Don't use anything bigger than a size #20

[vicrider 0]

I've heard this many times that the only thing you're going to catch fish on is a #20 or smaller. I've never been a purist tho I abide strictly by fly only or barbless rules on any stream. I have fished tailwaters tho where I've been told only the smallest midges will catch a fish and yes, they will catch fish and I've caught them. However, I've also thrown a small spinner like a Rooster Tail or something similar and had fish slam it with great regularity. In the same vein, I've seen large streamers, even Zonkers, catch fish in those water where only tiny flies will catch a fish. I guess what I'm getting at is fish may key on tiny insect life and big insects don't do the job, but big baits (in comparison) that represent minnows or fry seem to be attractive unless there is a really a hatch that has them locked in on a pattern.

 

So, what have others found in these waters where only midges can catch a fish? Terrestrials, streamers and spinners also work?

[flysmallie 0]

The tailwaters at the head of Taneycomo are known for scuds and midges. And they do catch fish. But I also catch a lot of fish on streamers. I think it's just a choice, they can't tell a fish what they like to eat.

[Piker20 0]

I think sometimes these venues make it easier for you by letting you show the fish something different. Everyone turns up fishing smaller and smaller and the fish are off guard when a big meaty bugger comes past.

[Markbob 0]

When I get the chance to fish a water like this, I typically throw a brace of nymphs with something like a cranefly larve, a GRHE or PTN followed by the midge. I have had success on all three of the flies even when I was told not to expect anything on anything but the midge.

[Rocco 0]

I rarely fish pocket lint patterns anymore as my eyesight and carpal tunnel conspire to frustrate my efforts at tying them and attaching them to a leader.

 

Rocco

[Troutbum11 0]

I have been told the same thing and I have found that these big streamers work well in situations like these. The guy fishing the midges will probably out fish the streamer fishermen when your talking numbers, but many times the streamer fisherman will get the more quality fish. This is obviously not always true but definitely don't count streamers out on these waters.

[Markbob 0]

I wonder how fishing something like a midge emerger as a dropper off of a streamer would work in this situation...

[mikechell 0]

This was explained to me by some people in Massachusetts.

They kept telling me to go fish a particular stretch of water, then qualified it by saying I'd need to take some #22 or smaller midges, which I don't have.

I asked them why. During the conversation, certain statements stuck in my head ...

1) "It's a fly fishing only, catch and release area, and has been for years. It gets a LOT of pressure."

2) "When you are wading, you'll have minnows to 12 inch fish at your feet. They have seen everything fly anglers can tie. They swim around your feet eating tiny things you kick up as you wade. They won't hit anything larger."

3) "Even the fish that are in the deeper pockets won't hit larger prey. They are the same fish that were picking tiny things out of the wading clouds last year or the year before."

 

All of these made sense ... but even the pickiest fish are still opportunistic feeders. If you put something in front of it when it's ready to eat, you'll get a hit. Whether it takes it deep enough, or holds it long enough for a hook set ... well, that's part of fishing.

[kentuckytroutbum 0]

I agree with Mike that fish are opportunistic predators, when something comes by when they're hungry they will eat. As a wildlife biologist explained to me:

 

1. Its caloric intake vs. energy expended to get food.

2. What is available to eat today?

3. What is on the menu today: snacks or a meal? Size does matter.

 

Bill

[boynabubble 0]

I agree with Piker20. If the fish are pressured and everyone is throwing smaller and smaller flies, sometimes it pays to throw something bigger that they don't see as often. I think trout have a certain amount of curiosity (or maybe they're just opportunistic?) and you might get a few trout to take a larger fly.

 

On a local tailwater where small is the rule, I fished over a nice brown for over an hour trying my smallest patterns without so much as a sideways glance. More out of frustration and irony than strategy, I tied on a #14 stimulator and wouldn't you know it, that's what he hit. Unfortunately I missed him entirely because I don't think I was really expecting something so 'out of the box' to work.

[Bryon Anderson 0]

If I thought I had to use a #20 or smaller to catch fish, I'd go fish somewhere else. I do understand that, in certain waters where hatches are prolific and varied and the fish receive a lot of angler pressure, some fish may hone in on a particular life cycle phase of a particular insect during an emergence or spinner fall or whatever, but I'm always confused when people tell me what "they" will eat and what "they" won't, with the assumption being that every trout in the river will always do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

 

I don't think trout behave that way any more than people do. Anyone who's fished dry flies for trout for any length of time has had the experience of trying every fly in the box that should have worked and finally getting the big one on a #12 yellow humpy, or something similar.There are general tendencies in behavior, sure, but nothing in nature is that cut-and-dried. In any river's population of trout, there are fish who haven't "gotten the memo" about what they're supposed to eat on a particular day, and that will strike opportunistically at a variety of flies provided the presentation is convincing. Not every fish, perhaps, but some fish, or maybe just a fish. My job, if I don't want to fish "the only fly they'll hit", is to find those fish.

[Stevester 0]

I agree with Bryon for the most part. Another variable no one has brought up is presentation. For most of us mere mortals, getting a consistent drift to a spotted fish with multiple fly changes is more luck than skill. Yes, I am sure that all of the "advanced members" can put a size 26 on a dime sized target from 50' across six current seams twenty times in a row. For the rest of us, trying a different fish is usually a better bet if it has refused more than a couple of times.

 

Steve

[JSzymczyk 0]

I've seen it in several places.... the Yellow Breeches close to home is one where the local (and not so local) self-styled aristocracy come to angle. This time of year there are often tiny black stoneflies, as well as midges on the water, and the bourgeoisie will often look down their noses, sniff, and proclaim the need for microscopic bullsh*t and blah blah blah. That's the time to fling out a big #4 woolly bugger or crayfish, or a big streamer. Pisses them off no end, especially when it produces a big brown and all they have been catching are minnows, if that.

 

Another thing I have seen on the YB, and laughed at heartily, is when someone is fishing a very small nymph under an indicator.... and trout whack the indicator- repeatedly. As often as not, instead of putting on an egg fly or an attractor of some sort, the guy will get snooty and leave. I love it.

[Philly 0]

I live in SE PA where mayfly hatches aren't that abundant, but we do have caddis and midges. So I do fish a lot of small flies using size 20 and 22 hooks. One trick I picked up as my vision has gotten worse is to use 1or 2X short shrimp/caddis pupae hooks for my midge patterns. If I'm tying on a size 20, I'm dealing with a shank that's the same length as a size 22 or 24 standard dry fly hook. Since I prefer fishing a dry fly, I'll usually start off with a caddis or midge pattern and I've found this works pretty well in PA, NY, VT and Southern Ontario. I do like to fish size 18/20 BHPTSH or Green Weenie on a dropper behind a larger nymph or wooly bugger or under a caddis pattern or a midge dry behind it. Somewhere I have a strike indicator fly tied after watching trout ignore the "real" fly and try and suck down my brightly colored strike indicator.