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3. Fly Arsenal questions..., Page 2

Tim, how about a #10 Female Adams (which is an Adams with a little yellow ball of dubbing or chenille tied in at the base of the tail, for those of you unfamiliar with it) for a big dry? I once did extremely well with this fly during a Hex hatch on the lake I was living on in the West Branch area, which happened right over a massive bluegill/pumpkinseed spawning bed drawing the fish up to the top for some crazy panfishing for a good hour or so. BIG FAT MALES, too, in full spawning regalia. I haven't tried it on a stream yet but it seems like it might work...

Jonathon

Jonathon,

Sounds good to me. A friend once fished a #10 spent female Adams through about the first half of a Hex spinner fall.. took some nice fish with it... finally realized (it was one of those pitch black nights) what was on the water and switched flies.

But, as always, my opinion pales in comparison with that of the trout. Show it to them and see what they think. Have fun.

Tim

I also love fishing big dry flies. Whenever I can, that's how I fish. It does work extremely well in a lot of streams. My box is full of Ausable Wullfs.

Still, on pressured spring creeks especially, something a little more accurate is called for. I'm a presentatationist for the most part, but I would for example, feel a bit lost without a few blue-winged olive imitations-which is the main mayfly we see in Missouri.

Motrout,

One of the best things about Northern Michigan: We have at least a half dozen mayflies here that are #10 or larger. they start hatching in mid-late May, and it goes on into September. When there's no active rise here, I'm puttin' on a #10....

I'm TOTALLY with Tim on this one. And FYI, I DON'T like fishing highly pressured areas where I have to be SO FREAKING EXACT in my fly design, size, color, and presentation that I actually SEE trout turn down their noses after examining my fly for up to 5 seconds...As happened at one of Missouri's infamous "Trout Parks" - which, as I described earlier, sees trout released at 8 a.m. when they blow the whistle so all the old codgers can line up shoulder-to-shoulder and throw their POWERBAIT and catch their 5-fish limit of RUBBER TROUT before catching a pre-lunch nap. Whereafter, the survivors of this unceasing onslaught see EVERYTHING KNOWN TO MAN AND FISH thrown at them so they won't hit ANYTHING!! SEEN IT - size 16 Sulphurs tailor-made to imitate hatches I was seeing, on a 6x tippet, and the damned fish came up under them, followed them for at least 3-4 feet, and then went down in disbelief. F*CK this kind of fishing, give me the Rifle River or some little bitty spring-fed creek where I can be COMPLETELY ALONE any time I want to, water all to myself, flies dancing everywhere, fish rising left and right, blasting whatever looks good to them. If this kind of fishing isn't available to you, then you have my sympathies, because to me THIS IS what fly fishing for trout (or anything else for that matter, which I do LOTS OF, i.e. warmwaters) is all about.

I don't go fishing to hang around in a crowd of bullsh*tters or prove that I'm somehow better than anyone else. I go fishing for the PEACE and QUIET, solitude, communing with nature and water, and to catch fish on my own flies, and no one else has to be there for me to enjoy it or show off to.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!

Jonathon

Okay... That's easy to say when you live in Michigan. It just so happens that there are no truly undisturbed trout streams in Missouri. Even the little wild trout creeks that would be overlooked in most areas get pounded relentlessly, and there are very few, if any, areas around here where you can find trout that aren't pretty jaded. Unpressured, uneducated trout are a very scarce commodity here. So, I, while I would rather not fish for pressured trout, it's a heck of a lot better than nothing. I also try to fish where I can have some solitude. It is tough, but by making a habit fishing the stream stretches that have supposedly poor fishing, I can sometimes at least find that.

Jmd123, I avoid trout parks like the plague by the way. While it's not like Michigan in Missouri, we do have some wild trout water that isn't totally taken over by the Powerbait brigade.

Ok now let's get back to the topic of the original post...a few further questions...1.) On heavily pressured waters (Beaverkill etc..) does a Parachute Adams pass as an acceptable imitation for a BWO hatch? (preferablly if anyone has experience fishing an Adams in a similar situation on a heavily pressured stream your experience would be of great value)..2.) Is there any varience in productivity between the Royal Coachman, Wulff, or Trude and does anyone have success fishing a Royal Coachman bucktail/streamer? and lastly 3.) I have to have surgery on June 9th and accordingly will be out of commission for much of the remainder of the summer..that being said i'd like to take one trip up to the catskills between now and then to fish as I have never been there before..what catskill river has the best dry fly activity (ie; if I go to the Farmington River in CT and I go to church pool for instance although kind of selective there will always be fish rising throughout the day, everyday) is there any catskill river that is similar in that regard?

Thanks for your time,

-MT

MT, the Royal Coachman streamer in either bucktail or feather-wing has worked well for brookies for me, and the "Royal" pattern in almost any form - my favorites are the Coachman "classic" (white quill wings & golden pheasant crest tail), "Wulff" (split white wings in either bucktail or calftail with brown bucktail or calftail tail), or "Parachute" (parachute post of either white bucktail or calftail with brown caftail or bucktail tail) work for me. But try whatever you have, they're all attractors anyways...

Motrout, go to Crain Creek. You can't keep ANYTHING there, so I imagine it keeps the "meat hunters" away. Otherwise, plan a trip up here and I'll put you on some fish in a nice, secluded stream where you won't have to worry about "pounded" fish. OKAY??? Let me know!!!

ANY TIME, man!!!

Jonathon

>>1.) On heavily pressured waters (Beaverkill etc..) does a Parachute Adams pass as an acceptable imitation for a BWO hatch? (preferablly if anyone has experience fishing an Adams in a similar situation on a heavily pressured stream your experience would be of great value).>>

Yes it does.. Or it can, at least. Using a parachute adams in #16 or #18 to fish an olive hatch is pretty common (and often recommended, actually..) on the Midwest spring creeks, for example. If you do so, will you do as well as the guy fishing a BWO comparadun or parachute? I don't know. That's one of those questions that is in the same class with "How long is a piece of string". A lot of it comes down to whether the fish is really taking the fly for what you think it is (the common angler's conceit..) or whether, as a fish, it simply looks like something good to eat. Some folks hold that there is enough gray in the baetis dun that an adams actually makes sense, etc. Who knows?
The quarry is a fish and we are not...

In any event, an interesting aside: Back when I was devouring everything that Fly Fisherman magazine said, Art Lee used to write for them quite often. If art wasn't off chasing salmon in Iceland, he was usually fishing in the Catskills on the "name" waters there. When Art wrote about the Catskills, he usually mentioned a NY-DNC biologist named Ed Van Put who was deadly on the water all through the region, regardless of the season or what bugs were on the water. Ed (according to Art) only fished one fly, an Adams.

So, believe in your parachute adams. It probably will not let you down.

"On heavily pressured waters (Beaverkill etc..) does a Parachute Adams pass as an acceptable imitation for a BWO hatch?"

How can you write that a para Adams is a imitation of a BWO?? It doesn't have the same body color or wing color. It's not even close to resembling any Baetis on any eastern river. It's like saying a Light Cahill is a good imitation of a March Brown.

If I adopt your philosophy on fly usage and I might as well sell the thousands of hatch matchers I have in every Catskill pattern, as well as those I use on MT tailwaters, and just go out and buy a dozen each of a good para Adams in sizes #10 - #22 and I'd be catching as many fish as I do now and won't have to bother carrying all those other flies with me any more.

You also wrote;

"biologist named Ed Van Put who was deadly on the water all through the region, regardless of the season or what bugs were on the water. Ed (according to Art) only fished one fly, an Adams."

There is some truth in that but most of it is major BS. I know Ed Van Put well and fished with him frequently during the hey day of the Delaware. His success with a #14 Adams was largely due to the naivete' of the trout back in the mid 1960's to late 1970's. The trout then were much easier to catch and there were far fewer anglers. So far fewer in fact that when he and I would go out we would never see another angler. After fishing with him a few years he took me to his Shangrila, and swore me to secrecy, requiring I took no one but my Dad and best friend there. We fished that section of river for years before we ever began to see people going there.

Ed Van Put also fished a Zug Bug a great deal, he liked the Borcher Special, he fished other dry flies too but I can't remember exactly which ones. But to say he only fished the Adams is an urban fly fishing legend.

Before I start WWIII I want to add that I am very opininated about fly fishing and especially dry fly fishing. I don't give a crap what people I don't know think, or say, about me or my opinions. I have formed numerous opinions about dry fly fishing from the well over one hundred visits to Armstrong and Nelson's Spring Creeks in the mid 1960's to mid 1970's. Further opinions were formed during the over one thousand trips to the Beaverkill, Willowemoc, and other Catskill trout rivers.

Yes presentation is very important, maybe equally as important as fly selection. Maybe my casting, and line management skills, are not up to par with some forum members who believe fly selection and color are of little consequence in the grand scheme of trout fishing. I've seen many instances where changing from a hackled dun to a compara-dun made the difference in getting blanked or getting multiple takes.

If many of you enjoy the belief that presentation is everything and one can pretty much use whatever type or color of fly in the box as long as it is close to the emerging size well that is fine and dandy for you guys.

Personally I enjoy, and prefer, fiddling around with emerging nymphs, hacked and no hackled duns, compara-duns, spinners, multiple sizes and various colors if that is what I think brings me success. If I wanted to catch fish, and believed color or style was unimportant I'd hike into one of the cutthroat streams in YNP with a spool of 4X and three Hares Ear nymphs and catch forty 14" - 17" 'cuts in an afternoon like I did in Pelican Creek back in the 'ole days. BTW Pelican Creek is closed to all fishing.

First off, I asked a “question”, I didn’t make an “assertion”..I did not say “a grey mayfly pattern passes for an Olive colored Baetis because they look identical” I simply asked “if on heavily pressured waters can a Parachute Adams render strikes during a BWO hatch”..is this somehow offensive to other people here? Secondly, on the three rivers I fish (Croton, Farmington, and Housatonic) a Parachute Adams, when coupled with a good presentation, will not clean out entire pools by any means but does draw strikes well enough that it can be fished relatively effectively during hatches of other darker colored mayflys including BWO’s…I often fish the Farmington in the fall after the fish have been pounded all summer and are particularly skittish, yet still find, when presented well enough, a good number of these same fish will still take an Parachute Adams so asking if the same holds true on some of the heavily pressured waters of the Catskill is a far cry from a ridiculous question. And lastly, what does the stuff about “dumping out all your other patterns” have to do with anything?..did I ask you to do that..no…does it make a difference to me how you personally choose to fish…no….is Montana located in the Catskills..no…did I ever say using a parachute adams is “as or more productive than matching the hatch”..no…so that being said I appreciate your extremely insightful and valuable response in regard to my questions. Thans to those on the site who have made worthwhile contributions in regard to my thread..it’s been much appreciated, but I’ll be going elsewhere. Take it easy fellas

-MT

"is this somehow offensive to other people here?"

I'm not offended at all, just stated my opinion, never said you'd agree with me.

>>How can you write that a para Adams is a imitation of a BWO??>>

Aside from the obvious mechanical simplicity of typing the words, it is easy to write such a thing because it is widely considered to be so.

Google "Parachute Adams for Baetis hatch". You'll get somewhere in the neighborhood of 6000 hits. Obviously, somebody believes it to be true..

"Obviously, somebody believes it to be true.."

Yes, but there are probably at least another 6000 who don't prescribe to that viewpoint.

I also wrote;

"Personally I enjoy, and prefer, fiddling around with emerging nymphs, hackled, and no hackled duns, compara-duns, spinners, multiple sizes and various colors if that is what I think brings me success."

I'm just not inclined to ever consider putting a para Adams on during a Baetis emergence. If 6000 other guys want to do that go then they should do so. I don't think it's blasphemy to use attractor type dry flies I'd just rather try and match the emerging insect. We're both entitled to our opinions.

YEEEE HAAAAWWW, guys!!! Let's not blow an aneurism here, and this is coming from Jonathon THE RANTER.

Hey, here's the deal. We all have our favorites that work for us on the waters we fish. I believe in keeping it simple. It works for me and I catch more than enough fish to keep me happy. Your results may differ. GET OVER IT ALREADY!!!!!!!!! Here's the other deal: nobody, and I mean FREAKING NOBODY, is BORN a fly fisherman!! We all have to LEARN HOW TO DO THIS and until you do, NOBODY is going to catch a sh*tload of fish when they are starting out, I don't give a flying F*CK what it says in the FREAKING ORVIS CATALOGUE or on any website (including this one) with it's salt. You have to GET OUT THERE AND FISH and figure out WHAT WORKS FOR YOU!!!!! YOU can't tell me I can't catch fish on this or that when I AM ACTUALLY CATCHING FISH ON IT!!! MT just posted a message on how eyes can "discourage" fish from hitting streamers. Well, TRY TELLING THAT to the 20"+ brown I hooked on the Pigeon in 2008, or the 20" largemouth I caught in Texas in 2005, or the 16" smallmouth I caught in Intermediate Lake in 2007, or about a FEW THOUSAND other bass (last time I checked, they are pretty serious predators on OTHER FISH), not to mention ten times more panfish, that I have caught on my very own Killer Bass Fly, which has VERY PROMINENT EYES (bead-chain or dumbell, depending on water depth). I guess I'm not supposed to be catching all of those fish, including about a dozen black crappie this evening that fell for a blue-and-silver Woolly Bugger with BEAD CHAIN EYES (last time I checked, crappies LOVE minnows). (I was also told on here that my observation that caddis flies are most abundant as the sun was going down into dusk was WRONG - oh yeah? You can SEE THROUGH MY EYES and tell me that I'm HALLUCINATING??? Must have been all that acid I dropped back in the 80s between my Bachelors and Masters...)

MT, right now you are getting BOMBED with information, perhaps more than you ever wanted. And it gives everyone on this site an excuse to say, "Your flies suck, mine are better." My advice is to get yourself a variety of flies, get out on the water, and FISH YOUR ASS OFF. If you do this, I can guarantee you, money back, that you will FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELF and then you can sit back and LAUGH when someone tells you that "You'll NEVER catch fish on THAT." It's all trial and error, depending on your waters, conditions, tackle, attitude, etc. All of the advice is fine and dandy, you can learn something or other from it, but the way to catch fish is to get out there and TRY. Anyone who says "You gotta do it this way or you'll never catch NOTHING" is just plain FULL OF SH*T. YOU need to figure out WHAT WORKS FOR YOU. That's how I did it, and by golly, I can outfish people using LIVE BAIT or hardware and I've had such people look at me in amazement and ask, "WHAT are you using???"

Get out there and FISH. There's no other way to LEARN HOW TO CATCH FISH, PERIOD.

How's THAT for some attitude???

Jonathon

P.S. Since fly fishing seems to have a distinct element of Zen in it, I offer the advice of every Zen guru to every disciple:

YOU MUST FIND YOUR OWN TRUE PATH.

If I had read the article about eyes discouraging fish from hitting streamers, I would never have designed my very own Killer Bass Fly - I've NEVER seen it in ANY catalogue, magazine, or fly shop bin - and might never have caught all of those wonderful fish on it, not to mention all of the wonderful fish yet to come.

YOU MUST FIND YOUR OWN TRUE PATH!!!!!!!!!

"We all have to LEARN HOW TO DO THIS and until you do, NOBODY is going to catch a sh*tload of fish when they are starting out, I don't give a flying F*CK what it says in the FREAKING ORVIS CATALOGUE or on any website (including this one) with it's salt. You have to GET OUT THERE AND FISH and figure out WHAT WORKS FOR YOU!!!!! YOU can't tell me I can't catch fish on this or that when I AM ACTUALLY CATCHING FISH ON IT!!!"

Truer words have seldom been spoken about this wonderful obsession of FFing!

Matt, I'm with ya on the EYES. And I'm glad you enjoyed my post. Y'all know I'm good for a rant...

Jonathon

P.S. "Y'all" comes from 2 1/2 years in San Marcos, Texas, home of the San Marcos River, where the 6-10" bright orange and blue redbreast sunfish feed on caddis flies skimming over the water at dusk. Once I'd caught a few hundred of these I never bothered heading down to the Guadalupe below Canyon Lake Reservoir for trout. These WERE my trout - along with the beautiful little spotted sunnies, the occasional redear, bluegill the size of my hand, Rio Grande perch (actually a CICHLID), Mexican tetras (yep, same family as neons - that's two different "aquarium fish" familes on the fly!!)...

Oh, and there were green sunnies and about a half mile of spawning longear sunnies in the Lampasas River and...My point being, fish where you are and enjoy it!!! You just might be surprised.

(Did I mention the bass? Or two channel cats on the fly? That's another story...)

JMD, I enjoyed your rant... No one will ever tell you that you aren't opinionated enough. Basically, I agree with you. For the six months to a year or so after I picked up a fly rod, I couldn't consistently catch a fish on ANY fly, I don't care if it was the most entomologically accurate pattern ever created for the given hatch. It is more about knowing how to read the stream and how to lay the fly down gently, but I guess I do think fish sometimes key into a hatch. So while the vast majority of my flies consist of woolly buggers, adams, hare's ears, Elk Hair Caddises, Ausable Wullfs, and Royal Coachmans I do have a couple little Blue Winged Olives stashed away because they are a common mayfly and I feel (maybe correctly, and maybe incorrectly) that the fish can get selective to them occasionally. It seems like a nice little middle road to me, but whatever floats the boat of any given fisherman is the right way to go about it.