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Fly Tying
Mike West

What Popular patterns don’t work for you?

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Bucktail streamers as a whole have not worked for me (including Thunder Creek patterns). With one "sort of" exception: Clouser patterns for smallmouth and other warmwater fish.

 

I'm really surprised to see how many have no luck with woolly buggers. Obviously it has to do with the preference of the local fish. Locally we have hellgrammites, madtoms (2" black bullhead species hug rocks), tadpoles/polliwogs and leeches that I've always figured the Woolly Bugger suggested. You can't fish them too deep or too slow . . . as long as you move them a bit or just let them drift downstream in the current. I use them from size 2 to 12 - and I think the 12 suggests the dragonfly larva we have everywhere hereabouts.

 

San Juan worms work well anyhere chironomid larva are hiding in the slow pools with leaf litter on the bottom, or in lakes. I tie mine with a bead and keep them around 1-1/4" long. They are also killer in high-water when the banks are eroding and a unweighted one drifted high-stick can save a day. Trout don't take them like a bass takes a rubber worm and I think the ends get sampled and released without twitching the indicator or line. Killer with a Tenkara pole or short-line Czech style.

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Hey All -

 

I re-read many of the replies and the "fly" itself might not always be the issue. "Where:" we put the fly in the water column, in the pool, close to the bank, etc. all matters. Learn where the fish lie and cast to those spots. Sorry if I'm preaching to the choir but fish need to eat and in my book, they'll take a bug that looks like a bug (or a steamer too).

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Here in the Smoky Mountains, you can clean out a creek of stockers/delayed harvest fish with a Woolly Bugger in short order, they're absolutely deadly. But, the wild fish won't hardly hit one at all, except occasionally when the water is colored after a hard rain.

 

As for the Prince, it's a pattern I would never, ever be without. If I had to pick five flies to fish with the rest of my life, the Prince would definitely be one of them. The fish here love them, especially the yellow-winged version.

 

The little tiny midges, emergers, little fluffy #18-#20 CDC specks and such that everybody seems to love nowadays, I can't catch a thing on. There is very little in my fly boxes that is smaller than a #16. And I seldom fish the #16s, except in the late summer when the creeks are low and gin-clear.

 

One pattern that everybody seems to love that I've never caught a fish on is the Slumpbuster. I've about wore the squirrel fur off a couple of them, and never even had a fish look at them.

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If anyone knows Don Gapen tell him that I wish to reclaim every hour of my life that I wasted tying and fishing muddler minnows!

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Even though I carry a few with me, Wooly Buggers don't work for me. Don't even need my toes or fingers from hand to count the number of fish I caught with a WB.

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Olive drab woolly buggers never worked on the creeks I fished growing up, but I had a bunch I had tied up in class at school, so I cut the tail off one, and instantly started catching fish with it.

I've never caught one single fish on all olive woolly buggers and I've tried them several times in various places. But I have on ones tied with brown chenille , black hackle and olive tail in this one pond ( I used to put a single folded in two strand of crystal flash down each side). They love those things in there fished on sinking line between Feb and about now ( mid April or so), then they turn over to chironamids and other small nymphs..

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If anyone knows Don Gapen tell him that I wish to reclaim every hour of my life that I wasted tying and fishing muddler minnows!

You haven't been to the smaller streams of Norther Maine then, fishing for brookies. Never go there without a few small Muddlers or without caddis.. Around here ( my home is not in Northern Maine), not so much but I did get three lb or so bass on one a few times unexpectedly.

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This is another discussion that will never go anywhere. Flies, as with other types of fishing lures, become popular because they catch fish (for someone, somewhere). I've caught fish on EHC in places that have never seen a caddis fly. I have also had fish refuse my EHC in the middle of a caddis hatch but they would eat a Blue Dun. I can't say EHC doesn't work or a Blue Dun should always be used during caddis hatches.

 

I had a bass lure as a kid that boasted, "Realistic, life-like action!". It had a 2" long white rubber skirt, a treble hook that was inside a 1" white and black hollow rubber ball that looked like a cluster of eyeballs, and at the top was a thing that looked like a small white octopus with 2" legs that went out in all directions. I just remember thinking, "If something like this really exists, I don't think I want to know what it's lifelike action looks like." It caught a few fish but I'm sure they were in self defense instead of thinking that thing was food.

 

I guess what bothers me about these types of questions is that we are asking for absolutes when there are so many variables. Maybe my elk hair caddis were the wrong size at the wrong time. Maybe my drift was bad. Maybe I spooked the fish. Maybe it floated wrong, smelled bad, who knows. If you have confidence in a fly, you will stick with it and learn how to fish it properly in different situations. Mark Martin (walleye guy, not race driver) said the worst thing a guy can do is accidentally catch a fish while doing something wrong. It gives him confidence that he should do it that way all the time and can really limit the chances of success.

 

Some people swear by muddlers and some people have never caught a fish on one. Same with a wooly bugger. I have never caught a bass on a plastic worm but have caught bass on a white eyeball squid demon. So what does that prove?

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I guess what bothers me about these types of questions is that we are asking for absolutes ...

Not really ... not according to the original question.
This thread has warped and twisted out of and into the original intent.
"What popular patterns don't work for you?"
Simple question:
Are there any patterns that are well known or popular (because they catch fish, obviously), that you've NEVER caught a fish on?

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