Will it been raining all night and this morning, so idecided to hit my fly tying bench to tie up some crappie flies, love fly fishing for crappie in March and April, good time to bulid my fly box back up.

Yes sir, been doing that myself. Sitting in front of the fireplace, watching the birds at my feeder, sipping some whiskey, building up my fly boxes and dreaming about spring...

Sadly I�ve done a lot more tying than fishing this fall due to all the rain we�ve gotten.

I put on my rain suit and went caught some hybrids, white bass and crappie below the dam

I've had good luck with these balanced Leeches on crappie. Need to the up some more. Crappie are showing up shallow once again.

I lost the one on a submerged log. Cast out another and somehow caught the first and got them both in.

Karstopo, would you say when you are fly fishing you are using a Balanced Leach, Borski Slider or Deer Hair Diver 100 percent of the time, or just 99 percent of the time? You definitely have the fresh and saltwater fish in your area dialed in.

Another weekend, another round of heavy rain and flooding here in Houston.

The good thing is it gives me some time to stock up the trout box with nymphs. I'm finally getting better at tying up these pesky copper johns which have presented a problem with achieving consistency.



Still a little bump in the abdomen from the tie in point of the wire, but I'm much happier with my proportions and overall look.

Balanced leeches, jigs, whatever you want to call them, sure are a good freshwater pattern. Made famous on western trout Stillwaters fished for big trout, they are an easy tie and could be fished with an indicator, cork, bobber and spinning tackle. Arizona Simi Seal comes in about 50 or more different colors and shades. I was tossing a white marabou, Crystal Simi Seal one off the bank yesterday at sunset and quickly got a nice channel cat and a decent bass, no Crappie this time around. Simple Marabou tail, I now omit any flash in the tail, the Simi Seal has enough sparkle and tie in the marabou after I secure the bankers pin to the hook shaft with the tungsten bead using 210 denier thread or some other strong thread. I use small beads, maybe 1/8�, on most of them, the bead holes are just big enough to fit over the bankers pin. I cut off about 1/4 of the bankers pin, the tip, otherwise it�s too long. Make a dubbing loop and lay in some Simi seal for a thin brush and wrap to the bead. You can use a little toothbrush or wire one to neaten up the Simi seal. The Simi seal comes alive in the water. I like the Gamakatsu 90 degree jig hooks the best.

They are sort of like a bead head woolly bugger. They swim a little different, less up and down bobbing, more on an even horizontal plane. Longer profile per hook size. The Simi seal can be tinkered with to be less or more full, so can the marabou. Might be slightly more weedless than a bugger with the hook position and the way it swims.

The white balanced leech is the one I used. On size 2 hooks. These might be a little fuller than I normally tie and with the smallest bead I can put on the pin. Slows down the sink rate, but the tungsten is heavy enough to still balance the swim angle.

The other flies are redfish crack in some winter colors.