Viking Lars | Saturday, 19 October 2024
There are those flies that just somehow become associated with quite specific water, as much as they are intended for specific species, specific insects and specific water. One such is the Don Martinez’ Black Martinez. It’s just a great allrounder and I’m actually sure it’ll catch fish almost anywhere, but for me it’s a lake fly.
I first used it at Hökensås where I was a few weeks ago. It was my friend, Håkan, who has Hökensås as his hime after who said that I should tie some. It didn’t really appeal to me, but one should always heed the advice of seasoned locals. On my first day there, Håkan landed a nice rainbow on one within 10 minutes.
On the three days we had there this year, I think I gave roughly the same “leader time” to three or four patterns and of those, I caught the majority of trout on the Black Martinez. It doesn’t really make much sense to speculate what the trout take them for, because they worked cast to rising fish, blind fished over both shallow and deep water, so I think it just looks very edible to the fish.
It’s an old fly, developed by Don Martinez in the 1930s. He was a professional fly tier from Montana and even though I just said that it’s hardly worth speculating what the trout take the fly for, it’s an obvious all round imitation. Large sizes are good stonefly nymph imitations and smaller ones, depending on sizes, roughy mimics the shape of mayfly nymphs.
It’s a simple one to tie - here’s a video of Håkan Karsnäser tying one.
Have a great weekend!
Lars
PoD: You guessed it - a Black Martinez. Keep it sparse.