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3. Favorite pattern for favorite mayfly hatch

My favorite hatch is Ephemerella dorothea which starts near the end of May, where I am. My favorite pattern for this hatch is my soft-hackle Lil' Dorothy sizes 12-14.

Just in case you have not seen it, look here:

http://www.troutnut.com/libstudio/FS&S/html/lil_dorothy.html

Mark

Mine is a little mayfly nymph I tie in a number of color variations. In general terms it's similar to some other little mayfly ties out there, but it's different enough that I don't mind calling it my own. I've had enough experiences when it has significantly outperformed old standbys to have a great deal of confidence when I put it on.

Sorry to be so vague - I'm kind of secretive about this stuff. I'll show it to you the next time we fish, Louis, if you remind me. I showed it to Jason once, but he didn't seem to have as much enthusiasm for it as I do, probably because he's always fooling around with those crazy crippled dries. Someday he'll come over to the dark side of nymph fishing and embrace his destiny.

-Shawn

Interesting, Shawn,
How much do you think confidence in a fly has to do with its success?
Perhaps this should be another thread.

Mark

A White Wulff, size 10 or 12. It's a killer during almost any white mayfly hatch, it floats well (if you be sure to dry it off when its soaked), and you can see it at night better than almost any other fly. And warmwater species love 'em too!

Jonathon

An F-fly dressed as a BWO sizes 20-28. Super easy to tie, fairly durable and floats really well for such a small thing. Oh yeah, and the trout like it too.

Confidence matters a ton. You're right - that should be another thread.

A related observation - we tend to try stuff we have little confidence in only as a last resort when nothing else is working, which only confirms our dislike for the pattern. This is probably the biggest reason one angler swears by a pattern and another angler swears at it. One angler overvalues the fly because he only fishes it at the best possible times and the other undervalues it because he only fishes it at the worst possible times.

-Shawn

P.S. What's an F-fly?

I chose the early Paraleps for my favorite hatch. My favorite pattern for fishing this hatch is a simple #18 comparadun with a muted rust/brown body and a tail of split dark dun hackle fibers.

My reasoning goes like this:

Often, it is fairly cold when these bugs come off in fishable numbers and on the water, they often behave like a duck that has been whacked in the head with a 2 X 4. Kinda stunned...

The comparadun, while useless (IMO) on some of the later, larger hatches that have more fidgety bugs is a good pick for this hatch.

You guys are too hard-core for me. My eyes are getting old - I'm in serious need of bifocals, next pair of specs will be - and I'm not particularly enjoying even size 14s anymore. I did a Cabelas run last weekend just to get some #10s and 12s. Those of you that can catch fish on minutiae, more power to ya.

I suppose that's the advantage of warmwater fishing - you practically never need anything THAT small.

Jonathon

Oh, I should mention that I do tie - I bought hooks, not flies. I took a class in 1990 and ever since I refuse to fish with a fly that I didn't tie myself. There is so much satisfaction in fooling fish with your own creations.

I will whet your appetites by saying that I might just reveal two absolute killer patterns that I have come up with for warmwater, with the hope that you folks with ready accss to trout water will try them and let me know the results. I don't have a camera right now, planning on getting one, but I can always borrow one from work to take pics of completed flies to show you what they're supposed to look like. I haven't seen or heard of these patterns anywhere else, and I strongly expect that browns in particular would take a liking to them - one mimics a baitfish, the other a very small frog (or whatever the fish thinks looks tasty). One of them caught that 20" largemouth in Texas for me - and I've nailed just about every species of sunfish, as well as crappie, yellow perch, smallmouth, etc. In fact, I have out-fished bait slingers standing right next ot me with this one! Both are easy to tie, and the little froggie works best in, well, CHARTREUSE (I think I've been misspelling that word).

Jonathon

Jonathon: I can sympathize with your vision complaint. I'm on my second pair of bifocals at age 55.

These days, I strike at any disturbance that appears to be in the neighborhood of my fly.

Sometimes, it's a fish...

I also bought a pair of 4X reading glasses which when I'm tying on a smaller fly I put on underneath my bifocals.

It makes even threading the eye of a #22 like mooring a boat...:)

F Fly is a super simple pattern. Use a dryfly hook of your choice and size of your choice to match natural. Tail it like you would a dry fly color to match natural. Build a body the same as you would a dry fly (I use an all thread or sometimes quill body for tiny flies) to match natural. About a head space back from the eye tie in a CDC feather to match the natural's wing color. Tie it in down wing style (much like a elk hair caddis) with the wing extending back to the end of the body, but not past it. No hackle. Put a head on it and go fishing.

If you google "F Fly" you will find some links to pictures, but none of them look quite like mine, but it will give you the right idea.

Slate Drake

Thanks, Slate.

A CDC question: A guy gave me a bag of feathers he plucked from a duck he shot. Is every feather in the bag that looks like CDC actually CDC, or are some of the feathers that look like CDC actually from other parts of the bird and not oiled? Anyone with duck-plucking experience know?

-Shawn

Shawn, since the duck feathers you have were not cleaned or sanitized, the easiest way to tell which are the CDC feathers is to smell them. The closer they were to the duck's butt the more they will stink. Enjoy! :)

Actually, that is the way I tie my very small mayfly emergers. Now you know my secret emerger pattern, so Shawn has to tell us about his secretive little mayfly nymph.

Thank you, John, for that smelly hint and for putting me on the spot. I'm going to have to think long and hard about both before I do anything.

-Shawn

Shawnny3 August 18th, 2007, 8:50 am
Pleasant Gap, PA

Posts: 263 Thank you, John, for that smelly hint and for putting me on the spot. I'm going to have to think long and hard about both before I do anything.

-Shawn

Shawnny 3 --- Plug one of your nostrils closed with your finger, when you can't stand the smell any longer----plug the other nostril closed. If you can't breath you forgot to take your finger out of your first nostril .. No thanks needed.

Another John
JaD

The F-fly!! Also one of my favorite emerger patterns. The upside down CDC fly I describe above is sort of an upside down F-fly. Small world.

Henryville Special thats my pick, it seams to work every place on almost anything. If the caddis are working the water Im working the Henryville. I'm also temped to pick a beetle, with the low water and lack of rain it's been a exceptional year for hard backs.(I wonder if beetles count ?) Then again the CDC Biot emerger--http://keeptying.8m.com/ocb.html
Then again Sylvester Nemes soft hackle midge is a killer as well.

Can't decide.

JAD

I expecially like the emerger. Hope all is well up your way John. School will get me very busy soon. Perhaps I'll get up for Isos.