C6. The Viva Cats Whisker Streamer Lure 

THE CAT'S WHISKER STREAMER LURE
The Cats Whisker Streamer Lure was invented by the English fly fisherman David Train in the 1980's. That is his photograph on the right. All our Cats Whiskers are sent to us direct from David so you can boast to your friends you have a David Train Cats Whisker. It is one of the most successful British stillwater streamer lures. It has a marabou wing and tail with heavy chain-eyes just behind the eye of the hook. The Cats Whisker streamer is very attractive to fish because the movement of the marabou gives the fly a life like quality. When pausing during the retrieve the weighted eyes make the fly look and move downwards towards the bottom just like a feeding minnow. On the pull of the retrieve the fly darts backup wards imitating the natural action of a disturbed juvenile fish. This pattern can be used all year round but excels in late autumn when the trout become active on fry. It is a sinking pattern, so can be fished at any depth on either floating, intermediate or sinking line. The best retrieves are long erratic pulls giving darting movements to the fly. This can be varied by adding pauses in the retrieve followed by very quick short jerky pulls before reverting to the longer retrieve.

David Train named the fly "Cats Whisker" because on the original design that didn't have chain bead eyes, he used four white whiskers shed from his pet cat to stop the wing looping around the hook shank! Don't panic he did not go around collecting road kill or jumping on unsuspected tabby cats and pulling out their whiskers. As any cat owner knows, Cats shed hair. David runs a wholesale fly tying business and Bob Church, a famous British match fly fisher, asked David if he had any new patterns he could test. David sent bob some of his Cats Whisker. He used them to during some competitions and won; in one case he beat his boat partner by 16 fish to one.  Word spread about this new match winning design and it grew in popularity. Bob fished this fly on a floating or intermediate line in the summer. In cold conditions, in early and late part of the fishing season, he fishes the pattern on a fast sinker.

The original lime green chenille body with white marabou wing and tail prototype was tied on a long shank size eight hook with no chain bead eye. With all that marabou it floated for ages but was taken taken by a hungry trout. The color was obviously correct. David added the chain bead eyes to make the fly swim on an even keel, move correctly  and sink. With the addition of the eyes the need for the cat's whiskers was removed. Because the fly was bright he could see when it disappeared. This was his queue to strike into the fish. David likened this to turning a light bulb on and off: "Strike when the light goes out ". David concedes that some of it's popularity is due to its unusual name. "If the fly had been called white and green lure (streamer) it wouldn't have been so popular. The Ace of Spades wouldn't have caught on as a black and brown matuka" 

Last year I went fishing on a reservoir in Wales with my pal Mark. After half an hour fishing the dam, we both tried drifting down the reservoir. I had a team of Gold Ribbed Hares Ear nymphs and epoxy buzzers on an intermediate line, but got no takes. I then noticed a small flock of seagulls diving into the water close to the left bank, so we headed off in that direction. I gave Mark two of David Train’s deadly Cats Whisker flies. Ten minutes later I had my first fish followed by two more. Mark had another fish and half an hour subsequently, yet another. Five fish for 10lbs, not enough for a feast, but indeed a promising start.

CUSTOMERS COMMENT - BASS FISHING!!!
It is not always necessary to fish for bass with large flies. Bass are voracious eater and will often attack other fish that are quite large but they will also eat aquatic insects as well as small fry bait fish. I have found that flies with some color or flash are normally more successful. The British Cat's Whisker is a great bass catcher for me both on rivers and lakes here in the US. I like to fish it by simply drifting it down the current. If I get no reaction I often cast a cats whisker out and then strip in the line rapidly to suggest a fleeing bait fish darting about. It is this swift movement that catches the eye of the hungry bass. They are great little streamers that work. Another good thing the Brits have come up with. Try them. they work. Mark Shepherd, Dallas. TX

STREAMER FLIES
In Britain this type of fly is called a 'Lure'. Streamers are normally tied on long-shanked hooks. They may be tied as 'deceivers', which are imitations of local various kinds of small minnow like baitfish or as vivid colorful 'attractors' that suggest something alive, edible or a threat. The attractors are also designed to stimulate a predatory fish's aggression. They are usually a little heavier than the nymphs, and the wind resistance can vary depending on the particular fly.

Historically, feather winged streamers belong to the American east coast, while bucktail hair winged streamers come from the west coast. Credit for designing streamer style flies cannot be given to one person. Here in Britain,  during the reign of King George III, about 200 years ago, minnow imitations were being used. As dry fly fishing was the only accepted form of fly fishing at the time no recognition was given to the designers of these flies. Fly fishing was a sport for 'gentlemen' and you had to play by the rules. Streamers, wet flies and nymphs were not allowed. The Victorians 50 years later still believed that a streamer could not be considered a fly as it represented a young or small fish and not a flying insect. In their view anyone that used them was a streamer fisherman and not a fly fisherman. If you made them you were not a fly tier but a streamer tier instead, a lesser being. 

Over time these silly views changed. The people lower down the social scale used what ever fly caught fish. Some of them emigrated to North America and took their knowledge of streamer patterns with them. There are American records of bucktail hairwing streamers being tied in the USA during the early 1870's and being offered for sale in the 1890's. They were mainly being used to catch small mouth bass. William Scripture was designing and tying streamers in Rome, New York during the first years of the last century. A Maine Fly tier called Herbert L Welch was investigating the the streamer style of fly tying in 1902. He has been credited as one of the first to use the longer shanked hook. Later came Carrie Gertude Stevens who was a prolific fly tier. Many of her patterns are still in use to day like the Gray Ghost. Many of the  more colorful streamers originated in the North Eastern American States. You can see the effect the Atlantic Salmon flies have had on the designs of these emigrants.

In Britain during the 1960's stillwater fly fishing became popular on lakes and reservoirs throughout the country. The streamer became an accepted tool. Designs like the Cats Whisker, Baby doll, dog nobbler and numerous others gained notoriety. They are still discouraged on certain rivers. In Scotland the use of Salmon flies have made use of streamers more acceptable. The British use the word 'Lure' to describe these type of flies instead of 'Streamer' which is considered a North American term.

The word 'Streamer' originally meant a feather winged pattern. In the 1930's bucktail hairwing variations were introduced where the flies wings were made of hair instead of feathers. Even now there are fly fishing purists who will still not call a bucktail streamer a streamer. It is not just some British fly fishermen who bring misplaced snobbery to our sport. There are American fly fishing snobs as well. Most fishermen have evolved beyond this pettiness. Flies like the woolly bugger do not have a wing and therefore are not true streamer patterns, they are leech patterns. It still does not stop you fishing woolly buggers to imitate a small bait fish, exactly as you would a streamer pattern.

The nice thing about small fish compared with tiny insects and crustaceans is that, to a great extent, they can oppose the current. Being strong swimmers, they commonly dare to enter more open and rapid water As a result, the fly-fisherman can fish his flies almost anywhere he likes: up or down or across the stream, either fast or slow. The fly will be equally attractive in all cases, and you need not worry about whether the fly will drag. Really large fish have long ago given up eating small insects in favor of more substantial young fish. Otherwise they would never have reached the size that makes them so desirable to us!

Trout are the commonest guests of our fly rods when we fish with streamers and bucktails. Grayling prefer insects and other small creatures, although this does not prevent large grayling from occasionally taking a small streamer When it comes to trout, one can get the feeling that not even the largest streamer is large enough. The great majority of small fish in flowing waters are definite bottom-dwellers. They not only live on the bottom, but actually spend most of their time resting on it. All this means that the flyfisherman's long-shanked flies should be fished as deep as possible. You can fish rather daringly with these big flies: fast or slow, upstream or downstream. There are unimagined possibilities of variation, in contrast to the usual fishing with wet flies or nymphs.

It is more than a matter of using your imagination. If the fish does not take a freely drifting streamer, try instead taking home the line very quickly. Make your fly look like a darting small fish. Now and then you can even "awaken" a lazy trout by letting the fly splash down right on top of its head. One must admit that this is not an elegant manner of flyfishing, but it can be extraordinarily productive. Trout are aggressive fish that defend individual territories in the stream. They are aggressive all year round, but this behavior becomes ever more apparent as the spawning time approaches and they defend their territory with fury against any intruder. The fly fisherman can take advantage of this situation when the fishing season is coming to an end and the trout's spawning time arrives. Then the fish may be hard to attract with ordinary imitation deceiver flies since, having feasted all summer, they are less interested in food and increasingly concerned with spawning.

It is then time to serve a big, colorful attractor streamer or buck-tail - a fly whose size and hue can, by themselves, give the fish an impression that some possible rival is encroaching on its territory. This method of fishing can be pretty exciting. It is important to have a good knowledge of the locality, so that you know exactly where the fish are holding. You have to seek them out with streamers and bucktails of large size, and present the fly right in front of them repeatedly until they react. Often nothing happens on the first cast, so you must continue stubbornly. For the more glimpses the fish gets of the fly, the more irritated it becomes. Finally it cannot endure the temptation and tries to chase away the fly.

At first you frequently feel only a strong blow against the fly, without hooking the fish. The fly has thus only been hit, not taken in the fish's mouth. Yet there is a good chance that one of the following casts will result in a solid strike by what may be the season's largest trout. In any case, such fishing is fascinating once the quarry has been aroused. In Alaska and British Columbia, every year sees a rather special kind of streamer fishing for large rainbow trout and Arctic char. It takes place when extensive schools of baby salmon smolt, which emerge from lakes upstream in the water system, begin their migration downstream toward the Pacific Ocean. The trout and char gather at the outlets of lakes to feast on the young salmon. If you stumble upon such a smolt migration, you are sure to have exceptional fishing experiences for quite a while. Streamers and bucktails are the only thing worth putting on your leader

Towards the end of the season trout go on a feeding spree to build up strength for their annual orgy. More trout show cannibalistic tendencies at this time of the year than any other and eat trout fry (baby fish). These small fish congregate in areas that suit their needs like marginal weed beds or entrances to feeder streams. The streamer lure now comes into its own. It is also important to give the fly some action. Your aim is to make your streamer look like a live appetising minnow who has seen it is being hunted by a bigger fish and is trying to swim out of danger. If you see a big brook or rainbow trout following your fly do not stop the retrieve. If you do the predatory bigger fish will just swim away into the depths and look for something else to eat. It will do this because something has registered in it's small brain that fleeing baitfish do not stop to let it catch up and eat them. Make sure you keep the fly moving, speed up and change direction like the natural baitfish would do.

One of my favorite use of smaller streamers is the sport of trying to coax trout that lurk in deep plunge pools to rise up to the surface and take my presentation. They normally will not do so for a dry fly. It has to be a more substantial meal to be worth the effort. I try to imitate a small fish that has been temporally stunned as it swam over the waterfall and landed in the plunge pool. Cast your streamer as near to the waterfall as you can. Give it a few moments to sink and then begin the retrieve to imitate the fish recovering and quickly swimming away from it's vulnerable static location to safety. Using the same idea look for deep slow pools near where a stream is forced to drop suddenly due to a narrow rock channel. Small fish will be forced down with the strength of the current before they can quickly swim off to the relative safety of the bank. Drop your streamer into this current and let it sink. Then start you retrieve. Trout can be teased into chasing your streamer.  

SEA TROUT
A Sea Trout is simply the migratory form of the brown trout. (Steelheads are migratory rainbow trout.). Lures and larger hook size wet flies are ideal for fishing Sea trout. The female sea trout lays her ova in October or November in the gravel river beds of fresh water streams. It is later fertilized by the males. She will lay about seven or eight hundred eggs for each pound of her weight. Only a small percentage will reach the small sea trout stage and even fewer will return to the river to spawn. The eggs hatch out into 'alevins' -small fish with the yoke-sacs still attached below their bellies. One of its greatest enemies at this stage is the Dragon fly larva. After a few weeks the fry become what is called 'sea trout parr'. They stay in freshwater for two to four years and then one spring their color turns to silver and they move down stream as a 'sea trout smolt' to the coastal waters of the estuary where they feed well and grow rapidly without moving from the coast.

The smolts grow and become what is called a 'finnock or whitling'. They return to their native rivers during the summer. Some spawn and some feed on the spilled ova of spawning salmon and sea trout. Finnocks return to the estuaries at various times during the year. From there they enter the saltwater sea. Adult sea trout return to the river at any time from early summer to early winter. When the adult sea trout has spawned it is known as a 'kelt'. Most remain in freshwater until the spring when they return to the estuaries. Sea trout can live a long time and return year after year to the same rivers and streams of their youth

When fishing for salmon you will often catch sea trout. Sea Trout and Salmon differ subtly in behavior and sometimes different tactics are needed. Unlike salmon they feed after starting their spawning migration. They tend to take flies decisively and can be quick, even violent. Those that have been in a river for some time are very shy. On the first run into freshwater they may be easy to catch but only after a short while you may only be able to catch them after 10pm at night. At times a dry fly is effective for sea trout.

CUSTOMER'S COMMENTS
This is one of the flies I use in September when the fry of many coarse fish species will have been building up weight as fast as they can throughout the summer. When they start to shoal they become a very tempting target. The trout force them up to the surface as they try to escape. They 'boil' up on the surface and seabirds can be seen picking up fry from the top of the water.  This is where I cast my streamers. John Wilson. Birmingham