Kevin Morlock

Carp Fly

With the exception of Monday the weather has been too wintry for enjoyable fishing, this morning we had 8 degrees.  With no interest in fighting the ice out of my rod guides I’ve been tying carp flies.  I’m actually submitting some of my carp patterns to one of the catalogs to see if they want to pick it up for commercial distribution.  A couple of the patterns are a bit complex, no problem knocking-off imperfect flies for my own use but a bit different when you need three perfect clones of each pattern/color.  At the end of this project I found the point where I was tying perfect flies pretty efficiently.

To tie a perfect fly you have to make every step count and most importantly use perfect materials.  Out of years of habit, I’m just not selective enough with my materials and I found that choosing perfect materials was my key to tying perfect flies.

The pile of not perfect carp flies.  The good news is that the fish this summer will like them just fine.

I have a few of the carp patterns and recipes on our Fly Index Page.

Walt Grau, of The Spey Rod Outfitters and Guide Service and I fished the lower Pere Marquette River on Monday, just before the winter storm hit.  The fishing was good and there was a definite pattern going on.  I would have loved to get down there again, but everything will be different know.  There is a good chance the lower PM River, from Indian Bridge down, might be froze-up until spring.

While I hate to lose thirty miles of great river, freeze-up creates a refuge for the fish.  An area where they can hang-out and not be molested by anglers and most importantly not be harvested.

One of the steelhead from Monday.

I was down to Holt, Michigan this Saturday for the Great Lakes Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers — Invitational Fly Tying Expo.  This year marked the 10th year of the event and was my third expo — I was at the 1st, 9th and 10th.  Joan, Aaliyah and I drove down with Walt Grau (Spey Rod Outfitter and Guide Service) and meet up with our friend Ian Anderson from FlyMasters of Indianapolis.  They held the event at a new location this year, the Holt High School and I thought that it was a great location.  I tied my Morlock’s 4 Eyes pattern and still have trouble tying and talking at the same time… so I only tied about a dozen.

Walt tied one of his old steelhead flies — Grau’s Wiggle Hex

Ian tied a new carp fly of his, the "Hammerhead".  Ian came-up with the fly while sitting around the beach house on Beaver Island this summer tying flies and drinking beer one evening.  It ended up being a great carp fly when they were really on the bite.

Announcement post on the main Indigo site…

I spend last Wednesday with friends Paul Drewry and Jim Schramm fishing for steelhead in the Scottville area on the PM River.  Paul picked up one fish first thing in the morning and we didn’t have another bite until late afternoon.  Perfect weather, great companionship but though fishing.

Many people into fly fishing know Jim and his wife Dorothy, Jim is president of the Great Lakes Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers and Dorothy founded Flygirls.  It was special for me to spend a day fishing with Jim, for decades both Dorothy and Jim have dedicated themselves to protecting and enhancing the sport of fly fishing!

We got the steelhead on an experimental streamer… I have been incorporating concepts from Dr. Colin Kageyama’s book What Fish See:  Understanding optic and color shifts for designing lures and flies.  More on this after I spend more time tying and field testing.

Indigo guide Steve Martinez and I had the pleasure of fishing with Matt Dunn form the Fishbeer.com fly fishing blog.  I had meet Matt some time ago and had invited him to come up and fish whenever.  Matt came up over the weekend for some fall steelheading.  We fished Thursday through Sunday and had a great time, though Matt was not able to land a steelhead in the three days.  Sunday was a total blank, not a fish touched by anyone.  Friday and Saturday Matt was able to make contact with several steelhead but again, non ended up in the net.  For all three days Matt swung and stripped large "Kelly Galloup" style streamers, most of these were in the four inch plus range.  These large streamers may lead to a poor hook-up ratio, my landing ratio seems better when I stay in the three inch range for steelhead streamers.

Matt also manages the fly shop at JL Waters in Bloomington, Indiana.  If you get down to Bloomington stop in and check out the shop and say hi to Matt.

Matt’s latest post on Fishbeer.com "the size of the moon" is about his Michigan steelhead trip… you can get his side of the story…

Visit the Indigo Guide Service Site

Indigio Guide Steve Martinez and I visited FlyMasters of Indianapolis for their twenty year open house party.  John, Ian, Derrik and Charlie took great care us, serving a great lunch of steak and the best mac and cheese I’ve ever had, made by one of their friends Steve Oakley from Oakleys Bistro in Indianapolis.  Steve and I tied flies and visited with customers and other invited professionals.  FlyMasters has an open house each year, I have been going down for several years and it’s interesting that I knew most of the people that came by.

The FlyMasters 2010 Magazine FlyMasters was also handing out their new FlyMasters 2010 Magazine that is full of lots of information and articles.  I have an article in the magazine that was written after a frustrating day of watching other anglers snag salmon on the Pere Marquette River.  Click on the link below to go to the Indigo Guide Service page and read my article "Salmon… The Right Way by Kevin Morlock".

Some of the other professionals that were invited would include:
*** Melissa Butler of Driftwood Reproductions.  Melissa was showing off a finished steelhead that is coincidentally for one of my customers.
*** Randy Fridlund of Amabilis Bamboo Rods – Randy has fished with us, he is a great guy that builds awesome fly rods.
*** Trip Banks from Mustad
*** John Shaner of Hardy
*** Davin Ebanks of Fish Bones Guided Fly Fishing in the Cayman Islands, David is going to school in the Mid West and creates incredible looking glass sculpture.
*** Steve Burkhalter of Hardy and Cortland
*** Ben Hunting of Emergence Angling Services, Ben reps. for Sage Fly Fishing, Umpqua Feather Merchants, Rio Fly Lines, Buff Wear, Smith Action Optics, Outcast Sporting Gear, Tibor Reels, Redington Fishing, C&F Design, Suncloud Polarized Optics.
*** Charlie Perkins of Able Fishing, Winston Fly Rods and ExOfficio Clothing.
*** Dave from Fishpond and Ross Reels
*** Sean O’Grady from Crossroad Vintners