This is one of a series of European flies, which have done
very well in several parts of the world. These unusual flies
are fished differently and are developed with special thoughts
behind them. Leon Links, a real fishing pal and close friend
is they originator of 'The Crazy Sedges'. When I saw Leon
using them I knew directly that he is a real expert in fishing
extremely large sedge patterns. The Crazy Sedges are often
treated disbelievingly by others, but they are simple patterns
with an enormous power to attract fish. Leon and I both build
up our fishing skills in Scandinavia and we are used to
fishing with extremely large flies for grayling and trout,
flies that are big enough to use for salmon too. It is a
unique series of flies but useless unless you know how to use
them. Today Leon’s Crazy sedge and variations are among my
personal favourites for trout, salmon and sea trout. |
THE ARISING OF
THE FRAGILE DARTERS
The first Crazy Sedge was developed in 1989 during one of
Leon's trips to the River Glomma in Norway. In that period he
did a lot of experiments with all kinds of deer hair and
discovered by accident that reindeer or caribou hair was much
better and easier to work with than the stiffer deer or elk
hair. After some experimentation, Leon produced a simple,
unattractive pattern very similar to the Elk hair Caddis from
Al Troth. The wing though, is much slimmer because the
difference in material and is twice as long, resulting in a
total different silhouette. The fact that Leon cut the fibres
at the bottom of the fly gives also another appearance to his
creation. In this stage I became involved in his series. I
prefer a dry fly to float in the surface film instead of
bobbing on the surface, and much experimentation with several
species has proved to my satisfaction that it is important.
When Leon and I put our tying efforts together several new
patterns arose and we decided to call the complete series "The
fragile darters".
The only
disadvantage about those patterns is its fragility. The soft
reindeer hair breaks very easily; but the flies are simple and
quick to tie. In spite, I helped Leon with some improvements,
we couldn’t find a tying technique to improve durability
without loosing the effectiveness of the pattern, but badly
beat up flies seemed to be unbelievably successful anyway.
Leon and I believe that the silhouette and mobility are the
two most important facts that lead to those pattern successes.
In our opinion it is only possible to use soft reindeer hair
for the wing. We have taken a lot of fish with it when other
fishermen were failing completely, and very large fish at
that. The darters are killers and superb fish finders.
THE
FISHING TECHNIQUES
We normally start by fishing all the patterns dead drift. If
that doesn't work we stimulate the fish to rise by holding the
rod high so the fly leaves a wake. If that doesn't work, we
generate more movement by gently pulling the fly upstream.
Very selective stale or "educated" fish are seduced very often
by letting the fly float to six feet or so ahead of the lie,
then the fly is pulled under and worked across the salmon’s or
trout nose with little movements. If floating techniques have
failed, this method can be deadly. We believe that the long,
soft reindeer hair produces an enticing pulsing effect.
Over the
years we have determined that the Fragile Darters are most
successful in windy, sunny conditions when, because of the
length of the wing, the flies really dance on the surface. To
provide the best mobility and silhouette it is very important
to present the fly with the wing almost in vertical position.
So if the fly floats with the wing flat on the water you just
make a new cast. We dry the flies carefully with amadou and
use just a little floatant to provide water logging. |
