fishing rabbit strip flies

[the_grube]

I've been fishing rabbit strip flies this winter. They're unweighted modest sized and based off this pattern https://pacificflyfishers.com/products/the-llama-black-blue. I'm fishing 'em on my 7130 with a Rio Short Belly using 15' of s3 with a combo of casts but mostly single spey.

They cast great at first. But somewhere in the 1-2 hour mark of fishing the same fly it gets significantly harder to cast. It doesn't feel heavier so much as it feels stickier. The interesting thing is that it seems to come on all at once. Cast 'n' goes great then cast 'n+1' has that 'shloopy' sound on the forward stroke and things can go sideways if I'm not careful. I have 2 working theories for the cause of this effect.

1. Rabbit strip takes that long to get completely 'soaked' and that thoroughly soaked state sinks faster.
2. My casting goes to sh*t after a solid 90min of casting

I'm partial to #1, but if I'm honest there's a fair bit of #2 going on with my casting (pun fully intended) At any rate the fix is to tie on a fresh fly, or adjust my casting pace a bit and not give the fly a chance to sink. Anyone notice something similar with rabbit?

 

[SKYKO]

I've been fishing rabbit strips alot this winter and last, more than I ever have and am a good but not great 2 hander. I think but cannot say with absolute certainty that the fur and hide get waterlogged quickly, for me when I go in the weeds it's because I get tired, sore (I'm not a kid anymore) or distracted. If I adjust and refocus I can come back on track with the same soaked fly or after I have lunch etc. I've been fishing very lightly weighted rabbit, Xtra small dumbells, small coneheads etc., mainly because mentally I can't seem to get over that they need to be weighted. This season I've just stuck with 2 heads because I don't like changing either IMOW T8 5by5 or IMOW T11 5by5 and change my cast angle, mending, steering accordingly to water I'm on. I've had good success with rabbit these past 2 seasons and mostly fish the weird, goofy or in-between water .

 

[JodyRay]

My vote would be #2. I don't think it would take more than 10-15 minutes for a bunny leech to become fully waterlogged. I know I get tired and sloppy at some point, so I strip in some shooting line and make shorter casts to refocus. If you're doing mostly single spey, you're actually getting in more casts, relatively speaking, so you might be getting tired faster. You might mix things up and use some water-loaded casts to give yourself a break.

 

[Paige]

Rabbit strip flies are the only flies I put dumbbells on, the smallest one I can get though.

The hide will stretch once water logged and become longer as well.

 

[O' Clarkii Stomias]

I would say #2. But, I would also note that typically for me, the further I get down the run, the slower the water is at the hang down. This can make a bunny fly difficult to extract from the water. Combine that with when your casting goes to shit, we tend to speed up, especially at the lift. Anytime I struggle, I refocus on making a good slow lift, and that usually straightens things out for me.

 

[Mike Cline]

You might also try an alternative material—Zonked Pine Squirrel. The skin is much thinner than rabbit and the fur sheds water very well. Additionally, the skin side accepts and retains color well from permanent markers. I cast unweighted flies using zonked Pine Squirrel with sink tips without the issues you express.

 

[_WW_]

Number 2 is what I suspect. Reel up, go to the bank, perform a number one, and then return to the water refreshed and start over.

Also a big fan of squirrel.

 

[Cowlitz Bottomfeeder]

Depends on your bunny fly. If you’re using the old style MOAL pattern with the rabbit skin wrapped around a Dacron line, it will soak up a lot of water and become difficult to cast. A thin rabbit strip with a Maribou collar is much easier. A small cone head comes out of the water easier than a 1/4” round bead or lead eyes.