I don't have much experience with it, but it seems fly tying would be a perfect activity for autistic people. Something they can be very meticulous and focused on, and then have the satisfaction of using it.

I taught a young man at my church who is a high functioning autistic to fly fish and tie a few woolies. we had finished lunch and went back home to my tying station where I tied a couple of woolies to demonstrate technique. The boy would glance around the room without looking directly at my tying, so my expectations were low. So imagine my amazement at how quickly he could just glance at my tying two bugs, see what I was doing and re-produce my motions so closely almost exactly. He made a really nice fly.

I think there's something to the that theory...

Les

Wow, that gives me goose bumps. Thanks for sharing that.

I have tied some Briminators and given them to a couple young anglers. It feels good to give back in some way, as all the people on the TFF have been great to me. I never thought my words and pictures would provide enjoyment to someone's life in this way though. That's cool!!!

ChefMike ties and sells flies. PM Sent

Well, we have had a couple of weeks of overnight temperatures dipping down into the low 30s. The water temperature in the ponds dropped and the fishing shut down again. Finally on Tuesday the winds shifted back out of the south and the afternoon temperature got up to 78 degreees. The water temperature was still to cold, but I gave it a try anyway. I fished for about and hour and a half and only caught 3 fish. All in about 15 minutes off a grass bed on the shore line. All were caught on an olive briminator just creeping it through the grass. One of the fish I caught was this beautifully colored male bluegill. The coloring on the belly is very orange but when it was it the water it looked to be the brightest red color I had ever seen. Looks like this young fellow is doing his best to attract a mate!!!



When I woke up Wednesday morning the outside temperatures were 69 degrees at 6 AM. That's the warmest overnight temps we have had since the fall. I went out about 4 PM and fished a pond with bass and greenies in it. The temperature was 80 degrees. The first 45 minutes the bite was on. I caught several small greenies before catching this bass. Then finally a trophy greenie. The first one I have caught since early December. He was 10 inches and weighed 14 ounces. But suddenly the bite stopped. So I walked over to another pond. While walking over to the next pond the wind suddenly switched back out of the north and the temperatures started dropping rapidly. There goes the fishing again for another week. All fish were caught on a size 8 black briminator

Beautiful pictures.

Did I say I love the Briminator!!!! Just wanted to repeat it. I went out Saturday afternoon and caught 5 bass, 4 of them on the Briminator. I went out yesterday evening. I caught 8 bass on a size 10 olive Briminator, 1 off a spinner fly and zero on the woolly bugger. I started by fishing it along the edge of the weed beds with no luck. Then I tried fishing it deep with no luck. Finally, I ended up throwing right into the edges of the weed beds and pulling it through the edges of the weeds. That was the ticket for the day.

What really surprised me was that the water was very muddy and cold due to the flooding the last couple of days. In those types of situations I have had little to no success. So catching them on a size 10 Briminator was a really pleasant surprise. Normally dark colored lures with some type of vibration would work best in these conditions. One of my rods always has a briminator tied on and I expect that to continue the rest of my life.

The Briminator is not only the best subsurface fly for sunfish/bluegill fishing in ponds, it's also the best small bass fly.

I proved that to myself this weekend. I fished a ranch with 3 ponds this weekend. All 3 ponds are overpopulated with bass. The pond I fished this weekend, is the worst of the 3. Overpopulation has stunted the growth of the bass to the point that they are all about 3/4 lbs. I spoke to the owner previously about culling some of the bass. It just so happened that a large group of his family and friends showed up to cull the pond I was fishing. There were 6 of them fishing. 4 of the fishermen were utilizing minnows and worms. The other 2 were using artificial lures.

I caught more small bass on the Briminator than all of them combined. I lost count but I caught well over 25 small bass. They caught the majority of their bass on minnows and spinner baits. At the same time, I also caught 7 big green sunfish and several more bluegill, longear and hybrid sunfish. They only caught 1 sunfish.

All the fish were caught by stripping the Briminator through the vegetation. In particular, there was this bright green moss type vegetation they were holding in.

I purchased a new 4 weight rod for pan fishing. I took it out to the greenie pond for 30 minutes at lunch. I used a Briminator, of course. I caught 2 greenies this size. An optimist would say that the feel of the new rod was so great I can pick up a 6" sunfish bite But of course, being the pessimist, I wanted to bless this new rod with a trophy greenie, a 17 inch bass or something that would put a good bend in the rod

I have 3 days off this week, so I went back to the ranch to fly fish with the Briminator. I started at the same pond I fished before but it was too clear. It rained the night before and it is spring feed, so there was alot of fresh water. Fish weren't biting so I headed down the hill to another of the 3 ponds on the ranch. It was extremely dirty the last time I fished it, but today it was just stained and perfect for fishing. This pond is over populated with bass and bluegill.

I fished from 11:30 to 5:30. I caught 46 bluegill, 22 small bass, a couple of greenies, a long ear and a couple of fish I have never caught before. I was told they are called grey horses, but I'm not sure of the name. It was a great day of fishing.

Nice fish Jamie. Good job on the fly. I also did pretty good on some local creeks here in the San Antonio area.

On Thursday I fished Lake Antone at the ISS ranch in Bryan. This is the pond that Hook-Line & Sinker fishes for big bass and crappie in a number of his videos. I fished from 8 AM to 11 AM with a black Briminator. I caught 17 small bass, 10 bluegill and a crappie. After catching a crappie on a black Briminator I changed to a chartreuse Briminator and caught another one.

Below is a picture of 2 Briminators. The bottom Briminator was retired, it caught over 100 Fish!!!!!!. It survived being snagged in the tree limbs 4 times, hung on underwater logs, brush and everything else.

Very nice Jamie....your new rod is the same Quest I use for my classes. A great rod
Mike

Proof is in the pudding, Briminators rock.
Here is a friend of mine with his first LMB on a 3 wight fly rod and the Briminator size 10 that he caught it with.

I hate you. I hate you all.
We have gotten 8 inches of rain in the last 3 weeks. (seems like it, anyway.) The easy access rivers and creeks are all blown out for at least another week. When the sun has been shining on the weekends, I have been stuck in a cubical where I can't even SEE a window.
I WANNA GO FISHIN', DAMMIT!

OK. Got that out of my system.

These are nice fish. I love the briminator, too. I need to tie a few more up.
J-moe, that last one looks like a shiner. Yes, they do get that big. Bigger. Biggest I have caught is about 4", tho.

(that ain't my fish)

Y'all keep it up. I need the sustenance y'all are providing me.

Kirk