NohackleHS

It's been my experience that there are at least three factors that determine how selective trout can be: the speed of the current, the clarity of the water and the abundance of the food supply. Fish in rapidly moving streams don't have time to examine their food source so they have to make split second decisions on whether to take an insect. Fish in high mountain streams which have a short growing season and sparse insect hatches are typically not very selective; they can't be since they have to take advantage of any available food source just to survive. At the other extreme are fish in spring creeks. Typically spring creeks are clear, slow moving and have prolific insect hatches. In the slowest sections of spring creeks the fish have a lot of time to examine their prey. Some very selective fish not only examine an insect while it's floating to them, they examine it as it floats above them. When they decide to eat the insect, the insect is slightly past them so the angle of their body when they take the fly is tilted slightly downstream. When you see fish feeding in this manner you know that they are being very selective.

The Zebra Midge is my "go to" midge at my local stream in Northern California. It is also very effective at Manzanita Lake in Lassen Park. At both places I tie it on a size 16 3769 Tiemco hook; this gives me the hooking power of a size 16 but the size of a 18. I prefer to use a beadhead version, either black or brass bead. At the other end of the size spectrum, I tie up Zebra Midges from size 12 to 6 for Pyramid Lake. For the size 12 I tie them on 3761 nymph hooks or 2457 scud hooks. For the larger flies I tie them on 2457 hooks. Pyramid cutts prefer midges with a bit of flash so I use holographic black flashabou for the body instead of regular flashabou.

A couple of years ago I noticed my wife's makeup brush in the bathroom. I realized that I could use the bristles in the brush as legs and tails on some of my bigger nymphs. The good thing is that you don't have to stack the bristles since they are pretty even on the makeup brush. I've found other useable makeup brushes at local drug stores but I must admit to being a little self-conscious shopping in the women's makeup section.

I began fly tying over 30 years ago. I was in a fly shop talking to a guy when he said to me "You mean you've been flyfishing 10 years and you don't tie your own flies!". This comment got me to thinking that maybe I should take it up. I took a fly tying course from a master fly tier (Andre Puyans) and I began taking it seriously from then on. My brother gave me a lot of fly tying materials to get me started and it was probably the best investment he's ever made. I've been tying all of the flies for both of us for the last 20 years.

One other (weird) color that I forgot to mention is green. Many years ago when I started tying Sawyer PT's I tied up some green PT's. They look rather unnatural but they worked very well. Not only did I find them effective on my home stream but I was quite successful with them on some really tough spring creeks like Hat Creek (Northern CA) and Silver Creek in Idaho. If fact, my two largest fish from Silver, two 22-inch browns, were caught on green PT's. Along with one of the browns I also caught a 20-inch rainbow on the same fly a few minutes later. So I don't think it was a fluke. In any case, I just thought I'd mention green pheasant tail since no one else has mentioned it and it has been very productive for me.

As Silvercreek suggests you can use 2 CDC feathers of similar size and shape. Most CDC feathers have a curve to them from bottom to top. If you want a narrow wing (as viewed from the front of the fly), tie the two feathers with the curves pointed toward each other; the two feathers will be pressed against each other when you tie them in. If you prefer to have the wings flair away from each other, tie them in so that the feathers curve away from each other. It's your preference on how you want the fly to look. I prefer a narrow wing so I use the first approach.

I don't tie pheasant tail soft hackles, but I do tie a lot of PT nymphs. Two of my favorite PT colors that have not been mentioned yet are orange and yellow. On my local trout stream orange PT's are my absolute favorite color. My local stream is heavily pounded so the orange may be effective because it is different from what other anglers are throwing. But for whatever reason, orange works really well. I mention yellow because yellow PT's are effective imitations for callibaetis. Yellow PT also work very well on my local stream.

I agree that the Duncan loop is quite a strong knot. The only problem I've had with the knot is that when you use a heavily weighted fly the loop can close even when just casting and this eliminates the advantage of a loop knot.

(Please refer to the attached photo) Hook: Tiemco 100 or 101, size 12 Body: Black synthetic dubbing Wing: Brown straight antron (zelon) Hackle: Black dry fly I created the fly over 30 years ago. I had just gotten back from a trip to Manzanita lake in Northern California. When I opened my trunk, there were about 30 black ants lining the border of my trunk lid. A few days later I took one of the ants and tried to create a fly to imitate it. The fly is quite large, has three distinct sections (a head and two body sections) and a long dark brown wing (the natural had a dark brown wing with black veins) that extends well beyond the end of the body. Notes: - The locals called these ants carpenter ants. They hatched at Manzanita for only about 3 weeks (early May to late May) but when the fish were dialed into them, they relished them. - The natural is so large that the rise form are not subtle. Rather they are splashy and if you are close by, you can actually hear a "smacking" sound. - The fly was a great success not only at Manzanita but at other lakes and streams that had large ants in the area. The large size of the fly seemed to attract the larger fish.

When I started tying over 30+ years ago, I was fortunate to take a class from Andre Puyans. Andy was a California Hall of Fame flyfisherman and an excellent fly tying instructor. He had us start tying on size 10 hooks and suggested that we use that size for all of our practice tying. I believe he wanted us to tie on a large fly so that we could learn to get our proportions correct.

I use a Rapala knot. When I began using loop knots I did some simple testing of the Rapala knot versus the non-slip loop knot. The Rapala knot tested better for the brand of tippet, the size of tippet and the fly size that I most frequently use. But this is not to say that for a different brand of tippet, different tippet size and different fly size, the results might be different. Also, to complicate matters, the number of turns that you use on each knot also affects the knot strength. So it's possible that I was not using the optimum number of turns on the non-slip loop knot.

Another approach to giving the wing case a bit of flash is to use several strands of krystal flash on top of the wing case. I have been using this technique for many years with great success. You can use peacock or pearl or any other color depending upon how much flash you want. When a nymph is in the process of hatching, it splits its wing case and I believe the strands of krystal flash give the impression of this process. I usually use cinnamon tip turkey as my wing case since I prefer a dark wing case; the kyrstal flash contrasts with the dark wing case.

If you are fishing lakes, stillwater experts such as Brian Chan, Phil Rowley and Denny Rickards advocate the use of loop knots to tie the fly to the tippet. If you Google "non slip loop knot" or "rapala knot", you will find several videos on how to tie them. The loop allows more freedom of movement of the fly instead of a rigid connection to the tippet.

My local trout stream is very heavily fished so I try to use something different. My favorite fly is a beadhead PT in orange. I think the orange is effective because very few people would even think of trying it and local shops don't sell flies in orange.

For my local stream (Putah Creek) I tie my San Juan worms on a size 14 TMC 2457 hook. I tie it in both red and rust vernille with both the front and back sections the length of the hook shank. The rust is a little more consistent than the red. Here are a few thoughts about the SJ worm on my local stream: - Because Putah has a lot of slow, flat water I usually prefer to use the SJ worm when the wind kicks up and puts a riffle on the water's surface. The wave action imparts movement to the worm and it seems to trigger more strikes. - The SJ worm is not a consistent producer, but there are times when it has been my "hot" fly. I remember one day when my usual mayfly and midge nymphs were just not producing. I switched to a SJ worm and hooked three 17 inch fish in four casts. - The SJ worm is what I call an "attractor" fly in that it seems to draw the attention of the fish. I use a two-fly rig with the SJ worm as the top fly. Even if the fish don't hit the worm, they will often take the second fly. The worm catches the fish's attention and then they see the second fly.

Well known anglers such as Joe Humphreys and Andy Burke suggest rubbing your fly on the stream bottom or the lake bottom in order to cover up any unnatural scent of your fly. I do this when I remember, but most often I forget to do it. In any case, it's a simple solution and it can't hurt.

You're right Mike. It would have been enjoyable (and probably embarrassing) to see me trying to land those two fish. But I DID land them both - just not at the same time.

A couple of years ago I was fishing Pyramid lake for large cutthroats with a two-fly rig. I was using a long tippet with the bottom fly around 2 1/2 ft. below the top fly. When my indicator went down, I thought I hooked a BIG fish. I fought the fish for quite a while and when I got them close enough I realized I had hooked two fish. When I netted the upper fish, the other fish was still loose. Then when I dipped the net to land the other fish, the first fish took off and busted the dropper tag, but I was able to net the second fish. The first fish was around 20 inches; the second measured 23 inches. It was the highlight of my season at Pyramid that year.

Many years ago I used to fish Hat creek (Northern California). Hat is probably the toughest dry fly stream I have ever fished since the stream is extremely wide, the water is slow moving (it's a meadow stream), and you had to fish from the bank. A good drift was extremely difficult to achieve since it was so crowded that most of your casts had to be directly across stream. Right at dark the fishing would usually get hot with lots of rising fish but it would only last 15 to 30 minutes. I used to fish a bright orange body paradun with a white kip tail wing. You needed to be able to see your fly since there were so many fish rising that if you couldn't see your fly, you'd strike virtually every cast and you'd put the fish down. The fly was small, size 16, since all of the flies on the water were small. So "night" flies don't necessarily have to be big to be effective.

When I tie spinners with poly yarn, I intentionally tie the wings in facing slightly forward. Then, after a few casts, the wings settle in more perpendicular to the hook shank. Two other ideas: - Hal Jansen, a California Hall of Fame angler, suggests tying in the wings so the tips point slightly downward (below parallel to the hook shank). He likes his spinner wings to slightly support the body of the fly and this makes a slightly different impression on the water's surface. - Nelson Ishiyama, the owner of Henry Fork Lodge, ties many of his spinners with one normal sized wing and one wing quite a bit smaller. He says that many spinners land on the water on their side and tying the spinner in this manner mimics this more closely.

Just one other idea. IF you can, try to move into shallow water. If the water is only a foot deep, the fish can only dive one foot. However, if you are standing in three feet of water, the fish can dive three feet. Getting a fish to surface through three feet of water is much harder on your tippet than trying to move it through one foot. Of course, this assumes that you can move to shallow water.

Many years ago when I got back from a trip to Manzanita lake I open the trunk of my car and found 20 or 30 dead black flying ants scattered around the trunk liner. Evidently these ants like to find crevices to crawl into and the trunk of my car looked inviting to them. The next day I took one of the ants and put in on my fly tying table. I then proceeded to tie up a fly to imitate it. I realize that this is a bit different from just sitting down and tying something up since I had a natural to pattern my fly after, but it was a truly enjoyable, creative process. It turned out that my Manzanita ant was very effective at the lake; the first trip I used it I nailed an 19 inch rainbow. Since then I also had great success with the fly at many other locations.

You could try a Daiichi 1740. It's an up eye, 2X long, 2X heavy hook. If you are careful, you might be able to bend the eye to be more perpendicular to the hook shank. Perhaps this will give you the type of fly movement you are looking for.

Like Whatfly I fish Pyramid lake in Nevada. For whatever reason, the Lahontan cutthroats seem to like bright, shiny flies. This is true of both chironomid patterns and mayfly patterns. Thus, many Pyramid flies use holographic tinsel and holographic flashabou as the body material. One other tinsel bodied fly that is very popular is Phil Rowley's Chromie. Its body is tied with silver tinsel. I'm guessing that the reason tinsel bodied chironomid flies are effective is that the shiny body mimics the gas bubbles that form when the insect is in the process of emerging.

Many years ago when I used to fish Fall River in Northern California the Zug Bug was a "go to" fly for that stream. The Fly Shop in Redding was probably the biggest supplier of Zug Bugs for that stream. When I bought some from them (I didn't tie at that time), their flies used olive marabou for the tail instead of peacock. The guy I talked to in the store swore that the marabou tail made the fly more productive. I can't say one way or another which fly was more effective since this was a long time ago. I'm just offering an alternative approach to tying the fly if someone wants to experiment with it.