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3. Tricos, Page 2

Matt, that may be some of the difference here. I don't have the bucks or time to fish out west, so my Trico fishing is done on local spring creeks, where the Tricos are smaller than their western bretheren. I often am using size 26 flies and sometimes size 28. The fish are smaller too, unfortunately. But the necessary skill to catch them is often sufficient to render a considerable challenge, so I have fun anyway. And fun is my final test of whether or not it's worth doing.

Fred,

Trikes are trikes. I fish PA most since I live there and tricos everywhere seem to be pretty close to a size 24. I fished the trico hatch out-west too. The trikes on the Missouri River (around Craig, MT) are pretty much the same size as back in PA. Actually I really cleaned up out there up with the Al Miller pattern that I posted, more so than with the antron-winged spinnner patterns that many use out there.

As far a tippets, I agree with WB, I've never seen the need to use anything less than 6x. It's really not about the diameter of the tippets as much as it is about drag. Lengthening the tippet reduces drag, no need to use those gossamer tippets.

On the D River, I try never to go below 5x. After 50 years of fishing up there, I guess WB knows why...

well...
try to break off your fly way up in a tree with 5x or 6x and you just might start using 9x or 10x!!
that, uh, never happens to me...
uh, i just, uh, heard about it from somebody else...
gut

Tony,

A couple seasons back I snagged a tag alder on a piss-poor cast. I yanked a couple times and decided I wasn't hooked to a leaf and it wasn't coming free. I walked across the stream to see a tangled mess and said to myself, "Oh shit! I'm screwed!"...I was prepared to just cut the fly free and hope for the best when I discovered that my leader wasn't that bad off...This mess actually belonged to someone else...Have you ever fished the South Branch of the Au Sable???

All kidding aside...

I cut the mess out of the tree, and I kid you not, considering the discussion here about tippet sizes etc, you could of pulled a Jeep out of a ditch with this stuff! It almost seemed like butt-section thickness with a weighted nymph on the end that looked like it was sold at K-marts...If K-marts actually sold flies.

I jammed the coiled mess into the pouch on my waders and mumbled some curses under my breath aimed at the snagging son-of-a-bitch that had left it hanging there! He had to have just cut it off since it was way too thick to break.

I hate to say it but he was in one hell of a good spot...How he got there I do not know and I hope the bastard got lost in the woods trying to find his way out!

Spence

A couple of seasons back I was fishing the South Branch of the Au Sable. I had just purchased some new leader material and a hand full of flies from the local K-Mart store. The question of quality did cross my mind, but the price of the stuff labeled “Made in China” made the purchase compelling. That night while fishing, in one hell of a good spot, I snagged a tag alder on a piss-poor cast so I yanked a couple times and decided I wasn't hooked to a leaf and it wasn't coming free. I walked across the stream to see a tangled mess and said to myself, "Oh shit! I'm screwed!"...I was prepared to just cut the fly free and hope for the best, but because it was too dark to see I decided to just break it off. Well let me tell you, that 0X “Made in China’” is some damn strong stuff, I swear you could of pulled a Jeep out of a ditch with this stuff! As a matter of fact I couldn’t break it so I just cut it off. I got lost in the woods trying to find my way out that night thinking what a son-of-a-bitch I was for leaving that good stuff behind, but I found solace in knowing that some good Samaritan would retrieve my loss. Thank you Spence.

Allan,

Very funny mister!

I was just about to continue the story and tell you about the Jeep that was in the ditch as I was leaving the Mason Tract on the South Branch and how I helped the poor guy out by attaching the mono tangle I found in that tag alder to the bumper of my Saab and pulled him from the ditch....But there's only about thirty minutes left in April 1st and I need to get some sleep...It's a school night.

Gute Nacht!

Spence

Afish,

Thanks for your confirmation of my belief that the first thing to do is lengthen your tippet if you're not getting a drag-free enough drift to overcome the refusals. As I previously confessed, I'm too poor and busy to fish out West, so my comments on Trico size were based on book learning. Knopp and Cormier note that western T. minutus (now T. explicatus)can be a mite bigger than eastern varieties of our little friend, and other entomologists who I trust have confirmed this. I guess I'll just have to save my money and take a ruler out there to see for myself some day.

Louis,

My two cents...Most of these "problems" with "leader shy" trout can be cured by the caster. Gary Borger has been around forever. I can remember seeing him mentioned in a very early book by Eric Leiser when the modern era of our sport was young. He was writing Eric letters from Wisconsin or somewhere discussing fly fishing problems "the old fashioned way", by snail mail when he himself was a youngster, relatively speaking.

Back then Eric was driving around collecting road kill for tying purposes because there were few places to procure "stuff".

Anyway! Read and then re-read Gary Borger's, "Presentation"...Besides preaching better casting to solve problems astream he also discusses the "triggers" that may attract a trout to your presentation. These little pea brain trout, though incredibily attuned to their environment and survival, sometimes just can't help themselves if you trigger enough switches in their brain to take your offering.

It's kind of like a young man in the general proximity of a cute flirtatious young female with deception on her mind. He's not using the larger brain to do his thinking and there is nothing he can do to save himself from getting hooked! He wakes up 30 years later, dazed and confused, and wondering what the hell happened there. Hell! I'm still wondering what happened to my record collection...

Spence