The caddis bead Buzzer by Lawerence Finnery
With the coming of spring and the angling season underway anglers will be dusting down their rods and heading out onto the Irish Loughs.
The first of the flies to be used will duck fly patterns, these over the years have been tied up in different styles using a multitude of materials to represent this Chironomid. It was last year whilst carrying out tuition in my studio that we discussed early sea- son Entomology and the tying of the various patterns that brought up the subject of buzzers used, especially on Lough Corrib.
Previous patterns we had covered included the woven duck fly and this triggered off a debate on using blood worms in the course angling fraternity.
It had been a closely guarded secret in France for years of incorporating a certain material onto the hook when using bloodworm in competitions to represent an emerging bloodworm "Pupa".
Anyone who has done kick samples for duck fly larva would have observed that this species can vary in colour from green to a near black. My experience of fishing the duck fly was mainly on Lough Sheelin using the con- ventional patterns, with some good results.
My experience of fishing buzzers on the likes of Corrib was many years ago in Mid March having a great day out with an acquaintance resulting in 5 fish to the boat ranging from 1 1/2 to 3lbs, even in those days 15 to 20 years ago we did not quibble about the size of fish we were just happy to connect with them and ensure they were safely released.
Moving forward again to 2011 one discussion brought up the subject again on what materials should be used for a buzzer and pupa.
I brought out a selection of buzzers tied up a few months previously and one of my students immediately identified a pattern that had a bead incorporated into the tho- rax. He looked at me and began to interrogate me as to why this had been done.
I explained that the bead used was a crystal river caddis bead that had been modi- fied to enable me firstly to get the bead onto the hook and secondly it was to enable me to have a trigger point on the pattern.
He immediately explained that years ago he had been fishing in the world cup course angling competition in France and this was similar to a technique the French had used with natural blood worm amazing results.
I had been previously using different types of flosses and threads to come up with this pattern and it was by pure accident by trying to incorporate the bead into a nymph that it had broken in half resulting in a rough cone head. "Eureka" why had I not twigged onto that before?
I now had the task of finding out how I could convert these beads, a serrated knife was used but the bead being brittle was easily damaged.
I Shoot and Fish E-Zine March 2012 17
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