I have mentioned Ian Devlin recently and in past blog posts. Known for his Devil-N -Blend brand of synthetic material, and also as a guide, and co Short Stix fly rod designer with Mark Sedotti and Steve Rajeff. I dropped him a line the other day inquiring about the tails he uses on his river herring flies and last night he called back. I'll go into more detail when I try and tie those tails into one of my complete
messes of a fly. Some would say flies don't need eyes, or tails, but I think with the alewives and bluebacks it can and does matter. Ian says he ties his herring flies 10 + inches long. The same can be said for well-known Philly tier Jason Taylor, whose herring flies come in at 9 and 13 inches in length.
What I can't believe is for was much time as I have spent on the Delaware I haven't seen a bass blowing up on shad or herring. If a 30 or 40 pound bass is eating 12 inch bait wouldn't someone be able to see that? The other question is, will a 30" striped bass try to choke down a 10" herring, can they, yes,
will they do it routinely, I don't know. If I sit down in one of those restaurants and order a 48 ounce steak to win a t-shirt, can I, maybe, but generally will I, no. However, last year I watched as pluggers put on a clinic casting big bottle plus and swimmers on the overnight shift and connecting with big bass.
But again, above is what I found as far as river herring. To me that is a nice meal for a larger bass coming in at around 8 inches. Back to Jason's big herring flies, below is a video showing those and some other pattern that he ties. Don't forget he'll be on Masters of the Fly in March....
So for me now it's all about getting down some basic techniques and into a groove. Not everyone ties big flies on mono extensions. Ian uses 8/0 hooks on his alewife flies, which are generally thrown "with the alewives at my feet" fishing the tributaries off the Long Island Sound and along Connecticut.
So I tried to lengthen the fly but the ass end was a mess at first. After a little correction, well, it was still a hot mess so I abandoned that altogether and just retied along the mono extension and arrived at
the below 8 inch fly. Need to work on that head taper, I'm realizing bulk, doesn't necessarily mean long. The bucktail at the head is longer than the Bucktail tied in before it. Wax on, wax off.
