Mtstew,
It may not be like winning the lottery but if you are like me, I keep looking for the next fly I will tye that will fool some poor fish and it will always seems to involve some new tool or material I don't have. Think of your next challenge and buy the stuff you need to pull it off. I'll be privileged to be up against you next year.
Eight inch squid. Body: three composite loops composed of Lady Amherst pheasant tail fibers, red crystal flash, pink UV ice dub, and white UV marabou. Tentacles: saddle hackle and sparse flashabou predator. Tied on HMH 1/8 OD clear tube with a silver conehead. Rigged with an Owner 2/0 Mosquito Circle Hook on 20 lb test fluorocarbon. Target: trophy stiped bass.
I agree with John Kross about the display of talent in the fly competition and congratulate him on his well deserved first place award. My advice is don't leave that bug on a log or a bird will certainly get hooked. Congratulations as well to River Raisin for their third place finish. Stone flies and stone fly nymphs are the patterns I tie on first when I visit the limestone creeks of Central PA.
All the entries look pretty fishy to me and serve as an inspiration to keep tying. I really appreciate my second place award and view it as validation of my return to fly tying after a 53 year hiatus. Of course the ultimate judges have yet to arrive in my local marsh. No disrespect to the TU judges but a striped bass' judgement is the one that means the most to me.
Thank you to everyone who commented on my shrimp fly. I tied my first trout and steelhead flies in 1963 at age 12. I stopped a year or two later and began tying again last year. The driving force was the really great striper fishing in my neighborhood, more free time, and the need for a creative outlet in Winter. I am humbled by the praise from far more experienced tiers than me and hope some of you improve upon and better yet fish this fly.
This is a teaser to run before or after a bigger fly like a Deceiver or gurgler. I fish for striped bass in Boston Harbor and the inlets and salt marshes along the South Shore. Sand and grass shrimp make up at least ten percent of a striped bass' diet according to our State fisheries scientists who did a very large multi year study of striper stomach contents.
Tied on 25 mm of HMH small clear poly tube. Clear plastic flex straw shell, olive Asian Partridge legs and swimmers, crystal flash antennae , EP eyes, 3 mm glass rattle, clear mono tying thread. Designed as a swimming shrimp.