length of wing behind shank for bream?

[getchoo]

Hello all

Can i get some feedback from other fly fishos concerning how far the tails of their flies hang back from the end of the hook?

***
Had an interesting session near UWA this afternoon using personally tied gotchas with white polar fibre/ sparkleflash wings and a red zonker strip tag end.

While using a gotcha with wing trailed for about a hooklength behind, i had a number of near misses but no hookups.... a couple of times you would think the fish had a good hold, but obviously it was only holding onto the wing.

so anyhow, i trimmed the wing to the same length as the tag end, resulting in no touches.

Went back to the original length and had a lot of touches again.
***

Anyone had similar experiences?
I've seen bream caught on meldrums, but the tail is considerably long.....

cheerio
al

[Duncan M]

Man, that would have done my head in, thats why I chuck lures so much these days, I don't need the stress :D
When using green flashy clousers (of whatever variety) I generally have the wing tied between 3/4 and a bit more than 1 and a bit (how scientific is that) times the length of the hook, but...when I'm using these flies, it is usually in dirty water and/or situations where i suspect the bream is going to hit the fly in an aggresive manner, I haven't missed many (in fact my hook up ratio on fly is better than on lures!), due mainly to the fact that when bream see a flashy green thing they try and kill the crap out of it and end up well hooked.
However, in clear water I will use a BMS, which has a tail tied maybe half the length of the hook shank, and the take is pretty different again...Bloody hell I've confused myself, I'm thinking it varies depending on water clarity and the way the fish are feeding and stuff, now my head just hurts. Maybe you could have tried a gotcha with the same overall length, but with a bigger hook, if you get my drift...
I'm gonna leave the spin rod at home for the next few weeks, so I may be screaming my frustration on this forum quite soon :D

Duncan

[getchoo]

thanks duncs
see the problem is i'm doing honours this year and i spend a lot of time writing things for my thesis, but always thinking about fishing.

And then of course, I get an itch to tie a few more flies...
then i have to try them flies....
come home with dilemmas like this one.....
try to study but cant get new thoughts out of my head....

a vicious downward spiral........
arghghghghghhhhhhhhhhh

ohhh and speaking of which... no wonder my legs were all itchy after wading around today... saw something about a toxic bloom in the river again.....
maybe the fish were all delirious today, which might explain their biting methods today....

cheerio
al

[Stuie_02]

getchoo

Have you thought of using a long shank with the same design and proportions and so on. In the flies that where mentioned the hook sits in the middle if you look at the fly in proportions. With a long shank the hook might be in the tails.

If the bream are nipping at the tail have you thought about a stinger smaller #8 hook on some mono. I have had sucesses on a FPF like design. The body being on a tube and a body of tandemns is behind it. The body can be moved slightly higher via a toothpick.

Maybe you can try the same old hook and slow down the action allowing a serious pause allow your fly to go to the bottom if the bream is looking at it.

Cheers
Stuie

[getchoo]

lol you must be reading my mind...
I just bought a pack of gamagatsu straight eye #4 F31....
which are ummmm longer shanked hooks...

I'll give them a go soon ...
Although they seem somewhat bendy, which could be a problem...

cheerio
al