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3. Is the Sparkle Pupa Just an Attractor?, Page 2

Yeah, if it works, it works!

Maybe what appeared as a gas bubble to La Fontaine was actually an air bubble, therefore, the veil would still be a viable part of pattern. All I can say is they work during the right situations.

I'm thinking he saw diving egg-laying adults. I've seen them (Hydropsychids) hitting the water (literally) in the afternoons overlapping with the end of the day's emergence.

I don't have the book handy, but Bob Wyatt surmised the same, Paul...There are a good many bugs that can go subsurface because they are enveloped with an air bubble that adheres to them as they go under.

Who knows...:)

Spence

As I've written about here before, I had an angling epiphany when I discovered divers during the tail end of the daily Hydropsychae emergences in some central NY streams. The fly I then came up with just KILLED those browns. I went from working hard for my fish with dry and pupal patterns to having things be so easy, so effective, that it almost felt wrong. Almost. :)

The attractor side of a Sparkle Pupa could be chalked off to visibility, and possibly to water resistance? I see Walt's Worm and Glo-Bugs as possibly the best in the latter. Actually there's a Cranefly version of Walt's Worm that incorporates foam under all that dubbing. It is probably the ultimate drifter.

My experience with Lafountaine's DSPs and ESPs is the same as PR ^.

I believe they work as an attractor during non hatch times, but I've matched the caddis hatch with sparkle pupas and have had great success when other flies have failed or were marginal at fooling trout.

I bought the book when it came out back in the 70's? and tied them ever since. My theory as to why many anglers/tyers don't find the patterns very effective is they do not use the correct material (antron, which is hard to find right now) and/or do not tie the fly correctly (touch dubbing method and veil encompassing the entire body).

Afishinado wrote;



This may be so for why many anglers don't do well the bubble flies. However after my first few attempts at tying the veil to encompass the entire body and the touch dub abdomen approach I gave up on both. (I'm sure if I had put my mind to it I would of learned to tie them well but to tell you the truth I prefer to tie flies that are easy, for me, to construct.) I tie the veil to be at least 180 degrees but prefer to try and tease the strands of Antron down past the shank so I get about 200 - 230 degrees of coverage.

For the bodies I use a very fine sparkle Antron that came in a 12 compartment dispenser about a decade ago. I heavily wax the tying thread, create a dubbing loop, and insert pre cut pieces of the sparkle Antron into the dubbing loop. I make about 4 turns, tie in a sparse deer hair wing, then add a rust colored turn of the same sparkle yarn in front of the wing.

It works great for me and while I use them most as a subsurface fly I have often added a bit of dry fly paste to the veil and cast them to rising fish and they eat them eagerly.

I remember telling Dr. Antonio one time that I never did any good with the sparkle pupa or emerger. He looked at me kind of funny and said he's had great succes with them.

I thought about that and resolved to learn more about caddis behavior. I realized I hadn't fished them at the right time or properly.

So I, therefore, feel there are many people that just don't understand caddis behavior.

Wbranch, above, ties his more like an Iris Caddis pattern and I've had success with them, too. As a matter of fact, I caught a nice brown on a tan Iris Caddis pattern fished in the surface, while being guided by Crepuscular.

Just some thoughts, Bruce

The website that LaFontaine created is still selling the yarn he used:

http://www.thebookmailer.com/Supplies/body_SparkleYarn.html