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Author: Ed
Tue the 23rd monthly meeting
We do not have a guest speaker lined up for this Tuesday meeting, so, bring your fish stories.
The Dirty Dozen
The dirty dozen
12 proven nymphs to catch trout anywhere
by George Daniel – Tuesday, Mar 15th, 2016
Photo: Chad Shmukler
“Keep it simple” is a mantra often recited by many a fly fisher but rarely actually practiced. Let’s face it, most anglers love collecting stuff and lots of it. In particular, fly patterns have long been a desired object to tie and or/collect. As I continue to travel more and meet new fly fishers- fly patterns are often the focus point of our discussions.
You can never have enough flies is what many say, but is there such a thing as too many flies? As a recovering fly hoarder, I can say without certainty that yes, you can have too many flies.
These days, I’m trying practice minimalism with all aspects of my life, including my fly fishing gear. This means trying to reduce all excess and keep only the items that are essential for living and for fishing.
For years, I would carry several thousands flies with me at any given time. I would have at least 20 of each of my favorite patterns, covering almost every conceivable situation an angler might encounter. I would even carry match the hatch style nymphs for insects that were no longer relevant at the time of year I was fishing. I was scared that that I might encounter some freak occurrence where I needed a specific pattern.
But guess what? I can recall maybe four times during the last 15 years I needed that oddball pattern (e.g. green drake nymph two months after the hatch). So these days I carry a dirty dozen of nymph patterns that leave me comfortable fishing anywhere/anytime.
What you’ll notice with this dirty dozen is that these are all generic nymphs — patterns that can imitate a wide range of insects. Instead of trying to perfectly match each hatch, I use patterns that can imitate several insect species. This streamlining has dramatically reduced the number of patterns I carry with me. And has allowed for a more organized set of boxes. Now I know exactly what flies I’m carrying along with the quantities.
I try to carry approximately 6 of each nymph as it is not uncommon to loose 6 nymphs during a day’s outing. Lately, I’ve purchased fly boxes with at least a dozen rows. Then I fill each of the 12 rows with each of the dirty dozen nymphs in quantities ranging from 6-12 each. So if you decide to carry a minimum of 6 for each of the dirty dozen, then you’ll carry around 72 flies. And 72 flies is a practical and manageable number of nymph patterns to work with. So without any further delay, here’s my dirty dozen nymphs I carry at all times.
Cannon’s Worm (Red)
No fly box would be complete without a worm pattern. Worms will work anytime but tend to work better when the water is a touch off color. Andy don’t worry about the purist that calls you a “worm fisher.” They’re just made that your rod is constantly bent over with a fish on.
Umpqua’s Cannon’s Red Worm
Frenchie
The Frenchie is essentially a beadhead pheasant tail pattern with a dubbing hot spot. Some anglers will argue that the hot spot represents an egg while others claim it’s simply a color trigger. Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure: this pattern is likely to turn the feeding mechanism of any lethargic fish.
Umpqua’s Frenchie
Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear
A classic nymph that will continue to be around for a long time and for good reason. The Hare’s Ear is a generic mayfly nymph. Something about the gold ribbing in combination with the rabbit fur makes this one of the most essential patterns to have.
Umpqua’s Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear
Guide’s Choice Hare’s Ear
For when insects are hatching and trout are focusing on the emerging insects, why not alter one of the best nymphs (Hare’s Ear) into an emerger pattern? That’s exactly what the Guide’s Choice Hare’s Ear pattern is: a generic emerging insect pattern. Also, make sure to fish this fly on the swing!
Umpqua’s Guide’s Choice Hare’s Ear
Iron Lotus
The Iron Lotus is another generic nymph constructed of a thread body nymph coasted with nail polish. This creates a hard body that sinks like a rock. When you need a good-looking nymphing pattern that can sink quickly in a pocket, the Iron Lotus is the first fly I reach for.
Umpqua’s Iron Lotus
McKee’s Rubber Legs Yellow and Brown
Stonefly nymphs are large, meaty meals trout will chase down. Anytime you find yourself in a large freestone river, pick up a few rocks. If you notice stoneflies crawling on the rocks, I would highly suggest tying on this large rubber leg nymph.
Umpqua’s Mckee’s Rubber Legs
Prince Nymph
If you look take the time to look at the aquatic insects within the waters you fish, you’ll notice that most have contrasting color schemes. For example, many will have a light colored bottom with a dark top. While the white biots along the prince nymph may not represent any specific aquatic insect, this highly contrasting nymph has proven to be one of the most productive patterns of all time.
Umpqua’s Prince Nymph
Rainbow Warrior
This is what many would call an attractor pattern —a flashy pattern designed to get a trout’s attention. When natural looking nymphs don’t seem to work, it’s time to use a pattern similar to the Rainbow Warrior. The Warrior was developed by a friend of mine, Lance Egan, who has used this pattern to catch fish across the globe during his travels with Fly Fishing Team USA. If someone with the skills of Lance Egan keeps this attractor fly in his box, I would suggest you do as well.
Umpqua’s Rainbow Warrior
Ray Charles Gray
Cressbugs are often found in tailwaters and trout will gorge themselves with these tiny morsels. Cressbugs looks like a pill bug, but in an aquatic form. The Ray Charles was originally designed for western tailwaters but I’ve found it to work anywhere cressbugs are present.
Umpqua’s Ray Charles Scud
RS-2 Emerger
When selective trout are keying on tiny mayfly emergers, you need the RS-2. This simple and suggestive mayfly emerger can imitate anything from blue wing olives to pale morning duns.
Umpqua’s RS-2 Emerger
Super Pupa Olive
Caddis are found in virtually all trout streams. The Super Pupa can be fished as both a larva and pupa stage. If you find yourself along unfamiliar waters and don’t know what to fish, a caddis is often my first choice. This lifelike yet suggestive caddis pattern has been my number one caddis nymph over the last several seasons.
Umpqua’s Super Pupa (Olive)
Mayer’s Tube Midge
While I don’t believe you need to necessarily “match the hatch” an angler does need to find a pattern that has a size and shape close to the naturals the fish are feeding on, especially when trout are feeding on midge larva. While I’ve only been fishing this pattern for a few months, the Mayer Midge has been nothing but a stellar addition to my fishing.
Umpqua’s Mayer’s Tube Midge
The Foam Line
A trout sips not one but two mayflies off the foam lined surface (photo: Jason Jagger).
Anybody who powered through a high-school psychology class probably remembers Maslow’s famous triangle chart—the famous Hierarchy of Needs.
At the base of the triangle lie our foundational needs—things like food, shelter, sleep, sex. Higher up, and slightly less important, are still-important needs, like safety, financial security, emotional well-being, etc. Still higher up, and still less important than the foundational needs, are things like love and acceptance, self esteem and, finally, self-actualization.
While this may not seem to have much to do with trout fishing, it really does. For the trout. Not so much for us anglers. Don’t get too excited. It’s doubtful that trout crave self-actualization.
The trout’s Hierarchy of Needs might start and end with the basest of requirements: food, safety and security, shelter and sex.
Anybody who’s spent more than a few days chasing trout knows they like structure—places to hide, both for the purpose of avoiding predators, and for the purpose of ambushing prey and finding food.
Undercut banks. Big rocks. Big wood. Overhanging branches. All help a trout meet its basic needs.
But often, anglers overlook a great place to find trout the needs at the base of the triangle: the foam line.
Consider the foam line the equivalent of the pizza delivery driver. It brings food directly to the shelter. A line of floating foam may not seem substantive, but consider that many predators that go after trout come at them from above—eagles, ospreys, etc. Foam lines break up the water’s surface just enough to make trout feeding on or near the water’s service more difficult to see, even for sharp-eyed raptors. That gives trout more security.
And foam lines generally occur below other features in a river or a stream, like a rapid or a waterfall. This means the water is likely well oxygenated and prime for holding fish that are on the prowl.
While it may not seem like real substantial structure, foam lines give trout a reasonable amount of security—enough confidence to venture out from under the bank or the root wad to go after food that’s drifting downstream. It may only be the illusion of safety, but it works for the fish, and it’s water we should never just wander by without at least making a cast and a drift, particularly if the water beneath the foam has any reasonable depth to it.
Here in Idaho, I fish rivers like the Henry’s Fork and the South Fork, both well-oxygenated tailwaters that have lots of foamy runs. One of my favorite South Fork side channels that I like to walk and wade in the fall has a deep eddy that features a giant foam mat. Trout will nose up through an inch of foam to get after Blue-winged Olives that get caught in the muck. Needless to say, the fishing can be stellar.
But foam lines aren’t just great for dry-fly fishing. Dropping a nymph under high-floating dry fly can be absolutely deadly, as can high-sticking a double-nymph rig through foamy water. Even streamers pulled under foam lines can work.
On smaller water, like my backcountry cutthroat creeks here along the Idaho-Wyoming border, foam lines offer great opportunities, starting in the late spring when native cutthroats are running upstream to spawn out of rivers like the Snake, the Greys and the Salt. Higher, slightly stained water from runoff helps trout feel more secure, but they’ll still gravitate to foam lines in search of food delivery.
Rocks are still great places to chase trout. Undercut banks will almost always hold fish. Wood? Wood is good.
But foam? Foam is home.
Oktoberfisch 2019
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