Juvenile delinquent. Walked along an old bulkhead and picked up this sheepshead along the structure along with some little redfish, a croaker and a little flounder. Blazing hot afternoon, but the little fish were in the mood for food.

It's a good feeling catching a fish on something you made

It’s all good, tie your own or use some tied by others. I’m not going to say I’m particularly good at turning out carbon copy flies so that one of a kind looks exactly like it’s brother. Hey, but that can be good as sometimes a fly that’s a little thinner or shorter might be better than a fluffier or longer one and vice versa. Commercial tying situations might value consistency. It’s almost like I value the opposite. That’s how they tend to be, anyhow, the flies I turn out, a little inconsistent at any rate.

I have embraced a tying style that lets me experiment with substitutions on materials and how they get put on the fly. Put on a little more dubbed material here, a little less there. Change the weighting, add more flash or less. Tinkering with materials and their application is part of the fun for me.

Any new fly that was ever made was someone tinkering with materials or altering some previous type. There’s a lot of room for making some particular and general pattern very local and adapted to local conditions.

Excellent shrimp pattern. It looks really good hanging out of a fish.

Took the shrimp for a little spin in the Quintana surf a little after lunch yesterday. Sporty with the waves and the water was super warm, but that’s to be expected. Caught a little jack on the first cast. Had some needle fish mess with the pattern. They would follow it, but had a hard time getting their mouths around the fly. Got one finally that I shook off.

Had some other follows and hits. Was mostly drift, strip, pausing in the second gut with floating fly line, Fluorocarbon leader. I stood in high waist deep water just outside the break and cresting waves plus the depth added some challenges. Got a good take and then a bit of a run. Didn’t fight like a trout and the fish stayed near the bottom. I decided to try to walk it in to the beach. When I got shallow, I see that it’s a redfish. I don’t really get those in the surf on artificials or flies so that was fun to get. Looked like a small slot, but it came off before I could put my hands on it.

Got one more fish, a big gulf whiting that I released. Changed spots, tried a Baitfish pattern and a borski slider. No more action on either. Left before the LNG traffic got going.

I finally got around to try and replicate your shrimp pattern. I didn't have the right materials so i improvised and used what i had on hand. The body is rootbeer estaz wrapped over with some other beige chenille. The tail is coyote fur and the antenna are made from wildebeest tail. I didn't have any beads so i used the same wildebeest tail tied in knots for the eyes.
Thanks karstopo for the inspiration!

Looks great! That’s fly tying, improvise, substitute, whatever it takes.

The Shrimp fly working well on a variety of fish this fall.

Looking good Gar1970. Karstopo as usual awesome fish. They look fit for the Frydadddy with some hushpuppies and slaw.