A couple of sculpins. One for swinging, one for more active fishing.








Cheers!

They're both about 4". The one with the stinger has a size 4 stinger (seems quite small) off of the back of a Chocklett big game shank (28mm) and the one on the shank is an Ahrex Aberdeen Predator 1/0 (long shank, thin wire, smaller hook gap than a typical 1/0---but still not all that small).

Thanks! I haven't fished the bottom one, but the top one did manage to find the corner of a Deschutes steelhead's mouth last week....just didn't stick for very long....oh well.

I'd like to think I kinda have that profile down...



It should be noted that neither of these photos are mine, but pulled off the interwebs.

I've been playing with hot glue sticks as a tying material...

Caddis larvae and pupa...





Tiny black ant and Red Tag variant...




I should tie couple of Bloodworms too.

Thanks. It depends on the sticks but once you make the body it dries and become stiff very fast.

If I rib the fly with monofilament to get segmentation, with some sticks I have enough time to remove the mono, with some I don't.

Brian- premade body or your own creation?I use a lot of bass bugs some flymen but mosly my own from balsa.

Henryville Special, cdc wing variant, #14

[quote="Brian Shaffer"]Wapsi premade body - with hooks!
Might UV Coat this one for protection.
Colored it up with a couple Sharpies - we will see if the fish notice.
Schmucker Tip - put an eye on the bottom of your popper.. them fish notice that quick!

Let's see them balsa's some time, hersh.

Speaking of scuplins... and basses... and sneaking onto summertime golf course ponds.
(one day a week they close for greens maintenance - ask if you can fish)
Brian this is the last of the premade bodies i have.Had about a dozen at one time.Hard black foam molded onto the hook.This one is quite battle scarred and i can't count how many bass this one and the ones like have caught.I fish these like old school top water lures.Let em sit and twitch.These days i throw them on top of the slop.Exciting when you see that bulge moving in on them.

Here are my simple balsa poppers,they deviate from the premade but the angle of the face seems to matter the most.I have a bunch of the Flymen popper bodies but they don't do as well.Our bass are highly pressured and seem to prefer subtle presentations.

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I use "Shoe Goo" wok a little into the fly body then place the eye.

Restocking the “Partridge and…“ section of my boxes. I like to add a little peacock thorax.

"While i'm here anyone got a big dragon nymph pattern?I have tried several,Skip's dragon got a few fish but i need something bulkier that can also imitate the motion of these monsters.I have a place wher these hatch by the thousands."

In the past, I've had really great success with what basically amounts to an oversized soft hackle but for the abdomen I used crosscut olive/black rabbit. I have no clue where any of those are, but I seem to recall using a lot of pheasant in it too so I could get some good mottling.

I have great luck with a rubber leg dragon as a dragon fly imitation, but it is a little longer and slimmer than the bug in your photo. Perhaps a heavier chenille would allow you to approach that profile with a rubber leg dragon?

I also like to tie size 10 pheasant tails with black pheasant and beadchain eyes, peacock thorax. I find these to be very effective for panfish and bass. Im sure they take it as a dragon fly nymph, but I suspect it looks a little bit like a lot of things

I have a fondness for some of Charles Brooks' patterns. I tie his Assam Dragon with with strips of sheared fur (mink, I suspect) that I picked up somewhere.

It's a great, rather bulky fly, which I always tie weighted. It became my go-to pattern when fishing Duck Creek in Yellowstone Park, where it dredged up some notable fish in the deep slow bends of that water.

I met Mr. Brooks in West Yellowstone in the 80s, and he seemed pleased to hear of my confidence in that big, scraggly ol' bug of his invention.