Balanced Leech

I'm heading to Argentina this fall and looking for some skilled tier to tie up some balanced leeches. I have a recipe as follows:

Matsuo 3x jig hooks size 8
Arizona Simi Seal dubbing, or Cohens Carp dub
Marabou tail, color to match dubbing, length of hook shank
4.6 mm tungsten bead, color to compliment the fly
#18 x 5/8” stainless steel wire brad to hold the bead. A pin bends to easy—use a brad. You can get a box of 100 for $2.

I would need at least two dozen possibly more depending on price. Please let me know if you are interested.

Thanks.

Shoot me a PM. I've tied flies similar to that.

JR

http://pyramidlakeflyfishing.com/product-category/balanced-leech/

I purchased a dozen or so from him a year or so ago. Caught some crappie,

That's it...but I don't see how to order. No checkout on my screen. I'll shoot them an e-mail.

Thanks Glitchmo.

An excellent pod cast on balanced leeches from Phil Rowley.

https://secure-hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/5/9/d/...dcd4366218f63e9

That is an excellent pod cast...more so on theory and application of the balanced fly and not much on how to tie them. Thanks for posting it.

http://stillwaterflyfishingstorenew.ibcn...;products_id=27

I see that Phil Rowley sells the Balanced Leech on the above site.

Seems like a good concept for crappie in a deceiver or clouser. I think I'll try tying some.

We use this style in Oregon! Most think its a Stillwater pattern, but river trout like them!

https://youtu.be/S_6sn7ooL80

That is one fantastic video...answered every one of my questions. Thank you so much for posting it. Hopefully it will result in a double digit rainbow.

Did some balanced Leeches on size 4 90 degree jig hooks. Used mainly 5/32" tungsten beads. Didn't have simi seal so I used some ice dub. I enjoyed tying them. Going to test them on the LMB.

Tested a white one.This one tended to nose down a little on the fall and rise to horizontal on the strip, but way less up and down that a jig might do.

Caught 3 bass pretty quickly off the little dock on a 45 degree cloudy and breezy afternoon. Fish were right up against the bank. The balanced Leech definitely moves differently on the strip and pause than a woolly bugger.

With the bead sticking out in front it looks like a weed collector. Is it more an open water fly? Must admit it is unique.

This was my first in the water test. No weed in the lake (that may change with the tilapia getting wiped out by cold water). I try to hug the bottom on the strip and pause, that’s been the most productive way to fish since it’s been cold. I hung up on a submerged log once and at about the same rate of a bugger weighting the same. My dock tests are casts in either direction and more or less parallel to the shoreline. I can’t overhead cast out very far with the tree cover.

At 12-15 feet off the bank the water is 4-5 feet. Most of the fish I catch off when casting off the dock are 15’ on in to the shoreline.

The jig hook bent open before the 16# tippet snapped which is what I want to happen. If I’m in the boat, I can electric motor over to get the hung up fly. Occasionally getting hung up isn’t a bad thing to me. Means I’m fishing where I want to be. I’ve done weed guards, but those cost me fish. The Balanced Leech does ride point up tied on a jig hook which helps it not snag the bottom. The bead out front might help keep the hook point a little higher than a unbalanced pattern.

Meadowlark’s post about them got me interested. I guess the balanced leech is big out on western Stillwaters for big trout. But the more I looked into them, the more I saw things that said they work well on a variety of fish and work not only under an indicator but also stripped in.

The lake I live on gets real good for bass in March if a jig is suspended under a cork and tossed near the shoreline. That’s really why I tied these, just to exploit the March jig bite.

I'm really liking the balanced Leech. It looks a bit like a long woolly bugger but swims very different. It doesn't bob up and down, but stays or tries to stay in a horizontal plane.

Anyhow, it's working for me on the bass and today it was some bonus crappie. 1/8" tungsten bead on this olive body and black tail.


Tends to be more weedless than a bugger. I thought this would be just a long bugger, but it doesn't swim like one.

The guy I first talked to about it said it was very effective in still water situations but worked well also in river. He said he took 18 of them with him on his trip to SA and everyone in camp begged for one. Said he came back with none, LOL.

Several places I want to try them...including my ponds where I believe it would be highly effective "dead sticked" under an indicator for spring bass.

My experience was that I was catching crappie on a small clouser, but after a few fish they got really timid, to the point where I couldn’t keep the clouser in the right zone long enough to hook up. Suspending the balanced leech below an indicator let me hold the fly in place long enough that I started hooking fish again. And the action from just the surface ripples gives it just a little movement, which could be important.

In that case a bugger would have probably also worked, to be fair.

The balanced leech and a bead or cone head bugger definitely swim or suspend differently. I haven’t yet fished the Balanced leeches I’ve tied under an indicator, but I have let them suspend stationary. They do sit more or less horizontal depending on the placement and size of the bead. A bugger does not.

The leeches definitely resist popping nose up on the strip. No doubt they present differently to a fish from a similarly weighted bugger either suspended or on the strip and fall.

I went out at lunch yesterday and caught five nice Crappie in short order from a small circle in 2-4 feet of water. This circle was 40-45 feet from the dock I was on and the fish never got shy, I missed a few, I ran out of time and left them biting. As long as the leech works like that, I’m not ever going to put it under an indicator.

Ordered jig hooks and dressmaker pins. Hoping I can use a few "craft" beads to get it balanced. I know tungsten is a lot denser...I'm just cheap.

The dressmaker pins are too easy to bend for me. #18 x 5/8 sswire brad works great and is only $2 for a box of 100.

I’m using the #20 dressmaker, heavier than the 17# pins. So far so good, no bends with the bass and Crappie. I cut off about 1/4” of the pin.

Tungsten isn’t cheap, but it sure works well. Depending on which ones you get, they run 25-35 cents per bead. Might be cheaper shopping around, but a lot of the bargain beads supposedly have a lot more steel and a lot less tungsten. The almost pure tungsten beads sink 3 times faster in water than an equal weight of lead. Makes for a nicer and an easier fly to cast, with less weight needed to get the sink rate you want. The 1/8” tungsten bead does a nice job balancing the size #4 daiichi jig 90 degree hooks. Those daiichi jig hooks run light and small.

The same size tungsten bead as a lead bead would sink 3 times faster. Surely if they are both the same weight this will not happen. Thanks for the post the fly remains interesting but I mostly fish ponds with lots of weed. This would be a weed attractor.

Saw one vid where the guy was wrapping the pin with lead wire, but I've sworn off using lead. The whole thing is a bit of a teeter-totter, the pin helping forward of the eye but against behind it, and the more forward the weight on the pin, the better. Thin wire hook (as you stated) is better. Should be fun even if tungsten proves needed.

Depends on the target fish....thin wire hooks and big trout don't mix well at all. Its hard to find 3x jig hooks in size 8 but they are perfect for my application.

https://www.manictackleproject.com/flyfishingarticlesinkrateofnymphsinrivers/

.8 grams of tungsten sinks 3 times faster than .8 grams of lead. Same weight, tungsten being almost twice the specific gravity of lead makes the difference. There’s a graph with the test results in the article.

Weight of the pattern is eventually the enemy of fly casting. Use far less weight with tungsten and get the same sink rate as a much bigger amount of lead. That’s the beauty of tungsten. You may not need a sinking pattern, but if you do, don’t think you have to sling a massive chunk of lead or brass when far less tungsten will get the job done,

I saw that video. I didn’t like how he did his. Adding lead to the pin shank really sort of defeats the purpose of the tungsten bead at the head of the pin as a counterbalance. It’s fine it he does it, but it just adds unnecessary extra weight mostly where it doesn’t need to be as far as I’m concerned.

I keep the bead in place by simply adding extra thread there. Use red thread if you like. I do this on several I’ve done. I like having flies with a hot spot.

No supplies yet, so I hope it's OK to continue the conversation for better understanding. The tungsten vs lead references are based on sink rate in water, which is certainly important to getting deep in fast moving water, but weight is weight with respect to balancing with the eye as the fulcrum. My initially interest in this type of fly is for still water where sink rate isn't really a need. Tungsten beads certainly are preferred based on mass per unit volume, and a single bead extended furthest forward maximizes the counterbalance. In this regard, they are probably required for heavy hooks for heavy trout. But for crappie and small bass, I'm hoping that thin wire hooks and cheaper beads (more than one per fly) can do the trick. We will see...

Regarding a hot spot, this pattern would seem to lend itself to making egg sucking leeches as well by painting the bead.

Check out this egg sucker, Kaboboom. I'm willing to bet it will be a great crappie/bass killer, not to mention big rainbows. Imagine this sucker at the end of the drift rising unlike any other fly the fish have ever seen. I'm really excited to try it out.

You're a head of me. Looks balanced and pretty deadly. What are your weighted materials out front? There's this white cord stuff I buy at Hobby Lobby I use for crappie jig instead of chennile. It's impregnated with crystal flash. The cool part is that when colored with a Magic Marker like black on top, the flash shows through in kind of a scale like pattern. My first attempt will be to make balanced jigs with this, and suspend with a slip bobber on my leader.

Tungston bead and Arizona simi seal dubbing....tied on #10 jig hook

Has to be a crappie killer under a slip bobber.

got the jig hooks (Eagle Claw 570-8) and the pins. Unfortunately, the pin head is small enough to pass through the bead! Fortunately, I'm able to attach two steel craft beads "bead chain style" by first tying in a 3 inch piece of 25 # mono crossways. Turn the mono up, add the bead which falls to the hook, and light it. It burns down to fill the bead. Flip and repeat. Finished this first fly with a dyed saddle hackle palmered back tip first through some chenille, and it hangs level...maybe a bit head heavy. Want to suspend these off the back of my sailboat...just leave a couple of fly rods in their holders, and kick back. We'll see. I'm pretty sure they will have better action tied with a loop knot.

Balanced Jig #2

Size 2 daiichi 90 degree jig hook, this time I used Simi Seal. I like Simi Seal better than ice dub. Tried the blood red and black one briefly off the dock and the bass loved it.

I've yet to fish one under an indicator. The size 4 ones have been productive with crappie, bass and catfish slow stripped and paused. No real big bass, yet. My fishing partner using scented worms has been getting more big LMB. He doesn't catch nearly as many catfish or crappie as I do, lol. Maybe I should suspend one under a cork to see if the big fish like it that way. I think those big female bass are too lazy to chase down a little leech even if I'm moving it as slow as I dare to.

I did some size 2 balanced leeches on daiichi jig hooks with 7/64" tungsten beads, the lightest beads I've used. I really like the sink rate on those. Lets me slow down my retrieve. plus they cast super well. I dock and bank tried a dark one. Caught some crappie, bass and catfish. Next batch, I think I'm doing all 7/64" beads. The Simi Seal really looks alive, much more than ice dub, in the water and with the extension offered by the pin, the leech turns out to be a pretty good sized offering on the size 2 hooks. The size 2 hooks have yet to catch a sunfish, which is a good thing when I'm not intentionally fishing for them. I wish the Daiichi hooks were a bit harder. They bend out a little too easy. No way do I think they will they survive a big fish caught up in brush. The #20 dressmaker pins ( heavier than #17) do bend a little when caught up in a snag, but have been pretty easy to bend back into place.

I did try one under a cork for a while. Varied up the drop depth, but got no takers. I'm kind of glad it didn't work under an indicator so I wouldn't feel any pressure to fish with one.

My hope is that a couple of big bass will take the balanced leech. So far, they have been great for bass up to about 3 pounds, and good on catfish and crappie. The big bass are still active in the lake. Plastic worms have taken several over the last few days. My buddy lost we both guessed a 9#+ at the boat and landed a 6.5# on a scented worm. My daughters boyfriend caught one about 6#. They still look to be full of eggs.

i've been tying these for a while. i got tired of using a pin for the extender and started using 30lb mono. burn one end into a ball like you do when making shrimp eyes and slide the bead on over it. its alot cheaper and easier imho. may have to drop down to smaller mono depending on the size of the bead your using.

I just bought a pound of #24 bank steel pins, 2,500 or so, for my bigger leeches. The #20 pins I’ve been using are pretty tough but will bend under some conditions (like foul hooking a red eared slider) . I got some size 1 gamakatsu 90 degree hooks and those would be the biggest I’ve done so far. The size 2 and ones are working well on the bass to about 4 pounds and catfish to about 5. I also picked up a lot more Arizona Simi Seal and some other similar dubbing. I’ve got some 1/0 60 degree saltwater jig hooks and may try a few of those. I’ve done a few with color bands to suggest small forage fish.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed tying and fishing these. I really haven’t tied anything else lately but the leeches. They seem pretty versatile and it’s been fun trying different weighting and color combinations. I’m going to try them out in the salt when I ever make it back out there.

I haven't been fishing the balanced leech much at all lately with the surface action heating up, but yesterday evening the deer hair diver action was slow. I went to a balanced leech as I headed in. This 6# fish got wrapped all around a dock piling and I had to motor over and reach down to lip land the fish from under the dock, but the size one Gamakatsu 90 degree hook held firm and only bent ever so slightly. I think the Gamakatsu hooks have the Daiichi beat for not bending under a lot of pressure. Food for thought for you Balanced Leech tiers.

I like these pins for the size one hooks. I like the #20 pins for smaller hooks.

I tied up several from size one to size 10 in the same color. I want to see if the smaller sizes are any good for bluegill.

I started this thread 10 months ago anticipating using the balanced leech in an upcoming fishing situation. I was looking for someone to tie some but turned out the fly was easy to tie once I obtained the materials.

The results were spectacular. See my report on Jurassic Lake in fly fishing section.

The balanced leech works both in still water and moving water. It is an extremely effective fly providing a presentation that has virtually never been seen by fish....even in 30 to 60 mph sustained winds.


balanced leech

winds that can blow you over literally