PT In Brutal Winds, Waist Pack Field Trial & Perdigon 08Dec22

My main reason for an outing to the PT today was to field test the new waist pack setup. While the temps were decent at ~50°, what I really got was a brutal & uncomfortable cold wind rendering wind knots and chills. Sheesh. At least NZ is featuring 75°F days and 60°F lows.

Nonetheless, I wore and debugged the butt pack a smidge between untangling my rig. I introduced the pack HERE. So, first, right away, access is a big issue ~ one must remove the net and drop it in the water or on the ground simply to flip the pack frontside for viable use. I don't see any way around this, as fly boxes will be inside the pack, but for using a smaller alternative net hanging on the side. Second, I definitely put the nippers on the wrong side and will flip with the lesser used weights... I could barely reach them. Third, the chosen hero cam setup is at a weird angle to get a good "show" pic (as you can see) and it also requires spinning the pack around my waist in order to be in front for the pic ~ that's probably too much to handle with a good fish on the line. In NZ I may try to affix the cam, using the same magnetic suspension idea, in my shirt breast pocket.

No bigs and no bugs today... I did manage a 14" cutbow on my perdigon jig weight again (as on the 22"er two days ago)... the river might be telling me something about this fly.

 

The perdigon is a tie invented somewhat by a Spanish competitor, José Carlos Rodríguez, and adopted & adapted widely by the French competitors. These are all Czech nymphing guys but I work it too on a long line nymphing rig when in fast water. It is designed to fall hard in fast water (slim epoxy body, small slick tail, and oversized tungsten bead head) like a bullet and elicit strikes from fast decisions, due to the flash. Good news is that "down there where the fish are" the jig rig doesn't snag. Whether invented 15 yrs ago, or 6 yrs ago, or this weekend, the perdigon is now my lead fly when mayflies are not obvious. While there are plenty of variants in my box, here I tied one with white UTC 70 thread (black Sharpee during whip finish) on a TMC 413J #16 with a 3mm tung jig bomb bead (on the #18 I like a smaller bead), classic natural Coq de Leon tail (shank length), peacock Krystal Flash body (I like olive and purple too), thin UV epoxy over-body, and Solareze black UV epoxy wing casing.