San Francisco Bay Striper Flies

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For anyone with the mixed luck to be striper fishing along the shallow shores of SF Bay and yet find their way to this excellent website, this plate of striper flies:

sfflies.jpg

From top to bottom

Belloc's Bugger
EC 254 2/0. Tail: Black Marabou. Body: One or two long webby marabouey black saddle hackle, tied in base first at the tail with the shiny side facing the hook eye, thickly palmered with wraps flush against each other 2/3 up the hook. Head: Black neck hackle thickly palmered to the the hook eye.

Top Smelt
EC 254 2/0. Tail: Above hookpoint, 10 white bucktail hairs under 5 pieces pearl flash under 10 fluorescent pink bucktail hairs with a slight vertical flare but no horizontal flare. Body: pearl body braid. Underwing: 10 white bucktail hairs. Wing: 3 pieces pearl flash under 10 olive bucktail hairs under 4 peacock herl.

Coyote
EC 254 2/0. Tail: three long narrow grey hackles tied in flat.
Body: grey dubbing. Wing: 10 hairs stiff black bucktail under one long narrow grey hackle under
a short blue hackle on the right side and a orange hackle on
the left, tied like a tent over the gray hackle.

Russ Chatham's Phantom
EC 254 2/0 Above hook point a clump of purple bucktail tied in a collar 360* around the hook. Around this four purple hackles, tied in flat, one each at 10, 2, 5, and 7 o'clock. Advance thread 2/3 way to hook eye and make another bucktail and hackle collar. Tie in one orange hackle on the left side of the hook--leave the right as is. Collar: palmer one or two long purple webby saddle hackles to hook eye.

Don's Fly :
EC 254 1. Body: Pearl body braid. Wing: 5 white bucktail hairs under 2 pieces pearl flash under mix of 5 robin's egg blue bucktail hairs and 5 royal blue bucktail hairs under 8 strands of peacock herl.

These all come from the wooly bugger, the bunky fly, the abrames flatwing, and the ray's fly

[mgustav]

Don't leave out a SF original, Bob Nauheim's Nacht Tern. I love this fly and it works great on the south shore of long island. It is a go to on any night around the new moon when silverside are around. I converted it into a featherwing to give it more life.

Hook: Eagle Claw 254 #3/0
Thread: Black
Tail: White bucktail
Body: Silver braid
Wing: A little black bucktail under grey fox under a natural black saddle tied in flat.

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Learned of that fly last season when it was posted on another site. It was the fly for the freeway overpass last fall when the fish were piled up behind one pier--deaddrifted into the eddy. Thanks for adding it here. The Phantom and the Whistler go with the Nacht Tern as traditional sf bay flies designed by hardcore old-time fishermen. The Whistler is the clouser of SF Bay in terms of popularity and I guess the only one you could buy at the fly shop. The Topsmelt Fly was built after the bunky fly, by the way, but shaped to be more like a silverside and silverside colors.

[mgustav]

I should have put it on a plate.

[DAWNPATROL]

I just noticed this post and figured I'd reply.

What is this plate for? Is it a suggested fly selection for the SF Bay area or a donation type plate for a fund raiser?

If I may, I would like to make a few comments on the S F Bay selection.

First I do not profess to be an expert on S F Bay flies but I am personal friends with someone who lives out there and fishes the S F Bay and Delta area all the time. I also did the San Mateo Fly Fishing Show last year which allowed me to get a feel for the fishery and the fisherman. I also fished both of these bodies of water while I was there.

I can say this about the California Striper Fly Fisherman. They have a totaly different mentality when it come to they're fly designs. Very few, if any would fish the Flatwing Wing style flys or any of the New England style flys out there. They seem to think that they're stripers and fishery are vastly different than ours and therefore the fly designs of the east coast won't work out there. (#$119)

My California friend has fished both coasts and assures me that most of the Califronia striper fisherman have never been out here and they don't have a clue as to the great fishery we have and therefore don't respect the east coast fly tyers as much as they should. I personally have had discussions with quite a few of the local S F Bay fly fisherman who don't understand our fishery or the reasons why we design fly's the way we do.

I can honeslty say that I do not undestand they're fishery enough to suggest what type of fly designs would work best but I would have to say that stripers are opportunistic feeders and for the most part will not pass up a well designed offering regardless of which coast the fly comes from.

Sadly the S F Bay stripers are currently in trouble. Pollution, water use issues, politics and poor fishery management or doing their best to see to it that the west coast striper population is in grave danger. :eek:

The anglers have been cathing fewer and fewer every year and the stripers are becoming more and more sensitive to the enviromental mishandling of the watershed that is going on out there. Water control issues in the upper S F Bay and Delta system are being pushed to their maximum capacity and the fishery is suffering the brunt of the political battle as it pertains to water usage or mis-usage.

Most politicians feel that the striper is a non indigeonous specie and therfore do not command the necessary funding and/or actions required to manage the population in the appropriate manner.

The angling and local economic community that is effected by this are currently trying to form a coalition in an effort to get a class action law suit rolling to battle with the state of California. :)

Hopefully they will provail and get the necessary measures in place to save and preserve the future of the Caiforinia striper population.

Thanks for listening,

Murf

[Fin Addiction]

I can tell you first hand that one of those flies works great for big bass on the outer cape....I'll give you a hint...It's black and it travels to the beach, not the opera...:brow

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Thanks for the reply DAWNPATROL. I used these flies in a marshy, creeky part of the bay while fishing at night. I used a floating line exclusively and used tactics learned from an article about freshwater tactics for stripers. This article introduced me to flatwings and the whole east coast thing. I don't think many people fish water like this. Most fish during the day, from a boat, and they like LC-13 shooting head set ups and weighted flies. I was fishing shallow water that was dry by the bottom of the tide. I should have been using a float most of the time. Swings, tiny flies, sparse flies, dead drifts, as well as the stripping big fly tactics all worked.
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