at the vast numbers of Atlantic Salmon landed in Scandinavia and Russia by anglers using Frances Shrimps, Temple Dogs , Snelda and other "Scandinavian" style flies, what stops the average UK angler reaching confidently for one of these style of flies before, say, a Hairy Mary or flies of that ilk? An Atlantic Salmon after all is an Atlantic Salmon whether in Aberdeen or Kola Peninsula......... or is it (Yes I know a lot of you use temple dogs etc but a lot of us don't')

[castlikeaghille]

robbie said:

Looking at the vast numbers of Atlantic Salmon landed in Scandinavia and Russia by anglers using Frances Shrimps, Temple Dogs , Snelda and other "Scandinavian" style flies, what stops the average UK angler reaching confidently for one of these style of flies before, say, a Hairy Mary or flies of that ilk? An Atlantic Salmon after all is an Atlantic Salmon whether in Aberdeen or Kola Peninsula......... or is it (Yes I know a lot of you use temple dogs etc but a lot of us don't')

Robbie

The point of these flies is that the Vikings tend to fish them differently to us. About nil thought went into the design of most modern brittish hair wings other than the colour preferences of the tier (look through almost any modern book of flies and there will be pages and pages of the same profile with slight colour differences).

The flies you mention are designed and built specifically to have a particular action and fished in certain ways with colour only a secondary consideration. Simply tying one of these on and fishing a conventional cast and swing may catch you a fish, but you won't be fishing them in the way they were designed for. I suspect that is why they are very effective for many visiting vikings here but not yer typical tommy

Regards

CLaG

[robbie]

Thanks for that Clag,
Any chance you can elaborate on the Viking method?. The other thing I noticed, was that the Vikings often use flies that we tommys think of as huge.

[jones]

Robbie,

Lots of the Scandanavians use a "rod bounce" technique to impart movement to the flies (also known as the Norwegian W@nk!!). This works well with the longer very mobile wings of the templedogs. I use it a lot even fishing conventional flies and it seems to work. Trick it to try and get your fly to work at different speeds and with different movement.

Jones

[robbie]

Hi Mr Jones ;

Do you often fish the Scandi style flies here? I started the "bounce" recently purely to impart extra movement and was accused of having a w@nk by a fishing friend, I was obviously doing it right then ;D

[jones]

Robbie,

Yes, but a bit like all patterns I tend to chop and change a bit. Have had most success in the last few years with the red francis gold head and a copper cascade. I tend to find the takes on the "bounce" are good.

Sounds like you've got the action to a T!

J.

[stu47]

They do this with all flies not just templedogs,or cast and then jerk the rod back and forward,iff you bounce your rod up and down whilst using running line it doesnt do anything,if you want to put movement into a templedog,strip it a little bit

[robbie]

Another "must have" appears to be a Green Highlander colouring whatever i.e. temple dog/tube/hair wing fly.. Has that become an indispensable pattern or is it just trendy?

[stu47]

Worth having in your flybox,here i have used orange and black wing,blue and black, or black,differant rivers and conditions differant flies.I just put what takes my fancy on