Yellow Water Lily Umbrellas

A Yellow Water Lily on a late Summer afternoon on an Oregon lake. Big trout cruised beneath, toward the reeds, looking for those emerging damsels and dragons.

Fly Fishing: Entomology & The Cat

I left the house at 7pm intending to run an errand. I noticed a big, beautiful mayfly dun on my other car. I snapped a few pics and departed, figuring it would be gone when I returned. And, so it was, kind of. I returned to find the shuck in place of the dun. Now, I didn’t get a good enough look at the time to see what was totally going on when I originally left. So now, I gently secured the shuck with the intent of photographing it. I went to the front door and opened it and out jets Penelope the House Cat. Shoot it was 0845pm and almost dark. I chased after the cat and eventually removed her from beneath my rig. Hmmm….the shuck was destroyed in the pursuit of the cat! So much for my entomological studies…at least for tonight. What is very fascinating, for me, is that there is only the smallest little spring behind my house. So, was I watching a Dun prior to the emergence of a Spinner or…….

Fly Fishing: The Pale Morning Dun (Summer’s Hatch)

For the beginning fly tier and fisher, the Pale Morning Dun is a ‘predictable’ hatch on Western rivers from June into September. It is a late morning to early evening window of opportunity  for a hatch that has a pronounced pre-hatch nymph ‘drift’ before the emergence on the surface. It is enjoyable to figure out and to fish to. It is one of several Summer hatches that are satisfying to discover and react to.

PMD Adult Wing (McKenzie River Page)

The ‘crawler’ nymphs will move from the rocks and bottom debris where they have hidden. As they move up out of the protection, toward the surface, they are now at the mercy of the currents and trout. This drift, in moderate to slower waters, can take place over an extended period of time as the nymphs drift, wiggle upward, split their wingcases atop the thorax area, wiggle further toward the surface, shed that nymphal case at the surface (emerge) and poke through the surface film (meniscus) to ‘hatch’. The adults will drift a bit further as those now upright wings (opaque) dry a bit and then they lift off into the air, fluttering and drifting with the breezes of the day, toward shore. (Is that a mega paragraph or what?)

The Clear PMD Spinner Wing

This whole process provides stages of presentation that are satisfying  & predictable: nymphs drifting along the bottom in the moderate to slower waters (careful wading, longer distance-stealth presentations?); then emerger/wet fly/flymphs/floating nymphs in the top foot or so of water to the surface; dry fly action and later spinner fall action as the females bob about in quieter side waters to lay eggs and then fall with their clear, spent wings stretched out to the sides like a partially submerged little airplane in film…drifting down in the slower currents.

So many opportunities here for presentations from bottom to top. Once you find a hatch of PMD’s on your favorite stream note its location.  Your patterns will tend toward the tan to dark tan (mottled earth tones) in sizes 16-18 over the course of the summer. You can research Google Images for PMD nymphs, emerger, dry and see a large variety of pattern options. 

 

Fly Fishing: Hi-Jinx’ed (Midges Flush)

Hi-Jinx Midge Emerger (SwittersB)

Stillwater, conventional, fly fishing wisdom is to present your chironomid/midge pattern in a vertical posture from the muck to the surface. I agree with this. There are always exceptions. I can recall  moving from one part of a lake to another and trolling along a midge pupa, that had to be bobbing between vertical to horizontal as I rowed, and getting nailed. But, a stationary, vertical presentation toward the surface is predominantly called for.

That said, I have had excellent results with a horizontal presentation for midge emergers in the film. Retrieved back, twitched or wind drifting, a pattern tied and presented in a horizontal path does provide positive results on top.

Now I am talking stillwaters, re that maneuver. On the slower tailouts of rivers, a drag free, dry fly presentation is appropriate. A light wire hook is better on a river to maintain a mostly horizontal position for the fly. The rear end of the fly will cant downward because of the lack of a tail to prop the fly up in the surface, or pattern design.

With the Hi-Jinx pattern above, the fly is tied smaller on a size 16 hook. This is not a bad idea for some patterns: still go somewhat small for the hook size and then reduce further the pattern size on the shank of the hook. The positives of the pattern will overcome the perceived negatives of the exposed hook. Pattern + Presentation will usually overcome most negatives.   

Fly Fishing & Stomach Pumps

Stomach Pump

Personally, I think stomach pumps should be the last thing any self respecting fly shop or on line fly fishing resource should offer to the fly fisher. Oh, the sampling can be most enlightening, but more often than not (no I don’t have any statistical data) I would imagine the device is misused and causes harm to the fish.

Stomach Pump Sampling (Brian Chan)

I mean just look at that stillwater sampling of mega chironomids, damsel fly and mayfly nymphs. How much easier now to tie on the correct size and color of an imitation. But, seriously, you want it that easy? While potentially doing harm to the fish? I will say this is one thing (the only thing probably) in which, I think Brian Chan errors. A fishery biologist, such as he, knows how to use a simple, crude device as a stomach pump and has a theoretical need to study food samples from fish and the health of a lake or river. The rest of us can study up and forgo the pump. I don’t believe I have seen a presentation by Mr. Chan in which the pump is not presented and demonstrated at least on lakes. He takes great care to use cradles to land fish and is obviously respectful of the fish. Others, I am not so sure of.   

Is there available written data on the hatches/aquatic life of the body of water you intend to fish? What patterns imitate those food sources? Where are they likely living, emerging, drifting, etc. in that lake or river? At what time of day do they provide the best food source for the fish? What months are they best available? What do other fly fishers tell you? What techniques are you seeing successfully used and where on the body of water?  

When you get to this body of water, what do you see? Are there visible hatches? Are birds feeding above the water? How are the rise forms of the fish (sub surface slashes, porpoising, sips, engulfing wallops, airborne projectiles)? What do you see on the water’s surface, nearby vegetation, on the rocks? What is possibly protruding from the fish’s mouth you are about to release.

Stomach pumps may provide that extra reassurance of what to use, but given the probable harm you will cause (if catching and releasing), forgo the pump and use your brain and power of observation more often. Unless you are Brian Chan and/or a fishery’s biologist?

Stillwater Hatches (Brian Chan)

I have occassionally highlighted the well known Brian Chan. His knowledge is apparent, but I have an added touch to this: several times I have reached out to Brian and without hesitation he has provided precise information about how certain stillwater insects act subsurface and how the trout act early in the year. He did not know me from Earl….but, he graciously helped. A true gentleman.

Here I offer up some stillwater insect info from Brian Chan’s site Rise Form Ventures . There is a very good, basic over view of stillwater insects.

I like this picture. I took it outside wth the sunlight upon a suggestion by Tim Barker (Planet Trout)

Fly Tying & Fishing Instruction

I was stuck in beautiful Eugene, Oregon and ended up in a Borders book store. There were, surprisingly, a scant dozen or so books of fishing. Surprising because Eugene sets amongst several excellent fishing venues within minutes of town.

I came upon a nice book by John Barr entitled Barr Flies. It is a glossy, large sized book with great visuals and a bit spendy. I liked the S-B-S tutorials on several nymph patterns and  I bought the book. I couldn’t fish, so I perused the Barr book and planned my tying to incorporate some of Barr’s patterns.

Another excellent book is Rick Hafele’s Nymph Fishing Rivers & Streams. Hafele provides a gazillion interesting facts about insects that trout eat and how to fish them.

Fly Fishing & The Bugs (Bug Water)

This fine book by Arlen Thomason has been out for awhile and already reviewed by many. I came across it at the Back Country Fly Shop in Corvallis, Oregon. I can only say what everyone else has said: fabulous, amazing details, painstaking photography, new understandings, great effort, well done. I have really enjoyed this book! Buy it.

Also, as a fellow Oregonian, I like the fact that Thomason lives by the McKenzie River in Walterville, Oregon. Don’t you wonder, when you hear those town names, who Walter was?

“Walterville post office was established in 1875 and named by the first postmaster and prominent Central Oregon rancher, George Millican, for his son Walter”    Wiki

Fly Tying: Loop Wings of CDC

A straight eye, size 20 hook was used and 14/0 Sheer thread. I tied in a grouping of tail fibbets. I was not exacting as to two  or three tail fibers. I should have been as the extra fibbets added thickness to the top of the shank. I tied in a single wisp of 14/0 grey thread for a ribbing. I wrapped the black thread over the fibbets and back.  I think the initial layer covering the shank plus the two additional layers to cover the fibbets added a touch too much thickness to the abdomen. I wound the grey thread ribbing up the body and tied it off. I tied in two CDC plumes, tan in color, and held them toward the rear and then dubbed a small amount of Hareline Ice Dub, Black Peacock, for the thorax. I then pulled the CDC feathers forward over the thorax but provided slack to form a small loop wing above the thorax and tied off. The tail is probably a touch long, but it’ll do. I like the two photo’s because they give some sort of scale to these ridiculously small hooks. The shot is not as crisp as it could have been, but you get the general ideal w/ the description. Loop Wing Emerger

Fly Tying: CDC/Starling Emerger

In my ongoing ‘psychological nudity’, I have to say I have this growing fixation with emergers, wets, CDC, Starling and the visuals of slashing or porpoising takes near the surface. So, with that in my mind, if not yours, I have been tying CDC winged patterns with vague, mental references to BWO’s, March Browns and with a change of clothing PMD’s (I must have violated all manner of grammatical rules by now!) and fly tying as well. So be it….

The fly was tied on a Mustad 3906 Nymph hook (still, I think, one of the best hooks ever made for nymphs), w/ 14/0 Black thread. The tail is ‘Brown Stone’ Antron by Wapsi. The abdomen is several progressive layers of the 14/0 thread. The thorax begins with several wraps from a single herl of Nature’s Spirit Brown Olive dyed peacock stick. Then two CDC puffs, Rusty Brown by Wapsi, front by a Starling feather from Hairline. I am going to mix and match this recipe up into October. Streams or lakes, you know this will work.