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3. Fishing nymphs, then emergers, then low duns, then high duns

Here's another piece of conventional wisdom of which I'm very skeptical.

Lots of people suggest fishing nymphs before a hatch, emergers early on, then low-floating dun imitations, and then high-floating dun imitations to imitate fluttering dry-winged duns. It's as if they're trying to imitate the emergence of a single insect spread out onto the timescale of an entire hatch.

Here's an example from Mayflies by Knopp & Cormier, describing how trout react to a BWO hatch:



It just doesn't make sense.

A single mayfly will take anywhere from one second to several minutes to pop out of the water, dry its wings, and fly away. Throughout the duration of the hatch there are many insects in every stage of emergence. If you think about the math, the ratio of emergers to low-floating-duns to high-floating duns on the water at any given time should not change very much over the course of the hatch. Even if they did change, the trout sampling random one-by-one encounters would not be able to notice and adjust to the change in ratios immediately.

I think it makes more sense to choose an imitation based on the duration of each stage of the emergence for the species you're imitating, regardless of whether it's early or late in the hatch (with the one exception that it makes perfect sense to fish the nymphs in the hours leading up to the emergence). That factor should influence what the trout are seeing much more strongly than whether it's the beginning or the end of the daily hatch.

There probably are some trout feeding on emergers, some on duns, and some on nymphs throughout the hatch. But it's probably determined by the luck of the draw and the fish's personal experience with the more vulnerable stages of the insect. Fish are bound to see different frequencies of floating nymphs, emergers, and duns in different holding lies.

I think there are different factors that have to considered, including the size (age) of the fish, water clarity, the feeding lies and the type of hatch. I say this for the following reasons....

1. Smaller fish seem to exert less energy while scurrying to capture a food item. The younger trout are more like all young creatures and are more anxious and willing to leap for a meal. These leaping and jumping younger fish may cause some fishermen to think it is time to switch to a dryfly instead of sticking to an emerger or nymph pattern.

2. Feeding lies also are important to trout, as we all know. Some lies really funnel the food items right to the fish. If these lies are where the currents really slow down it might cause the trout to respond more readily to surface or slightly sub-surface insects passing by. Tailwaters are examples of where trout maybe more inclined to feed near the surface. Some fishermen may then think all the trout in the pool are feeding at the surface, which is not necessarily true.

3. Not all hatching insects emerge the same way. Not all hatches produce fluttering duns or dry flies riding the currents for some distance. Also, at times we have complex hatches with several species hatching and spinners falling simultaneously. This can be a bear to determine which insect and which stage is preferred by the feeding trout and the preferred feeding choice may vary between sections of the river.

Last, about the time you think you have it all figured out some trout breaks all your rules and makes you think you don't really know squat about trout. :)

My point is, what works for one hatch on one river may (and probably will) not work for all hatches.

My $.02,

John S.
PS - Going North!!! Hope to cya guys on the river(s).

Both of you guys make excellent points. One more generalization: On pressured waters (and probably to a lesser extent on all waters), fish are much more selective about dries than nymphs at all times during a hatch. On the pressured waters I call home, I have been skunked more times than I care to mention fishing dries during a hatch, while nymphs in the right size range (regardless of color or any less significant detail) almost always produce fish when presented well. Even a skilled tier has much more trouble creating a lifelike dry than a wet, and fish are less wary when feeding below the surface than on it. I would probably catch far more fish if I just didn't take any dries to the stream, but they're fun to mess with when I don't mind taking a whipping when my pattern is just off.

While it is not a novel technique, I suggest any person wishing to fish a dry during a hatch also attach a nymph or larval imitation and trail it a few feet from the dry. Not only does this serve as a stealthy way of detecting strikes, but it should also convince the fisherman just how much more effective the fly below the surface is than the one above. In my experience, even fish feeding actively on the surface will usually prefer the wet fly a few inches below the surface to the dry. A few problems with this technique are that the dry may get dragged under by the wet and, when casting, the extra line rolling over behind the dry may cause the dry to land cockeyed on the water. So you're automatically skewing things in favor of the wet fly when you rig up this way. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

To quote my uncle, who fishes heavily pressured waters in Colorado, whenever asked if the activity on the surface warranted switching to a dry fly: "Sure, you can do that... if you don't want to catch any fish."

-Shawn

"Stage of the hatch" is about the last thing I think about when selecting which design of the fly I'll fish. I'll watch the risers to try and determine "how" they are feeding, then try to determine which flies look the most vulnerable based on how they appear on the water and how that stage may correspond to the fish's feeding behavior.

For about the past ten years of fishing on the flat waters of the Henry's Fork, the preponderance of my "dry" patterns have been designed to imitate either some form of the emerging insect or a crippled dun. My focus on this river is only on big fish (18"+), and feeding fish that size will be concentrating on maximizing net caloric intake; i.e., eating while expending the least possible amount of energy in the process. To me, this means eating the food that's easiest to ingest and least likely to escape during the feeding process.

To back this up, at least to some extent, this year in mid-June for the first time in several years I saw a large fish actually eating fully emerged, upright-winged PMD duns. It was so out of character, I made a calendar entry. It is far more common on this river to see big fish rising during a good hatch to some form of the insect that from a normal fishing distance cannot be seen clearly on the surface. This despite the fact there may be thousands of upright winged duns in evidence.

To deal with this behavior, I carry no fewer than 6 different emergers (different styles and stafes) and three forms of the crippled dun for the PMD hatch, which is the longest lasting and most prolific hatch we see here. For that hatch, I'll probably have 2 or 3 duns in the box. For the briefer hatches (green drakes, brown drakes) I carry "0" duns and focus on an emerger and a cripple pattern; same for flavilinea.

Just my $.02.

Eric

Hi,
While some like to use different flies, I prefer to use something like this Leisenring Spider.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a222/Soft-hackle/spider.jpg

It works as a nymph, emerging fly, and fished in the film, a cripple. The only time I probably would not use this is if the fish are taking duns in the surface. Even then, I'll bet I could get a fish or two to hit it. This is what I like about the flies--their versatility.

We've got to remember--MOST of the time, but not always. Trout feel safer taking flies underwater. They also are not always in "selective mode". Most of the time they are in "opportunistic mode", which means flies like this one, above, will work. At least this is my experience.

Mark

2 years ago I was fishing the sulphur hatch. For a good hour or so all of the fish I caught were on the duns, then all of sudden it was like someone flicked a switch and I couldn't buy a bite. Going off a previous experience with a different hatch, I started dragging my dry fly like an emerger, swinging it through the currents and tail-outs, and proceeded to catch fish again for the next 1/2 hour or so. Seems like the fish switched to emergers over duns for some reason. Only have had this happen a few times.

This is an extremely interesting series of posts. It's helpful to be reminded that no one formula solves all hatches, and I just copied or summarized the posts here for a MS Word file for future reference. As John S. notes, hatching behavior varies so much with bugs emerging deep under the water, just below the surface, in the film, etc. I'd add that the time of emergence varying throughout the day would be another factor to consider. Also, the same hatch can vary with weather conditions from hot to dry, cold to wet, windy to calm, etc., and I suppose one can just become as familiar with all the variables as possible, then begin to mentally run through all the most likely possibilities for flies. I think Jason's point is well taken, but might something like the approach in Knopp and Cormier's book work very well under some conditons? For example, on a cool morning when there are no bugs on the surface might one well start with nymphs, then if the hatch begins in a light rain, move to emergers as most of the bugs are trapped in the film, and then if the weather breaks and becomes sunny, switch to dries as the weather allows for quicker take off? In other conditions, especially in more constant weather, might Jason's observation be more apt to supercede Knopp and Cormier's claim? Jason, please feel free to correct my reasoning on this one. I'm still fumbling along with my surmises about bug behavior. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. It's given me a lot to ponder. I do wonder if Eric would share some of his PMD cripple and emerger patterns with us; I fished various emergers and cripples almost exclusively last season and did well; it would be nice to have some alternative patterns.

Sorry to dredge up such an old topic (although I guess it doesn't lose its pertinence), but I had to revise a statement I made in an earlier post. I said that on pressured waters fish prefer nymphs to dries at all times during the hatch.

Well, last night was one of those times when I learned a lesson I will not soon forget. I was fishing a highly pressured stream during a decent sulphur hatch. Fish were rising consistently, but I almost never react to that action, knowing that with the right nymph I'll do well and that with a dry I'd more than likely just frustrate myself. I fished a sulphur nymph that, under very similar conditions last year, produced for me 30 fish in one hour on the same stretch of water. Last night I fished that fly for 2+ hours and caught zero fish on it (I lost a number of fish that may or may not have been on that fly).

Since I so rarely fish dries, every time I feel obliged to do so I look into my flybox with utter contempt for every dry I have. The hackle I own was handed down to me from previous tiers and is not very good, so I have great difficulty getting my dries to float well. (No one on this board knows how much money I've dropped to purchase ridiculous materials for my classic salmon-fly tying, but let it suffice to say they if you did, you would find my dry-fly materials shockingly amusing.) Anyway, I put on a dry when I couldn't stand it any longer and instantly hooked a 14-inch brown, but in the ensuing fight he waterlogged my fly to the point that it wouldn't float anymore. I put my nymph rig back on and immediately foul-hooked about a dozen fish, practically every time I pulled my line from the water - they were just STACKED in the top 3 inches of water, taking only duns and spinners.

My only solace was that a size-20 baetis nymph that I developed from one of Jason's pictures yielded about 6 fish for me, the last one a graceful 16-inch brown right at dark. Still, it was one of those days I left the stream shaking my head, knowing what might have been.

I think it may be time to bite the bullet, empty my children's college fund, and sell my soul to Mr. Whiting.

-Shawn

Let me recommend selling your soul to Gonzo, instead. Get his book and $6 worth of hi-vis and you'll be good to go with several nice hackle-less dry flies.

Gonzo's Z-lon comparaduns work very well also, and are relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to tie. I'd also recommend a snowshoe emerger tied on a scud hook with a z-lon or other shuck, a fur or biot body, a fur thorax, and a clump of snowshoe tied on with two wraps over the top of the clump then posted underneath to create a clump wing of snowshoe that floats very well even after many fish. The body sinks just under the film. Just dry the wing out on a patch of chamois, amadou, cloth, or whatever, then false cast to fluff it up some. A little floatant from time to time and it will float practically forever. This fly is a staple on the Delaware for some folks and it has proven itself in Central PA as well. I like light snowshoe for most flies, expecially sulphurs, as the wing can be seen at dusk reasonably well.

Although I can truly appreciate being compared to the "Prince of Darkness," this might be a hard sell despite the encouragement from Jason and Louis. I have detected a subtle resistance to synthetics in Shawn's previous posts, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for corrupting a pure soul. I hope this helps to elevate me slightly over the other dark forces with which one might strike a Faustian bargain. ;)

PS--Louis's snowshoe suggestion is a great way to go for incorruptible "naturalists."

Once again, thanks for the advice, guys - much appreciated.

I like the snowshoe idea. I had a similar idea regarding snowshoe, arctic fox, and CDC awhile back, and I dropped by Flyfisher's Paradise to see if they had any. Steve Sywensky, the shop's owner and a much wiser fisherman than businessman, told me that they carried CDC but that I shouldn't buy any, and that he didn't even bother carrying the other two materials. The reason, he said, was that fur dealers treat all of their materials with so many surfactants to clean them that all of the oils are washed off those materials before they ever end up in flyshops. Dyed materials, he said, were the worst because absolutely all oils must be removed prior to dyeing. He said that if I really wanted to use those materials, then I should use uncleaned or lightly cleaned materials straight from the hunter who shot the animal. I'm still on the lookout for a hunter who can provide me with the good stuff. Any of you guys have different advice?

Gonzo is right that I have a slight aversion to synthetics. I don't eschew them completely (I'm far from a "pure soul"), but I do try to use natural materials as much as possible. In particular, I don't like to use synthetics as a copout when a natural material could accomplish the same goal. I particularly dislike synthetics that are tailor-made for flytying. So rather than use something like Nymphskin, I'll cut up plastic packaging and try to find clever uses for it. It's a fuzzy line that I can't always explain well to others but somehow makes sense to me. I appreciate Gonzo's being sensitive to that, and I have no problem with others drawing the line wherever they wish (if at all). I know I could catch more fish if I broadened the scope of my materials, but I don't really care. I take a lot of pleasure in fooling fish with clever tying, and sometimes that means intentionally limiting myself to force my creativity to emerge. (Then again, how much human engineering goes into each "natural" neck that Whiting produces? Something to think about...)

I am intrigued by the mention of Gonzo's comparaduns. Do they incorporate only synthetic winging (and, if so, why do they float?), or are they primarily deer or elk hair with an accent of synthetics to give them a little flash?

-Shawn

The wings are all-synthetic. Sparkle yarn (many brands work, but I prefer Hi-vis) floats like a cork in sufficiently big clumps. I think air bubbles are trapped in the spots where the fibers are close together near the tie-in point. It's not just the comparadun... most of my dry flies now float because of hi-vis in some form or another.

Hi Shawn,

Let me start by saying that despite my teasing you about being a pure soul, I greatly respect your personal approach to fly-tying. And I also respect that Steve Sywensky is willing to offer an honest (non-commercial) opinion to his customers.

He's right that most commercial "natural" materials are highly processed and are cleaned/preserved with all kinds of unnatural stuff. Nevertheless, I don't want to assume the role of being for or against either natural or synthetic materials. I use what I like, and I like what works for me. I've gone through both "naturalist" and "minimalist" phases in my tying, and I've learned a lot from both. Although I have my own "code" for fly fishing/tying, I have no wish to impose it on others.

My own serious experiments with synthetics started many years ago as an effort to find things that would allow my one-armed fishing partner to be able to learn to tie his own flies. I was surprised to learn how well non-buoyant fibers like Z-lon, Antron, and Hi-vis float a fly all by themselves. (Of course poly yarn also works well, but it is lighter than water.) These materials enhance visibility--something that becomes more important to me every passing year. And they are also very durable. I place a particularly high premium on durability. I sometimes tie pretty complex and time-consuming patterns, and I expect them to hold up to strenuous fishing and many fish without fail.

That said, I also have to try to be as honest as Steve and say I slightly disagree with his assessment of the natural materials in question. The thing that fibers like the above-mentioned synthetics have in common with CDC and snowshoe is that they float because they trap air (as Jason mentioned) and because they distribute the fly's weight over a large surface area preventing it from penetrating the meniscus. Traditional dry-fly hackle is a great example of the latter aspect of floating a fly. The idea that natural oils are primarily responsible for the floating qualities of CDC or snowshoe is largely an urban myth. The oils may help to make the fibers more water-repellent, but that certainly doesn't guarantee floatation. Think about it. Something can be completely waterproof and still sink like a stone.

I discovered long ago that everyday marabou was nearly as good (or nearly as bad, depending on your point of view) as expensive CDC and that many "found" materials are as good or even better than many commercial products. In fact, this is exactly how many of the modern synthetics came to be "discovered." John Betts found Z-lon by taking apart his shoelaces.

Employing our creativity in the search for solutions to our own fly-tying problems is one of the greatest joys of the craft. And the only standards to which we should aspire as amateur tiers are our own satisfaction and that of the fish we pursue. But, I think you already understand that very well.

Happy tying,
Lloyd

Great example of this: a stone. :)

I also think natural oils are overrated for the most part. Having the right color seems to be worth the loss of oil associated with dyeing. Then again, I don't use any flies that supposedly rely on natural oils for flotation, anyway. CDC requires so much fluffing and patch-drying that I don't bother with it for main wings, but I do like a little of it here or there to seem life-like.

Also, "natural oils" sounds a little too health-and-beauty-shop for my liking. But somewhere in my tying supplies there are several bottles of nail polish, so I'm not one to talk.

Sally Hansen's Hard-as-Nails? Or have you graduated to pearlescent shades? ;)

Speaking of embarrassing health-and-beauty aids, on my last visit to the Poconos, the one-armed bandit showed me an eyelash curler he had just purchased to help him bend thread legs. The jury's out on how well the thing works, but buying an eyelash curler takes the embarrassing fly-tying gender-confusion thing to a whole new level. :)

Hey, I bought some green flake pearlescent nail polish last year to get just the right sheen on my wet ants. It was eventually discarded for an easier technique, but the fish seemed to like it just fine.

Whoa, guys. Jason, you really should have thought a little bit about the direction this thread might take before you started it in the first place. You reap what you sow, I guess - start talking about stages of a hatch and OF COURSE it's going to spiral into a discussion surrounding eyelash curlers and nail polish eventually. (As a completely unrelated aside, I wonder how many times per thread Jason shakes his head.)

Thanks for the "waterproof things can sink like stones... like stones" thought. A point so poignant that even Socrates would have trouble arguing against it.

I still think, though, that oils can play a big part in trapping air bubbles. (Forgive this next part - I'm a chemist by trade if not by passion. I'm just trying to make sense of some of the points that have been made in the thread to this point, or at least help people forget about the part referring to beauty products.)

Molecules' polarity greatly influences what they will adhere to. Polar molecules adhere to other polar molecules by way of aligning opposite static charges between molecules (sort of the way a bunch of magnets thrown into the same bowl will line up and adhere, though for different reasons). Non-polar molecules, meanwhile, are excluded by the polar molecules and thus get lumped with each other despite having little affinity for each other (imagine what happens when a bunch of pencils and magnets are thrown into the same bowl and shaken - the pencils all hang out together by exclusion, not because of an affinity for other pencils). This is what happens when oil and water are mixed, water being polar and adhering to other water and oil being non-polar and therefore being excluded.

Water's high degree of polarity is one of the reasons it clings to natural flytying fibers, which are primarily proteins with a lot of polarity themselves. Synthetics, meanwhile, are typically derived from crude oil and are quite non-polar - making the points you guys have made about them shedding water better than natural fibers make sense. This I'm sure is what helps them float better than natural fibers even though they probably have about the same density as water. Air is non-polar as well, so air bubbles have no trouble hanging out with other non-polar things like synthetics. As water douses natural fibers, however, the air bubbles are forced out of them and they lose their buoyancy.

Natural oils represent nature's primary defense against water because they are about the least polar things found in living things. So it makes sense that they would help things like CDC and snowshoe float better. Also, natural oils are perfectly matched in polarity to their natural material, so they vastly outperform any synthetic goop on the market. What is it, after all, that makes snowshoe so much better (and it is) than regular rabbit fur slathered with goop? I'm guessing the hair has exactly the same density either way (although I may be wrong about this). So my guess is that the goop is too goopy and, rather than trapping more air bubbles, tends to mat feathers and fur into one big, flat, ugly mass with no air in it. Meanwhile, untreated rabbit fur sinks like a stone as soon as water adheres to it and chases out all the air. The snowshoe oil, on the other hand, traps air and sheds water really well, all the while adhering to its natural fiber with great permanence.

So I'm not sold on the idea that the natural oils aren't worth the fuss. Though I've never owned any snowshoe myself (though I'm working on it), I have seen a beginner fish a snowshoe dry that was absolutely impossible to sink (believe me, he tried). I've tried paraffin in gasoline, Rain-X (an incredible product for windshields if not for dry flies), various goops - none of them are even close to unsinkable. Now, maybe the answer is the synthetic fibers you guys are talking about. But I've got to hold out a little hope that there's a natural solution.

OK, enough science. I hate bringing work home with me...

-Shawn

Nice analysis, Shawn. Thanks for putting on your chemist's hat (or whatever chemists put on). And thanks for steering the thread back onto a more productive course. (What was the topic anyway?)

Don't give up hope for a natural solution if that's what floats your boat (or fly). Actually, I don't think it's that hard to find, even with the materials mentioned. I don't doubt that some sort of water-repelling assistance helps to delay the onset of water infiltration with these natural materials, but CDC and snowshoe have nearly opposite problems in that regard.

Wiry snowshoe rabbit's foot hair has many of the same air-trapping and weight-distributing characteristics as the synthetics, and CDC has hundreds of tiny interlocking fibers. To help with the polarity issues, both are aided somewhat by natural oils in their unprocessed state. However, once these natural oils are gone due to the fishing/fish-catching process they're about the same as the processed stuff. Then the issue becomes one of rejuvenation/replacement.

With snowshoe that is pretty simple, and not much different than with synthetics. Rinse off the slime, dry, and re-treat with a light application of a good fly dressing. Have you ever tried old-fashioned Mucilin? In many instances it's much better than some of the modern "goops" (as you appropriately call them). In my experience this works just fine.

CDC, on the other hand, seems to work less and less well each time it is rejuvenated, even if you try to preen it with ducklike care. Once it's been slimed and the fibers get mangled, it never seems to float as well again. And replacing the oils, whether with "natural preen oil" or something else, is problematic at best. Mostly, trying to "re-oil" just seems to make things worse. (My apologies to all the Rene Harrop fans, but the only replacement strategy that works for me is replacing the fly with a fresh one.)

I've speculated in a previous CDC rant that maybe dusting the worn-out feathers with a fluorocarbon powder might work, but I largely gave up on CDC before I went to the trouble and expense of finding out. (I don't know what products like Frogs Fanny are made of, but they might be something similar.) But that seems like a pretty unnatural extreme to go to just to maintain the "natural" ethic. CDC fools fish and floats flies very well if you don't mind replacing your fly after a fish or two. But, as I've said, marabou does about the same thing, and is a whole lot cheaper.

Speaking of marabou, I wanted to mention an experience related to your point about "regular" rabbit fur. We normally associate marabou and rabbit with subsurface flies, but these materials only sink once the air has been driven out. As long as they hold air, both float amazingly well. (And in that regard are no different than the other materials under discussion, natural or synthetic.) I once tied a big "subsurface" (I thought) bass fly with a black-dyed marabou clump for a tail and a black-dyed rabbit strip wrapped for a body. Try as I might, I could not get the damn thing to sink. Even after it had accumulated a large wad of green pond scum around the head, it refused to go under. I tried squeezing water into the fly to drive the air out, but to no avail.

As another example, I tie a weighted sculpin pattern that has marabou fins and tail. Despite the added weight, when the fly is dry, it will often smack the water and then float along buoyed by the marabou. It sinks great if I saturate the marabou first, but otherwise it can become a floating sculpin pattern (and is not particularly appealing as such). And I've often wondered if my dry flies didn't float better when I used to tie the bodies with plain old rabbit rather than the modern synthetic "dry-fly" dubbing. I could be wrong, but some modern dry-fly dubbing dressed with modern dry-fly floatant seems to have all the floating qualities of the aforementioned stone. (See, I'm really not an advocate of all synthetics nor of other modern crap that doesn't perform. I'm an advocate of what works--for me.)

Don't give up the quest. I'm on your side.

Best,
Lloyd

It may be that some natural-oil materials are nearly unsinkable, but CDC isn't one of them. Then again, maybe I've been using dyed CDC lacking the proper oil.

I think that beyond a certain point, it doesn't matter if a fly floats really really well or really really really really well. As long as one or two whip-cracking false casts can have it back into tip top shape, and as long as that isn't necessary every other cast, I'm fine with it.