The Epoxy Miracle

Thanks Kasper. I hope I'll be back in Denmark as soon as possible.During our last trip I prefered shrimps to epoxy miracle. It is time to give more time to epoxy miracle.

Pike,

good to hear! Keep going.

Kasper

A couple of days before I caught one sea trout on this fly. I was not able to catch fish for whole day so I tied this fly (blue type one) on my tippet and in ten minutes the fish around 45 cm was on.

Yeasterday I tied one epoxy miracle fly and it was not so difficult tying acording to the Kasper' s instructions.Polar fibre is very good material and I really like it.

John,

I'm sure this fly would do fine for pike. My only problem with this fly and pike would be that it takes a lot of work and that pike typically shred flies quite severely. Apart from that I'm sure it would work in sizes a bit larger than the ones shown here.

Martin

Dear Martin,i am experimenting with your fly and was wondering if anyone has used them for fresh water Nortern Pike in varied colors that may appeal to them.Any comments would be appreciated...
Thanks John

I have caught so many sea trout on this pattern over the years especially in spring.
It's a pattern I am confident in using.
No matter the quarry, by adjusting the size, I am sure it would work on all species.

Rip

Just discovered this site and all most fell of my chair when I came across this fly. I have been using a fly very similar to this that I developed from the Bunny Belly Anchovy for Bass fishing in the UK. The only difference is that for the underside of the fly I use Fox tail as I believe this does not foul as much as the Polar fibre. This fly has become my fly of choice for Bass and has been very successful taking many Bass together with Pollock and Mackerel. However despite the presence of Sea Trout (some very large) and Salmon I have yet to get a take from these fish (using any fly).

This pattern would be better adapted to Great Lakes Steelhead fishing if the tyer used a nickel plated, brass barbell weight on top of the hook. Use a holographic eye on the end of the barbell (grind down the rounded profile if necessary) and tie the entire pattern, upside down.

The barbell will cause the fly to ride, hook point up similar to a Clouser minnow.

The trick is to use this technique (pausing for a sip of Glogg) and create a fly that rides with the hook in a position so that when their is a strike, the fly lodges firmly in the corner of the mouth of your prey.

Also, try holographic silver tinsel on the body for more flash and sparkle. It will make the fly seem more alive.

BTW, I really believe in using a Mustad, downturned eye on this pattern. Because if you tie it as I have described the downturned eye uses the weight of the barbell to cause the hook to ride hook side up and will use the down turn as the flat stationary position from which the hook can be leveraged (again think fulcrum and lever) using the barbell.

Thats my two pence worth.

I have had seatrout take short like this, but I have noticed that they hook better if the head of the the hook is bright red. And even better is a flying treble on the baitfish imitation and the shank of the treble also bright red.

Bass Fisher,

I see no reason why this fine little baitfish imitation should not be able to catch a bass. Give it a try and let ud know!

Martin

I fish heavily for bass. Would you reccomend this fly on rivers?

Ole (and Hans),

I haven't caught hundreds of fish on this pattern, and neither has Kasper, the originator, but in spite of this I am quite certain about the fact that "nibbles" and missed strikes are not due to the length of the fly and the placement of the hook, but caused by the way that some fish don't strike the flies, but rather tests it or merely touches it.

This is of course a pure theory on my behalf because I only have some loosely formed ideas about how the fish actually behave when they follow a fly and open their mouths over it. From my fishing for trout and other species, my guess is that a fish, which really wants to swallow a food item, does not hesitate or nibble or taste - it swims forward at a fast pace, opens its mouth widely, sucking in the food, and often turns away after that. This I have seen on videos showing fish taking dry flies on the surface, saltwater fish taking streamers and bass and pike striking lures.

If the fish does this with any fly, long or short, it will hook itself.

Think of some of the flies used for other fish: sand eel imitations for striped bass, long streamers for pike not to mention the long, green string flies used for barracuda. These flies can be up to 20-30 centimeters long (almost a foot!) and still the fish manage to get hooked.

I have caught very small fish on the Epoxy Miracle and they were very well hooked indeed. Look at the picture in the article. This has happened to me several times. So I believe that larger fish will have no troubles at all swallowing this relatively small fly and getting hooked on the hook.

Martin

Dear Martin,

tied also some of the epoxy flies as mentioned in this article. Two questions came up:

A) Due to the length of the hairwing/tail the hook is located in the first half to quarter of the fly. I think you fished this nice fly already a couple of times. Did you ever experienced due to the length of the tail/wing a higher rate of "ineffective" attacks?

B) Do you put on first the eyes or first the epoxy?

Happy new year,
Ole

I experienced many times, that these sea trouts were just "nibbling" my ( SMALL ) flies ! Unable to hook them. I would think that you would get lots of mistakes in the long tails of these flies ! Do you recognise this ?