As a heads up, I've been toying with the idea of moving to a different blogging service. While I like the use of blogger.com, I think the use of Word Press may offer me some better opportunities in the future. Currently I'm posting on both sites, but I think by the end of the year I will be using strictly Word Press. If you'd like, you can visit the new site at: http://www.365flyfish.wordpress.com/

Sometimes we do things just because we can. Tying the Slumpbuster was just that sort of thing for me today. For those of you who know me, this fly pattern isn't the kind of fly that I normally fish (streamer pattern). This is really funny, because when I fish with a Panther Martin or a Mepps, I can catch fish out of the air if I wanted to.

I've been curious about this pattern ever since my friend John told me that he had been catching some decent fish on it. To be honest, I never heard about this pattern until he told me about it that day. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I managed to pull up the recipe and found it simple enough to tie.

After watching how the fly was tied the other day, I finally managed to go to my fly material drawers and sort through the product list for this pattern. I was surprised to find that I had all sorts of different colors of sparkle braid. However, I was disappointed when I could only find rabbit zonkers in red and hot pink. I thought I had a whole bag of these things, and now I can't seem to find them. Why couldn't I have misplaced the faux fur?

Anyway, I found some streamer hooks (in size 6) and found some gold tungsten beads that would work for this size. It isn't a conehead bead (which the pattern calls for) but it was the right size and definitely heavy enough. The hardest problem for me tying this pattern is that I only had 8/0 red thread (it's a little too small for a pattern this robust). I managed to muggle through it.

I tied on my zonker strip towards the rear of the fly and then tied in the red sparkle braid. Moved the thread forward to the eye of the hook and then built a tapered body with the braid. I moved the thread back the first third of the hook and then tied the zonker strip into place. Move the thread a little more forward and then secured the zonker again. At this point I moved the thread back towards the eye. After securing the thread with a small half hitch, I wound the zonker strip around the hook creating that buggy look. At the eye I secured the zonker down and snipped off the excess. A whip finish later and the fly was done.

After the fly was completed I went and showed my wife the end result. Her comment was that the fly looked awfully big. She also asked where would I fish this pattern at. My reply was I'd fish it at that big pool where I caught that massive rainbow at. She still looked skeptical but seemed to trust that I knew what I was talking about. Maybe I do...