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Daphne,
The pictures I'm sending out right now are of
flies that I tied for special request for the Cabo Bisbee
tournament. My banker supplies me with made-up hook harnesses and I tie
two basic patterns on them in XXXL- 18 to 24" long. These
2 patterns have worked extremely well for me down into the smaller
castable sizes (Don's Green Machine & Don's Big Blue), and have
caught many bull dorado, sailfish, and marlin. He does not
(cannot) cast these, and that's not the intention. He's fishing for marlin
far too big for any fly tackle being made (hopefully a 1000 pounder).
Because of his successes with the smaller versions, both casting to rising fish
and trolling wirh them (he's not a purist flyfisher), he wants to give them
a shot at the big boys.
You'll want to scale these puppies down to
something your friend can cast with a 14/16wt. I have a 17wt
that does pretty good casting the 10" versions. He'll want to practice
casting these flies wet and with point
protectors on the hooks. The front keeler hook is 8/0 to 10/0 and
would dig in pretty deep on a sloppy back-cast. An option would be to tie
him a casting practice dummy-fly without hook bends.
Also have some slip-on foam heads to make poppers
out of them, in case the marlin are intent on hitting surface flies
(and if he gets into sails). I don't use feathers until I get down into
the 6" and below length flies. Feathers hold too much water and thus the
large flies would weigh too much for a safe back-cast. In the smaller
sizes, teamed with Awesome Hair and some bright synthetics, they are very
effective.
Hopefully he'll be on a 'flyfishing friendly' boat,
too, where the guides are competent in positioning the boat for
casting.
Don
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- Re: [VFB] 'Big Blue' marlin flies ready !!! DonO
- RE: [VFB] 'Big Blue' marlin flies ready !!! Deborah Duran
