One Fly To Rule Them All

Another old one I wrote for www.sexyloops.com

The weather is cooling off a bit and I'm turning my eye on the seabass again.  They're around most of the year but fishing is better in the cooler months and inshore areas around Tokyo in summer aren't that pleasant with the humidity anyway.

I went out a couple of weeks ago with Hawaiian Dave for the first trip of the autumn, just before the last typhoon passed by. It was a bit blowy and Dave was struggling a bit with his casting - not enough practice! But despite this the wind and the pre-frontal conditions had the bass heavily on the feed, and the thumb rash was right up onto the palm of my hand. Numbers and big ones. Which was nice. 

As usual, I stuck on the intermediate and a 7cm rubber candy. It worked incredibly well, as it always does. I'm not sure when I last fished another fly for seabass. There are plenty of other flies that I know work plenty well enough, but it's just so relentlessly consistent that I can't seem to pick anything else out of the box. I'm pretty sure it's the combination of neutral buoyancy and mouth feel of the silicon body that is so irresistible to the seabass. 

Now some people might be delighted by this kind of thing, but not me. I like the moments spent mooching in a fly box weighing things up before making a selection. It's part of it for me. The other thing is confidence; the day the rubber candy lets me down, I wonder how confident I will manage to be in whatever I tie on in its place. 

I'm heading out with Dave again on Monday. We're trying to pack the trips in before he leaves Japan for good,  so maybe I'll try to wean myself off of the candy...maybe.

Here's a how-to video if you're interested in tying your own.