Rubber Legs that Float

[Mark Knapp 0]

On 5/4/2020 at 3:43 PM, Chrisvst said:

Question- when  using rubber legs on foam patterns like Chubbys or Chernobyls etc, I notice the rubber legs sink well below the surface. The fly is held up by the foam or hackles but the legs all sink down. With real stone flies or hoppers etc, the legs are always at or above the water surface. A friend pointed this out and I verified it in a water glass with a number of high float patterns. Does anyone think this matters? Any types of rubber legs that actually float better? Appreciate your thoughts...

You may need to consider other material choices for your legs if you want them to float like, deer hair (Moose, elk and caribou are also deer hairs that float).

[samsonboi 0]

What if you take a pin and (lightly) prick the leg a few times? That adds texture and you can rub in some paste floatant into it and it will stay longer. I don't often use foam patterns or rubber legs on surface flies, but that is what I do on the rare occasions I do fish a rubber-legged dry fly. I tried dressing just the leg, but it came off the smooth rubber in no time, so one day, I took another fly and used the hook point to prick the rubber legs on the first one, and add some texture so the paste floatant would stick better. Lo and behold, it worked. It was a bit labor intensive but it might be easier with a regular pin, or maybe scratching rather than pricking or even just using coarse sandpaper to scour all of the leg material in one go.

 

If you try this, maybe take 2 pieces of sandpaper and sandwich a bundle of rubber legs between them, rough side in, and roll them around in between. Just a suggestion.

 

Knotted pheasant tail fibers or other feather fibers, dressed with floatant, is usually what I use in place of rubber legs on hoppers.

[samsonboi 0]

And I tie deer hair hoppers, not foam. It's easier to handle and looks better, IMO.

[SilverCreek 0]

On 5/4/2020 at 6:43 PM, Chrisvst said:

Question- when  using rubber legs on foam patterns like Chubbys or Chernobyls etc, I notice the rubber legs sink well below the surface. The fly is held up by the foam or hackles but the legs all sink down. With real stone flies or hoppers etc, the legs are always at or above the water surface. A friend pointed this out and I verified it in a water glass with a number of high float patterns. Does anyone think this matters? Any types of rubber legs that actually float better? Appreciate your thoughts...

 

I disagree about what kind of terrestrials will wise fool trout the most often.

Terrestrial insects have not evolved to live on the water. They land on the water by accident. Therefore, all real terrestrials will eventually sink. This includes crickets, hoppers, ants, etc.

Trout will take drowned terrestrials and a partially sunken terrestrial with legs in the water is an indication of a helpless insect. The hopper below is what trout want to see.

 

 

Have  you ever considered that in heavily fished waters where fly fishers use foam hoppers every day, that trout would become wise to the fact that a high floating hopper is a fake hopper. I have had fish refuse a foam hopper and take a low floating hopper like the Henry's Fork Hopper which was designed by Mike Lawson of The Henry's Fork Anglers to fool the trout in the Henry's Fork at the Harriman Ranch State Park.

https://www.henrysforkanglers.com/store/product/detail/lawsons-henrys-fork-hopper

Mike Lawson says:

"The pattern you use is very important when fishing hoppers and crickets on spring creeks. Large, high-floating flies designed for visibility usually won't work very well. Natural grasshoppers float in the surface film, not on it, sort of like an iceberg. These days every good fly tier has his own hopper pattern so there are lots of good ones available. My favorite is still the one I developed almost 25 years ago, before there were so many other great patterns to choose from. Its called the Henry's Fork Hopper and incorporates the use of elk hair to form the bullet shaped head and segmented body. It floats low in the surface film exactly like a natural. I tie it in several color variations as well as a black cricket pattern. Another consideration with regard to fly pattern is the size of the fly. I believe small hoppers will be much more productive on spring creek waters than large ones."

I have found his advice to be right on for spring creeks. I learned this lesson on Poindexter's Spring Creek near Dillon, MT. The fish refused several hopper patterns but took the first Henry's Fork Hopper that I presented.

Another fact about hoppers is that they drown just like ants. A sunken hopper can take fish that will refuse a floating hopper. Just like sunken ants, and sunken damsel flies take fish, sunken hopper can work on fish that will refuse a floating hopper.

Here's food for thought:

"Terrestrial insects are not designed to float," said George Kesel, who owned Missoula's Four Rivers Fly Shop until it closed this spring. "When they hit the water, unless the surface film catches them, they go straight through. Whereas caddis and stoneflies and mayflies, they've all evolved to float......

And Kesel has another unique - at least to me - suggestion. He likes to fish grasshoppers, as well as ants and beetles, beneath the surface, like a nymph….

Cox has tried the same tactic.

"I've done that in the swirlies quite a bit, in the foam eddies, and it's pretty effective," Cox said. "When I move into food collection areas, it can be very good."

There are hopper patterns that are tied specifically to be fished beneath the surface, like the conehead drowned hopper. Kesel ties his own, but has suggestions for those who don't.

"Buy a grasshopper without a post, without any strike indicators to it," he said. "Make sure it's a low floater, coat it with something to make it sink and then fish it just like you would a nymph."

http://www.ravallirepublic.com/lifestyles/recreation/article_65f0d374-ca14-11e0-9650-001cc4c03286.html

"For selective trout, a parachute hopper pattern with a bright post can be just the ticket in riffles. The body stays in the surface film, but the top remains visible to the angler.

Vince Marinaro, author of the pathbreaking A Modern Dry-Fly Code, and other noted Pennsylvania anglers like Charlie Fox, Ed Koch, and Ed Shenk explored and promoted the advantages of terrestrials during the summer months…….  Crickets, similar to hoppers, will float for a while after hitting the water. And whether it's field or ground crickets, there is but the black variety to focus on with your imitations. The wonderful Letort Cricket combines an elk- or deer-hair wing and a fur body; the fly hangs in the surface film with the wing above the waterline and the body below it, which is how a cricket floats.

It is easy to overlook subsurface techniques for both hoppers and crickets. Once, years ago, fishing along a clear Vermont stream that often had good hopper fishing, I was achieving nothing besides sending prospective trout fleeing to the bottom.

"In truth, trout probably eat more sunken crickets and grasshoppers than they do floating ones..... Over the years I have had similar experiences on other rivers and have many times converted the fishless floating grasshopper and cricket patterns to deadly sinking patterns by letting them get soggy."

Over the years I have had similar experiences on other rivers and have many times converted the fishless floating grasshopper and cricket patterns to deadly sinking patterns by letting them get soggy". 

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/fishing/trout-fishing/where-fish-trout/2012/07/use-grasshopper-and-cricket-patterns-catch-y?page=0%2C2

Gary Lafontaine wrote about sunken hoppers in The Dry Fly New Angles pg 289.

"That night I devised a submerged hopper pattern. We took fish all morning next day."

Here's the problem with foam hopper and foam ant patterns. Most of them are really very similar. The kinda look the same to the fish in the way they float. Fish on western rivers see dozens of these similar patterns every day. What they don't see are sunken or partially sunken patterns and they are less shy about taking sunken patterns. That is why I fish a sunken ant behind a floating ant or even a partially sunken hopper.

 

[niveker 0]

14 minutes ago, SilverCreek said:

 

I disagree about what kind of terrestrials will wise trout the most often.

Terrestrial insects have not evolved to live on the water. They land on the water by accident. Therefore, all real terrestrials will eventually sink. This includes crickets, hoppers, ants, etc.

Trout will take drowned terrestrials and a partially sunken terrestrial with legs in the water is an indication of a helpless insect. The hopper below is what trout want to see.

 

Not to hi-jack OP's thread, but I tend to agree with this theory, and maybe go even further.  For a while now I have been cutting the dry hackle short (Oh, the horror!) or even leaving it off, for some of my hair wing dries, especially the larger ones, to make them sit lower on the water - think of the haystack style fly.  .  As often as not, it makes a difference, but not always.  On the subject of hoppers, I have been lately messing around with tying Gartside's Pheasant Hopper, which basically uses deer hair legs and tail as 'out-riggers' to allow the fly to sit in the surface.  He also recommends adding split shot to make it sink. 

[chugbug27 0]

Most of the hopper fly buzz centers around two types of flies

1-an attractor hopper that slaps on the water at the bank and can spark a top water rushing gulp

2-a floating fortress that substitutes for any type of indicator fly, the "hopper dropper"

A fly like the Chernobyl does both, but to me it is not really imitating anything for more than a split second.

My own personal favorite is a wet fly from Allen McGee's Soft Hackle book -- it floats for a few seconds at the bank and then sinks down in the current, at which point it takes a good share of bites. It doesn't fulfill the two most commonly discussed purposes of a standard hopper pattern, but if you want to catch a trout imitating a hopper's appearance and behavior (dropping on and ultimately sinking in at the bank) it merits attention imo.

https://books.google.com/books?id=KIQRDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=allen+mcgee+wet+hopper&source=bl&ots=Pzs8xz-WoT&sig=ACfU3U1hWh5YY5S9Xv1mzsdR_hLIQxkkyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjhh7vZsaXjAhXntlkKHf5CBpYQ6AEwDXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=allen mcgee wet hopper&f=false

[SilverCreek 0]

3 hours ago, chugbug27 said:

Most of the hopper fly buzz centers around two types of flies

1-an attractor hopper that slaps on the water at the bank and can spark a top water rushing gulp

2-a floating fortress that substitutes for any type of indicator fly, the "hopper dropper"

A fly like the Chernobyl does both, but to me it is not really imitating anything for more than a split second.

My own personal favorite is a wet fly from Allen McGee's Soft Hackle book -- it floats for a few seconds at the bank and then sinks down in the current, at which point it takes a good share of bites. It doesn't fulfill the two most commonly discussed purposes of a standard hopper pattern, but if you want to catch a trout imitating a hopper's appearance and behavior (dropping on and ultimately sinking in at the bank) it merits attention imo.

https://books.google.com/books?id=KIQRDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=allen+mcgee+wet+hopper&source=bl&ots=Pzs8xz-WoT&sig=ACfU3U1hWh5YY5S9Xv1mzsdR_hLIQxkkyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjhh7vZsaXjAhXntlkKHf5CBpYQ6AEwDXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=allen mcgee wet hopper&f=false

If you go one page up from the page in the book you posted you will find sunken ants based on Harrison Steeves Tranpar Ant and Attract Ant patterns from hsi book on terrestrials. You find the pattern here:

http://www.oocities.org/gold_trout/articles/TransparANT.htm 

As you can see by my ant and beetle box, I believe in this pattern. Some of the beetles in the box below are sunken beatle patterns,

Sunken ant:

 

Sunken beetle on left, Floating on right

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chugbug27 0]

Sunken ants, too. Yes absolutely. (And beetles)

[Mark Knapp 0]

5 hours ago, SilverCreek said:

 

I disagree about what kind of terrestrials will wise fool trout the most often.

Terrestrial insects have not evolved to live on the water. They land on the water by accident. Therefore, all real terrestrials will eventually sink. This includes crickets, hoppers, ants, etc.

Trout will take drowned terrestrials and a partially sunken terrestrial with legs in the water is an indication of a helpless insect. The hopper below is what trout want to see.

 

 

All good stuff SC, thanks

[JSzymczyk 0]

well I've more or less been away from this forum for a few years.... one thing that will apparently never change is the ability for fly tyers and fly fishermen to magnificently overcomplicate any possible thing.  Think about all the billion and more variables that are present when you make a cast---  the odds of this one variable----  whether synthetic/silicone/rubber legs are ON the surface film or UNDER the surface film being the deciding factor in any given cast- as to whether a fish takes the fly...     You beat yourself up over it and then along comes a kid with a zebco 33 spooled with 20lb fluorescent mono, and catches the trout that just kicked your ass on a #3 Mepps spinner....  

[JSzymczyk 0]

22 hours ago, SilverCreek said:

If you go one page up from the page in the book you posted you will find sunken ants based on Harrison Steeves Tranpar Ant and Attract Ant patterns from hsi book on terrestrials. You find the pattern here:

http://www.oocities.org/gold_trout/articles/TransparANT.htm 

As you can see by my ant and beetle box, I believe in this pattern. Some of the beetles in the box below are sunken beatle patterns,

Sunken ant:

 

Sunken beetle on left, Floating on right

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

are you sure they are beatles and not beetles?  Trouts are smart you know, they pay attention to shite like that.... 

 

 

[Philly 0]

These are not trout flies but they are made out of foam.  The legs are tied higher up on the body.   I dropped them in a baking dish filled with water.  Sorry about the glare

 

 

[chugbug27 0]

On 5/6/2020 at 3:14 PM, SilverCreek said:

 

 

By the way...

AWESOME pic

[Flat Rock native 0]

On 5/6/2020 at 7:06 PM, SilverCreek said:

If you go one page up from the page in the book you posted you will find sunken ants based on Harrison Steeves Tranpar Ant and Attract Ant patterns from hsi book on terrestrials. You find the pattern here:

http://www.oocities.org/gold_trout/articles/TransparANT.htm As you can see by my ant and beetle box, I believe in this pattern. Some of the beetles in the box below are sunken beatle

Sunken ant:

 

 

Sunken beetle on left, Floating on right

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silver, These are some of the best looking resin builds I have seen.  Thank you for posting... And I would like to buy some of your resins, if they will cure with my Beastlight....  please pm me if you have stocks to sell