I don’t know if this has been tried before or not but I had the idea to play around with the concept of a “double” sakasa kebari. Essentially, it’s just a regular sakasa kebari with two sections of wrapped hackle separated by a “spacer” of thread.
My thinking was that if the main attraction of these flies is the hackle opening and closing, then doubling a good thing might not be a bad thing. In all fairness, I haven’t fished this design yet so I won’t know until I put it in fron of the “judges”. But, I think it’s an interesting concept to explore and one with a lot of possibilities. The fly above is just a prototype to test movement of the hackle.
I’m a little concerned that the extra hackle might impede the fly’s ability to sink so I think I will make each section a little sparser since the number of fibers is doubled. I might also use a wire body instead of thread. But I think if I can dial it in just right, I will get a design that has a extra motion and sinks well to produce an effective attractor pattern.
Jason – I like it. I’ve messed around with this a little too – but also have not fished it. What I did, though, was tie the second back near the bend. For me the idea came from a Joe Humphreys caddis pupa pattern with two hackles (fore and aft. This also lend to a second idea – the Reverse Reverse Hackle – where you tie only a single hackle but on the butt-end. The hackle still faces forward, but now the fly looks like a standard wet-fly, but tied on the hook backward. That way you can stil “activate” the hackle by pulling the fly forward, but you don’t have the hackle crowding the eye, and you can tie the fly in a pretty standard, albeit backward way.
Here’s a link to the picture a new Hotspot Reverse Sakasa Kebari, that you inspired my to try again:
guess the link didn’t work: I’ll try once more then I’ll stop cluttering your comments…
http://flic.kr/p/aD48cp
Thanks for the link Anthony, that’s a good looking fly!
I should have know someone beat me to it! The hackle crowding the eye is the one thing I don’t like about sakasa kebari. Your design looks like it would solve that problem.
Great minds think alike and all that…I’ll have to see what the fish think though.
As a result of the influence both you and Daniel have had on me, I have officially resolved to start tying my own flies this winter. I can’t say enough how much I’m looking forward to my upcoming tying class at our local fly shop, and working on my own Tenkara flies. Thanks!
That’s great Paul! I think you will love tying flies and tenkara flies are a great place to start. Feel free to email or call me if you have any questions or need some tips.
Count on it. When I learned to do my own reloading, that’s how I did it…with someone who knew a LOT right there.
Just curious, skeet, clays, or hunting? Or all of the above? I used to be a skeet shooter but haven’t done it for years and I sold my over & under. 🙁
All centerfire handgun and rifle ammo. Mostly 38 Spl, 357 Mag, 22-250, 30-06 and 45-70. All focused home/personal defense and hunting.
Jason, very interesting concept. The look reminds me of a midge cluster, so not sure if you want to sink the fly necessarely. Now for the experimenting part – have you thought of the hackle close to the eye slanting forward (sakasa kebary style) and the second hackle closer to the hook bend slanting “backwards”? This would give the hackle a double action, on the retrieve and when it sinks if tied on a heavy hook.
Oooh, that’s a great idea Karel! I’ll have to try that!
Jason, I know I’m coming to this post a little late but nice job with the fly. You have saved me the trouble of tying one up. I keep a little note pad with ideas for flies and I had scribbled that one in a few months ago but never got around to tying it. It’s funny how tenkara anglers like you, Anthony, and myself can be so widely separated by location and places to fish but still come up with the same or similar ideas. Let us know how it fishes!
Jason, I am very impressed with the excellent work you are doing with your Sakasa Kebari fly patterns. I have done an investigation along similar lines that you and others may find interesting. I would like to E-mail a couple of photos of my Sheeps Creek patterns to you; one taken in normal day light conditions and the other taken under black light illumination but, I need an E-Mail address to send the photos to.
Here is a link to a Mepps article showing what various colored spinning lures look like under clear/blue, green and brown tainted water conditions. This should be of interest to any fly fisherman and/or fly tier, even though it does not involve fly fishing: http://www.mepps.com/fishing-article/color-technology-what-you-see-is-not-what-you-get/77
What fish really pay attention to is CONTRAST; contrast within the materials used to tie the fly, and the contrast that is needed for the fish to be able to see the fly against the ambient space light of the surrounding aquatic background the fish find themselves in. Fish eyes and brains are geared to be excited by the difference between light and dark pattern markings. Pattern definition and the motion of fly tying materials in the water are what really excites the fish into striking.
The movement of the hackle and other materials in the water also stimulates the fish’s lateral line, allowing the fish to both hear and feel the fly pattern moving through the water. In addition to that trout have the ability to see into a world that is invisible to us through their ultraviolet vision capabilities.
Reed F. Curry’s book THE NEW SCIENTIFIC ANGLING – Trout and Ultraviolet Vision, illuminates the trouts need for and abilities to utilize a visual medium that we are completely blind to. Through the use UV photos of fish in the waters where they live, the clothing we wear, and the waters and the landscape we fish in, UV photos of insects and the most successful historical fly patterns used to catch trout, and UV photos of the fly ting materials used to tie those flies with contrasted beside pictures of the same things as seen in normal visible light are very illuminating for an angler.
Curry’s book provided me with the information I needed to choose the materials I chose to tie the experimental patterns I developed with, which have a number of things in common with the the traditional tenkara fly patterns you and others are using on this forum, such as a reverse hackle but on the other end of the hook, so the hook is largely hidden from the fish’s view.
So, how did the experiment testing Sholseth’s not matching the hatch theory of fly patterns work out for me? A lot better than I could ever have hoped. During the 2010 angling season I made 22 separate fishing trips, fishing 22 hike into lakes that I had never fished before, in addition to fishing a number of lakes that I typically fish every year, releasing a total of 1,339 fish. Out of those 1,300 plus fish, 560 of them were caught on the non-match-the-hatch Sheeps Creek fly patterns: 195 on the size 10 black Sheeps Creek pattern; 112 on the size 12 Orange Sheeps Creek pattern; 80 on the size 12 Gray Sheeps Creek Pattern; and 173 on the size 14 Peacock Sheeps Creek pattern. The gray pattern is an overcast day fly and I only had portions of 2 days that were right for its testing. It also works on bright, sunny days, but not as well as the darker patterns work.
This was all for lakes only; no running water was fished with the Sheeps Creek patterns. But seeing how well all of you are doing with the Sakasa Kebari patterns, I do not see any reason why the Sheeps Creek patterns would not also do well in streams. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine got a lot of hookups on salmon while fishing for steelhead on the Feather River, here in California a few weeks ago. He hooked a big salmon that was fair hooked and he played it for 45 minuets before it straightened the size 14 trout hook the Peacock Sheeps Creek was tied on.
The most successful dry fly fished in both lakes and streams were size 16 and size 12 foam ant patterns, totaling 285 fish over the 2010 season on ant patterns. They (and a terrestrial foam spider pattern on streams) have done very well for me with my 12 foot Iwana rod on both lakes and streams this year.
The direction of traditional tenkara anglers is not geared to matching the hatch. In the Book HOW FISH WORK – Fish Biology & Angling, Thomas J. Sholseth, DVM, MPVM, said that he felt anglers would do a lot better to develop fly patterns that are designed to appeal to what fish are programed to see and what they are hardwired to react to. Matching the hatch can be important at times, but is not usually required all the time for success to be realized. I believe that anything that can be done to insure the fish can see your fly pattern well is all important and should work out well with the Sakasa Kebari patterns as well, far more important than matching the hatch is…Karl
WOW, tons of great information here Karl. It will take me some time to go through it all. I’ve sent you my email address and am looking forward to seeing the pictures.
I recently started tying my own flies and use your website as the main source of learning these patterns when I came across this fantastic idea, however I’m curious, have you tried it out yet and if so how does it work?
It works but I don’t see a huge difference in effectiveness between flies with one hack and two. If anything, it’s just another fun variation to make your tying more interesting.