Call me old school- I love it. I guess I still muse like that. Along with the occasional ramble and rant, I give myself away. Yet it’s systemic to any human passion and sport the longer you do it and think you’ve seen it all. Nevertheless my focus is still firmly entrenched on the endless intrigue from the theories and science which fire up the enigmas of why, how, and when a trout, steelhead or Atlantic salmon takes our flies. In this piece I will discuss all three fish, flies and situations for each, along with how simplistic designs make for better flies. In this area I believe we are overthinking it- I’m totally guilty of that too.
Aside from casting and presentation, as a guide and compulsive fly angler I need to know this shit and catch fish- simply put that’s my dope! Yet I know…I know… contemporary writings don’t do it that way anymore. These days you just need to come up with a couple super cool fly patterns and go out and bust up a ton of lips. Slap some hip DEI and doobies with it, lots of facial hair and tats on images, mix in some clever emotional video footage and bingo that’s it! Everyone has an awe moment with hugs, participation trophies, and heroes for all-cha -ching! I really think that’s awesome and lots of fun. It’s definitely great for companies searching for new market sectors to get more people on the rivers- as if we seriously need it. Hell!…even Drake is doing it! I could go on about that one!- stop right there. Zealous concepts also need to be affordable and realistically embraced. Despite the need for more profits and revenue, fly fishing will not, nor will ever be appealing to all the masses. Maybe we can do a better job in educating the ones that already have skin in the game. Like becoming better stewards of the fish and rivers, less greedy, more considerate etc., That in itself would be a huge bravo. You might recall all the times you have driven home pissed off and bitching that the river was a shit show and left. Our what about the idiot that just wadded into your pool and didnt give a F. Or…watching the debauchery of others holding a fish out of water forever for the hero pic, only to drop it and smack its head on a rock- so much for catch-and-release eh. Yet we have all been there as part of the journey.
Muskegon Ascending Teardrop Caddis Pupae– Hook; Daiichi Scud/Pupae 1150-#16-Tail: Teardrop; Hareline Darlon Gold- Burnt at end to form a bubble-Back: Hareline Gray Antron, Overlapped Bubble ( like the top of a LaFontaine Sparkle Pupae)- Body: Hareline Kiley’s Nymph Skins Latex-Cream ( wrapped in tight bands, with Copic Brown Marker adding banding) Side Flanks : Hareline CDC Oiler Puffs-black ( tied quill segments outward on both flank sides) Collar: Hungarian Partridge Soft Hackle ( Brownish feathers with more spotting) Neck: Golden Stone Hareline Antron Blend-Bead -:Tungsten
In hindsight, paying respects and honoring history doesnt seem like such a big deal today. Shame, since most of our fly patterns we build off today came from the now deceased and way forgotten. Today it seems to be more about the me and the subjective social media presence . Back in those halcyon days, ( Shit!… I.am showing my age now- lets say 70’s-80’s when I was a young chap reading everything fly fishing I could get my hands on- Fly Fisherman Magazine was my bible) icons like Marinaro, McMillan, Wulff were all about the awe of discovery and providing insight. It was all about the pursuit of the Zen and the art of modern fly fishing we take for granted toady. It’s something I painstakingly try to do on my Hallowed Waters Podcasts- my wife thinks I’m nuts!. Yet you are baptized in their words when your boots pound the banks and the water as much as you can, when you study and admire the fish, the bugs, the river flows and the natural world around it. Paying your dues is all about continuously striving for perfection in your presentation and fly patterns, and never letting comfort and stagnation influence your journey. Through this you will achieve total command of the waters as the Brits will say. So… fortunately for a romantic old white dude/ Don Quixote type like moi, nature and the ways of the trout are never stuck in the past. Because it’s all changing so rapidly like the natural ecosystems, the fly patterns and the gear themselves. Plus, it simply adds a whole sweet dimension to what we love and has brought us to the dances with trout, Thus my sincere apologies for boring those readers not interested in my subject or ramblings. For those that read further, I hope I can share some musings and thoughts that can provide insight into those issues we ponder. Next please.
. Here understanding the seasonality of color preference is 90% of it -rest is luck. Stora Laxa-Iceland ( Hakan Image)
If you are still with me let’s get back to the enigmatic questions of why, how and when our flies are taken. Simply put of course it comes down to eating in most respects. Curiosity, instinctual reflex responses brought on by conditioned triggers to certain prey stimuli, or aggression are those unknown codes that interest us. And of course there is always the take ‘ by accident’, which happens more than you think. Thus what fascinates me the most is the degree of urgency; or lack of it in a fish taking a fly. This is what is otherwise known as selectivity.
Electric Candy Cane-( Originally inspired by a Hull Dean River String Leech) Now the theme is tied with lots of Flashabou in Great Lakes and West Coast patterns in this new flash era. Hook: Heavy Wire 2161 Bartleet Daiichi – can be tied Intruder shank or tube style-Tail: black rabbit strip-Thread: Veevus 3/0 black-Body: Bands of Black chenille palmered with black schlappen ( you can jazz it up by using black/purple UV estaz/polar chenille instead) with two or three bands of your choice Chartreuse/Red/Pink Hareline Edgebright, wrapped over silver tinsel or silver fish scale, Collar: Pink or Red Guinea Feather palmered-Jungle Cock
Of course presentation plays a huge roll. It’s a conundrum of the little things like did our hopper hit the water hard enough to signal prey distress- I like to bounce mine off the banks if I can. Did our dry fly land too hard to spook a riser in a flat calm pool- why those long 18 foot leaders loaded with long tippets and a down-and-across reach cast really help for a long complex rise inspection. Did the streamer pound the bank close enough where the fish hunt vertebrates. Or did my swung fly swing too slow; or too fast, and the fish lost interest.
Combine these with the ‘bite trigger windows’ that seem to have pretty defined parameters on when they will happen- or when they will not, and you have the ultimate enigmatic puzzle to solve. That’s where the fun is. Its not just about busting up a bunch of lips on once hatchery trout. Though it’s sport and fun for some, that doesn’t really elevate your angling IQ. Or same with steelhead rainbows crammed into a Erie trib pool so thick that an egg pattern couldn’t help but land into one of their mouth’s. I believe it is why we are so fascinated by wild fish. Besides being absolutely stunning looking, they seem to demand only the finest fly presentations and stalking. Usually habitat ,weather, flows, viscosity, water type and temps play huge rolls in defining those bite windows. Add the frequency and availability of prey like a hatch, light levels, habitat etc., and these all enter into more bite window scenarios. Its in those windows when the stars align that the joys of our game are defined. That is where fly design comes into play.
Nobody starts out fly tying excellent right from the get go-not even a prodigy. And when it comes to modern fly design, I’m convinced we are chronically over thinking it- period. I believe the trout, steelhead and salmon will agree with me. Decades ago in my 20’s, an acquaintance I was honored to fish with on the Yellow Breeches in PA once, and whom I looked up to with much admiration from my Washington D.C. TU chapter, wrote a book: “What the Trout Said” ( the late Datus Proper (1934-2003) I think It’s due for an upgrade in his honor, and include steelhead and Atlantic salmon- someday I hope to do it. In Proper’s book, he looked at fly design through the fish’s eyes, and what they might say about our offerings. My ‘Selectivity‘ opus in part comes close to some of those issues. In our ever evolving game, so much is changing rapidly from a fly perspective and the fish’s responses to pressure and climate change habitat influences, its tough to keep up with it. Also, I have come to the conclusion that all passionate and truly introspectively minded troutsmen and women, eventually embrace and love the migratory salmonid game. The mental journey, big game fight, and why a fish that doesn’t have to strike your fly but still does, provides such joy , fascination and fulfillment.
Fish the Fly You Have Most Confidence In
As mentioned, good trout hunters make excellent migratory salmonid anglers simply put. But not all big game salmon and steelheaders make excellent troutsmen- there is a ton of minutiae to learn in the trout gig besides being good at spey casting and swinging a fly. Atlantic salmon often behave like brown trout. They look like them in juvenile states and later at spawning adulthood. Once in rivers on spawning runs they actually take on all the wary, finicky, yet curious behaviors of browns, including their surface orientation. Steelhead likewise behave like the rainbows that they are, especially the freshwater version and summer steelhead. The true saltwater steelhead is a whole other beast unto itself that all too often has no rhyme or reason that can describe its striking behavior. ‘Think like a trout or salmon -become one to catch one!’, is an old ghillie saying. This comes from tons of observation time on the water. Also knowing their trophic and tropic tendencies- likes and dislikes that they gravitate to or disdain, make for a big hunting advantage. I discuss these in my ‘Nexus‘ book very thoroughly.
Happy fish are hungry fish on the bite. In those times they seem to take any pattern- or do they? The hundreds of designs, color combinations and fly silhouettes can baffle the tyer and I’m convinced the fish also. Therefore I can’t help but look at my own fly boxes and ties over the decades. I admire the new ones of today, and loath those archaic, crude things of the past from my early tying tutelage. Yet in retrospect, they are flies that I actually caught fish on- so what’s up with that? I snobbishly ask that in hindsight and with brutal discernment how we dared to insult the trout and salmon in those days with those less than ideal mops and scarps of bulky material.
As a trout, steelhead and salmon guide for 35 years, I still tie intricate patterns that perhaps gives me the confidence I need. Judging by my incredible catch results over the years, they have confirmed their effectiveness. I recall a Scottish ghillie on the River Spey when I visited the Macallan distillery in my hotel days sharing words of wisdom. He told me to , ” Pick the fly you have the most confidence in mate, and any will do just as fine as the other hundred- but make sure it’s black lad”, he charmingly said with a smile. Thus maybe I should be less discerning and use more simplicity in design- and always black. It would be much more time saving since I often labor to fill my guide boxes at the last minute with my twisted and complex mind always changing a recipe in the middle of the tie.
The ‘Neveremerger’- Awkward But Deadly
I talked about this fly last summer being a super game changer for me. Have you ever tied a fly that looks like a piece of shit and it is insanely deadly? A fly that looks like it came off the vise from your first tying lesson. Certain unique situations dictate an unconventional look at proper traditional fly designs that match the hatch and the prey facsimile imprinted in a selective trout’s foraging imprint. Such is the case with the icy cold Catskill tailwaters. Here 90 F days in August still see rivers starting out in the mid 40F water temperature until the high sun hits the waters. Nowhere is that more true than on the upper tailwater of my beloved Neversink River next to our family’s summer home. The water dumping in to the already cold depths of the Neversink Reservoir comes from the upper stretches and the tallest peak in the Catskills-Slide Mountain. It is some of the clearest water on the planet. When the tiny blue-winged olives of summer ( multiple species)come off, they float for what seems like eternity due to the ice-cold waters that make it difficult for them to emerge.
The wild brown trout in its ultra clear upper stretches’ are without doubt the snootiest in the Catskills. They even make East Branch trout look dumb, and those can be some of the most selective trout on the globe. It was August and the #20 olives come off in the afternoon- spinner falls until dusk. The trout were super selective even to my best cdc compara/ no-hackle emerger patterns- I was having a bitch of a time with refusals . Though it was hot and sunny during the day, the nighttime’s in the Catskills were going down to very cold temps, Thus the water only had limited heating during the afternoon. I saw some very large browns feeding to what appeared to be nothing. Rusty spinners I first thought, but that wasn’t it. They were true ‘bulging rises’- backs and tails. You could clearly see the upright wings of olive adults that hatched and floated a good ways-most were refused. Going on three days of refusals- something had to give!
On a mission with a surface seine I started to find still-born/cripple olive emergers with crunched, slanted and folded wings- almost caddis-like. They had a teardrop shape as the tips seemed glued to a point. Maybe my patterns I was fishing had too upright and proper wings, and were riding way too high, even though I had them tied emerger style. I went back to the vise and I created what I thought looked as close to the natural that was flushed. I tied the wings in upside down ( I don’t recall ever seeing these cdc micro oiler plumes tied like this, but correct me if I’m wrong) The wings were almost slanted and spinner style. I guess the fish could have interpreted the pattern for a rusty spinner, which is cool also, since they also are difficult to see from an anglers viewpoint. This is the pattern I promised to share this past summer-sorry its late!
Neveremerger Pattern : Hook: #18 or 20 Daiichi Special Wide Gap Hook 1140-Thread: Uni 6/0 Dark Olive- Tail- Brown Z-Lon/Darlon for hanging nymph shuck- Body- Tapered Dark Olive Thread -tied cone shaped to thorax, dark olive dubbing for head, Hareline Micro CDC Plumes-:Dark Dun- tied in reverse and slanted low like spinner or caddis wings.
The first day with the new pattern I targeted three very stubborn large fish that have given me fits for the past week on the same stretch of water. Truly shocked, I picked them all off one by one with the new pattern after just one or two drifts over them. Since the fly was rather flushed in the film, I had to make a quick mend when the fly landed for the drag to let me know where the pattern is, since I didn’t grease it up, and just let the natural buoyancy of the cdc hang it in the meniscus. Then if the fish bulged near where I thought my pattern was, I slowly set the hook-rod tip near the water and cross current to maximize tension on the small hook. The largest was a beast of 22 inches, the other two in the 19-20 inch range. On a tiny #20 olive, in the middle of an August afternoon I was truly impressed. It was the perfect testimonial that the fly was deadly. Thus we have the ‘Neveremerger’. A pattern where I tie the cdc micro oiler plumes in backwards, since the bent back/ stuck wings had quill-like tips to them in the natural cripple I was finding. The wings were thick and bulging, which the micro oiler plumes do as they soak up water, yet float like the duck they should . The pattern looked like the first ‘No-Hackles’ I tied of Swisher-Richards design, where the duck quills always twisted backwards, and never stood upright. Thus here is an example of what looks like a poorly tied fly having such amazing results. I can’t wait to try it during winter Baetis hatches on spring creeks in a snowstorm. I had my best BWO day ever on Christmas Eve in a whiteout blizzard on Mossy Creek in Virginia-sweet southern memories.
My integrity and stubborn nature sees me refusing to buy flies for just sheer convenience. As a guide the beauty and enjoyment of tying is sandwiched into the very laborious task of trying to fit the long guide day in, work on a book project, and tie flies to use daily on top of it. Let alone cook comfort gourmet dinners every night due to a an epicurean palate that is simply spoiled and out of control- that in itself is another whole can of worms. Or let’s just say snails, they taste much better. Sad to say it but my family and I would probably starve if my wonderful and I weren’t always cooking at some semi-gourmet comfort level- sort of like Adam Arkin on ‘Northern Exposure’, if anyone is old enough to remember that series .Therefore cooking dinner, preparing client guide trip food, getting rods ready for the next day; and trying to be a good spouse and spend some leisurely down time, are all part of a hectic long day. Guides know that drill well. But something has to give! Maybe forget about tying intricate patterns, and stick to the simple, traditional ones make for a good place to start.
Nevertheless In coming up with new patterns or improving the old ones with variants, I’m always looking for perfection, exact detail and creativity, perhaps no thanks to that box of new age tying materials I got from Marcos. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What the Neveremerger taught me was I have become a design snob… a legend in my own mind searching for perfection in my patterns. When someone ties or posts something, I either scoff at it as boring- or get a stiffy, and want to top it and create my version of it. And what about the narcissism and ego in naming flies after oneself – that’s just ain’t kosher. Every pattern, every motif, every color combination has ‘been there and done that’ by someone else- yeah even embarrassingly a couple hundred years ago. Thus taking credit for it is just plain not cricket mate. I much rather prefer sex driven fly names like my buddy Kelly has started – and F the politically correct woke-ness also. I created a deadly Atlantic salmon/ brown trout intruder sculpin which I named the Raccoon Sculpin, since its head looks like a racoon. Then I shortened the name to coon sculpin. Holy bat shit!- did I get a ton of woke crap for that! I totally had no racist agenda intended whatsoever I assure you. Thankfully my client Regan Burmeister said I should call it a ‘poon sculpin’- I’m kosher with that , plus rides on that Kelly sex theme. The obsession by guides with the sexual themed concepts with flies are very familiar to me. It is usually a result of most having gotten very little of it, due perhaps to that vowed oath of poverty we take being guides. Also, from some being on the road seasonally, and keeping the wild hours most guides do. Then there is being naturally fish stinky, along with the smell of that love palace/ van/ humble abode down by the river being the same, which doesn’t usually have the chicks or gents banging the door down for amore at midnight. But man you’re a guide!- a bad ass that plays the Dead or Buffet , heavy metal or country rap on that cool-ass Ram truck sound system on the way to the river gig. You got a box full of flies stuck to the dashboard, packs of gummies and chew, and if you’re and old guide like me, peace and ‘Coexist’ bumper stickers on it from the 60’s : ‘If its Rock ‘in- don’t come a Knock’in’. All this shit qualifies you for living the dream dudes. Hell, every CEO in America would love to be you-facial hair flowing in the wind while you row down that river. Needless to say you got good whiskey, good beer, eat venison and good food, and live in a world where cash is king- plus you fish on your days off. Can’t beat that gig!
Regardless if we tie realistically or impressionistic, its rather presumptuous to think that one could achieve perfection in something imitating nature, art and the primitive, killer thought process of a trout or salmon that must pass the sniff test of taking the fly or streamer, and buying into your whole absurd process. Chocklett’s Game Changer might be the first truly moving fly like a baitfish that really messes up a fish’s mind like a Rapala does. I therefore beg the reader to indulge me to please do the same as I did and look at your old fly boxes and patterns- if you still have the ones dating back to your semi-beginnings. What are your thoughts? They were less complicated back then for sure. Mine from decades ago looked like bat guano-footballs of materials, where more was always thought to be better. Sort of like a Polish grandmother putting more mashed potatoes and pigs in a blanket Golumpki on your plate, when you were already totally stuffed-as she said “eat!- you are skinny!” Also in the catch and kill game of or our dark pasts, its like us slapping a big hunk of nightcrawler on a wet fly hook as a kid, until we found out the little red wigglers were the ones the trout liked most- simplicity and sparseness in nature. God I miss those days!- the bullshit and snobbery of today can be overwhelming. In the end ‘it’s still just fish’in, and I as much as anyone , I am probably more to blame for overthinking it.
Here is another one that leaves me with a confession. Have you ever given your old hand-me-down flies and boxes away that you just didnt use anymore to newbies starting out? -similar to giving away fly tackle/waders to people/wives/husbands etc. whom you thought are not enlightened and refined enough to appreciate higher quality items since they are so new and harmless. And then on top of it, become shocked when they catch trophy fish on them? All the while you thinking the flies were not effective anymore since you had better versions of them in your newer, cooler boxes.. But seriously, how big can our egos really become in this fly fishing passion where we think we know everything-let me just say its inherent and rampant even amongst the most humble of us all- its bloody human nature. With all the new materials coming out and the ‘one-upmanship /tree pissing’ so popular today on social and print media, it seems we have taken the fish’s perspective out of it completely- I’m just guessing that’s what the fish are saying.
Today’s Teardrop Intruders vs. Old School West Coast Wets
I love looking at all the new Intruder style designs on the Skagit Tyer page on social media. We have taken this now old school simplicity of Ed Ward’s Intruder to whole new levels- God bless the tyer! With all the great new materials available to us today, we cant help but improvise and be artists. Fusing Intruders with Temple Dog Reverse and brushed out teardrop plume tie concepts, has given us incredible motion without movement in materials swimming and tested in flow tanks- more importantly on the fish.
But what of the old Harry Lemire/Syd Glasso era steelhead wets? They were beautifully tied simplistic patterns along the lines of classic Atlantic salmon flies. Plus they caught fish, in addition to being beautiful to look at. Even looking at the more contemporary flies of the Deschutes school/ 90’s like Kaufmann’s Signal Light and Freight Train, beautiful Undertaker style wets that Waller, Combs, Amato and the gang used and loved, were very fishy ‘catching’ flies that very few people throw today. We always seem to be preoccupied with the bigger, the more complex, the better. Yet time and time again when we humble ourselves to fishing steelhead wets during low water and summer chrome in particular, we see how deadly they are. Steelhead haven’t really changed in hundreds of thousands of years- why must our flies? We definitely tie for us the creators, not the piscatorial takers.
Perhaps the greatest dumb it down simple, yet deadly concoction was a long crazy piece of black rabbit strip on shoemakers thread, with a wisp of hackle for the collar. I was introduced to it from Trey Comb’s massive opus “Steelhead” .This single creation has now become the theme for countless rabbit strip intruders/sculpins/zonkers etc. The B.C. guide Bob Hull found the rabbit strip could be pumped , stripped, curled like a leech or eel- it drove large steelhead bonkers! Strips of rabbit undulate like nothing else and create a must kill opportunity for aggressive , alpha migratory salmonids.
Top is my Hangtime Leech Tube ( Pattern in Selectivity book) A stereotypical Leech/Intruder tied today with lots of flash. Bottom is a Kaufmann’s Signal Light. A 80’s fly pattern named for the train signal lights along the Deschutes river’s canyon-tied in a classic West Coast steelhead style. It really blended every color scheme with the black/purple and fluorescents. Do we fish enough of these older classic wet flies vs. the newer, more complex and bigger patterns? Kaufmann, Amato, Waller, Trey Combs swore by the Signal Light’s effectiveness from Oregon and Washington; to the Babine in B.C. Yet why are we so enamored with ‘bigger is better’. Is it the motion-without-movement of the materials; or we just fancy having more confidence in the larger, flashier patterns. With the lower clearer waters of droughts and the battle for water in climate change, maybe the smaller wets will see a resurgence again
Along with the Signal Light, what about the simple looking Polar Shrimp, Kispiox Specials, Double Egg Sperm Flies- hell!, even a basic Royal Coachman, they all still caught steelhead, trout and Atlantic salmon regularly. Yup!, those flies that laid on the bargain bottom shelf- all dusty in the first tackle/fly shops we went to that nobody wanted anymore. They were brushed aside warriors discarded for the new designs guaranteeing ” bigger, faster ,more fish” now. Besides simple orange /red chenille/silk, white calf tail etc. was as boring as watching paint dry. Newer materials and lots of them keep cash registers ringing- ask Schultzy, not a pack of chenille and a calf’s tail that lasts a lifetime
Back to simple trout ties. Remember that first scud imitation you tied?- gray dubbing on a curved hook, palmered wire-period. That is kind of like the a simple Sawyer’s Killer Bug or Buzzer that still catches fish today. But now we must have perfectly carved plated plastic exoskeletons, tentacles, whiskers, legs, UV dubbing in multi-tonal qualities. The fish don’t really see none of that or care to. They see a small piece of curved food- a nymph, scud or larvae. If they are in the hunt to eat, which is not just the time we are throwing at them, they see it as food and take it. Yet to play the Devil’s advocate, there are those days on very heavily fished, gin clear spring creeks, where the fish that have been hooked so often have parts of their jaws missing, will inspect the fly several times, giving it looks and refusals before taking it. That is when that new scud back made a difference- or so you thought.
Top Killer Bug- Below: my Gammarus Foil Grizzly shrimp, that can be fished in smaller sizes for trout- Larger sizes for sea trout browns/Landlocked Atlantics
Is it the form: of a curved piece of food- or all the legs/exoskeleton plates that gets the bite? I believe the trout took the Killer Bug back in the early 1900’s for scuds/caddis larvae/wiggling nymphs-it caught fish! I fished with Rosenbauer a few years back where he still used the Killer Bug with deadly efficiency. Thus I beg the question-are we catching so many more fish with these modern/souped-up fly designs than you did years or decades ago? I will take a sure guess to all and say “hell no!”-sorry for my humble opinion. Also we are always looking for analogies to compare our impressionistic fly designs with. Some prey or event in the prey/predator’s-fish eat/fly sequence, that makes the most sense to us the observer and fly tyer, and perhaps no sense to the fish other than the fly creation looked like a little piece of food. Think about how many twigs, small pieces of gravel, tiny plastic bits that are found in a trout or salmon’s belly- lots of them! Some schools of thought and fisherman will use an Adams dry for every dry fly presentation they ever encounter, only to change sizes like the late Ed Van Put on the Delaware did- he caught a shit ton of fish with that approach, even on the selective trout of the of those waters. Or let’s decide to use a Quill Gordon wet fly for every subsurface presentation we will ever make; or Undertaker for every salmon /steelhead presentation. This list can go on forever. Regardless lets look at why those old ratty flies we have now, often deemed inferiors, used to catch fish in the past, or still do today.
Fish are Fewer-Water/Habitat is Less
No brainer on that one. When those traditional, simple patterns were invented in what now seems ancient times- i.e. 1800’s-early/mid 1900’s, fly fishing in this yet suburban unpopulated country was just beginning its modern sophisticated sprawl into farmland and what was considered wilderness at one time. Trout and salmon populations were still at all-time highs. Two world war efforts had more people doing heavy manual labor and farming, not fly rod in one hand, and cell phone running a meeting in the other hand on the stream like today. Great depressions and dust storms effected the economy and quality of leisure income to fill a tank of gas up and go fishing- that was a luxury. Climate and weather were more tempered, predictable and the planet was cooler. Climate change and volatility in droughts/floods and extremes-all harmful to fish populations, weren’t making the news every day. If you saw an angler or two on your favorite trout stream, it was rare. The fish were less pressured and most probably less selective in their daily fare and foraging. Selectivity is a fact. I wrote a whole damn book about it. It comes in many forms and stages throughout a fish’s learned behavioral lifetimes. Darwinian survival is also contributing to genetic codes of survival of the fittest in a fish’s ability to go under the radar and be successful- why we have big damn brown trout in tiny little creeks.
Perhaps the closest thing we had to those days of world wars and depressions were the Covid years and not having tons of people traveling and fishing, Instead we were shivering out of fear for one’s life like a mouse trapped in a cupboard . Fearing for one’s survival was a good thing for the fish populations and their successful spawning, which we also try to f’up as much as possible either by ignorance or design. How many anglers know what a spawning redds looks like, the ones they wade across all the time? Also, since we have no restraint in our Satryicon-like insatiable desire for yet another hook-up on top of hook-ups, we will rake fall spawning gravel with Euro nymphs and ass candy egg patterns, because its legal and under ‘catch-and-release’ status that many states have. Often thinking or kidding ourselves that the large browns or brookies are in the gravel looking for nymphs- hmmm. This poor sportsmanship just adds to lesser wild trout propagation. That’s part of the shit show that happened once the chains were taken off the bubbles and human quarantine cages after Covid. Now the buffalos and trout in Yellowstone know people by their New Jersey zip codes. Unfortunately ,we have never truly learned the word “sanctuary” in this modern age. It was powerful mandated tool used to conserve and manage back in those dark ages I speak of. Sometimes leaving wild things alone like a river and the fish is a good thing.
Could the the added traffic on trout streams cause the fish to be more selective and favor greater novelty and intricacies in our patterns? The late Swisher-Richards predicted it back in the 70’s. Just go fish the East Branch Delaware in the Catskills for a year and see for yourself. Sadly the added traffic on the trout stream, along with this maniacal and compulsive urge and encouragement by social media to pillage and hook every trout on the planet with Euro nymphs’ or whatever-as many times as you relentlessly can, is a common ‘sheep with fly rods’ scenario on many heavily fished streams. (rant alert!) Maybe another alternative would be to learn to broaden our horizons with the other beautiful forms of fishing presentation like trout spey, streamers-dry flies? – God forbid! Some trout on heavily fished C & R waters have been caught, released and tortured to literally death and starvation, thus they become afraid to eat eventually. ( the old saying of good luck ” rip some lips dude!” , is literally what’s happening) Some will say I am turning too soft- no!, just more thoughtful maybe. Some consider it strange that I am often content to catch one or two quality fish I had to really earn. I truly can be a dying breed of those introspective anglers that spend more time watching and observing , than casting like a cracked-out whirling dervish, just because they can. But in hindsight, I sure do catch many large kick-ass fish!-just say’ in. What is most satisfying is when I have to earn each and every one of them the hard way through many refusals. The spoils become so much more the sweeter
Silhouette and Motion-Color Vison -It’s Pretty Black and White!
What a trout and salmon sees-all fish for that matter, are varying degrees for the most part of a 3 tonal perspective of what we call color. Through the great work done by so any scientists as recently as the trout vision book by Gordon Brynes and others, viscosity and distance creates ” blurring effects” on the details and colors trout and salmon are able to differentiate- obvious right. Thus the farther the trout is away from its kill forage in site, the less likely it is to see all the details in the bug/prey etc. Details that will fill its “search and destroy” minutiae driven selectivity. We know that a selective trout seen sipping and refusing many naturals, will have a natural software-like drive needed to only except certain food items based on size/color/shape/details that fits in its kill profile criteria. Other items, if they are not in the fish’s currently set “approved for target stimuli” eat response, will be rejected-thus refusals.
As for color, volumes have been written about that. Simply, UV light studies show trout see colors differently than humans. The shades/hues/tone of color have two main categories The blue/green category is most visible to fish as these longer wavelengths diffuse deeper. Trout and salmon have a greater ability to perceive the other range of red/orange/black spectrum in shallower riverine environments. Thus along with opaque white and black materials, color in every variation is able to be perceived. It is also established that fish straight out of the sea and big lakes have a strong visual for blue/green/white as that color is most prominent in the pelagic hunt zones of big water foraging salmonids and the color of the bait often. The red/orange /black range is most visible in shallow river niches and less so in deep water. White and silver are sort of perceived as the same and signals baitfish prey. It is a cloaking color that diffuses light and thus sets up as a stealthy morphological appearance to protect against predators like sharks and Orca.
From fly design, fresh run fish prefer the blue green spectrum- like a Blue Charm. Whereas salmonids in later-run river holdover/ spawning patterns respond well to red/orange spectrums. But nature is a guide here again as salmonid cheeks often turn red/orange upon spawning, thus signaling fly patterns in that color range. These patterns have the best chance of stimulating sexually aggressive responses to the fly. Bi-tonal qualities of black/white like in a Sunray Shadow imitating baitfish and grass eel , or red and white for a Royal Coachman, seem like adequate and effective color qualities that fish have respond3ed to over the ages. The Roman Legions witnessed that with the Macedonians swinging their ‘Red Fly’ for their brown trout on their mountain streams. Add the green and black of a Wulff’s Stone, black/yellow/orange of a Willie Gunn, and you have consistently producing patterns that are deadly in those very basic and simple color combinations. Could it be that trout and salmon are confused and blurred by bunching too many colors together? Does a pattern appear more natural to have less is more?- we will never know. What we do know is that simpler designs and color combinations work very effectively-period.
Through our own mini-laboratories on the water standing in a pool watching trout eat and getting our butts kicked, it is often size-then color, that get the take. And yes!, presentation, tippet size etc. are all important. For a mayfly for instance, whether the wings were made of a certain material, had a bent upward abdomen, are segmented with a new funky cool material, are all fuel for our fetish. Same goes for wet flies. But it is here in the benthos that the fish does not deal with refractions and distortions as much, and can discern details so much better. And especially in a water stillness like a spring creek environment ,where gin clear water makes for detail recognition all the more important, details of the pattern have more validity than in all the various situations. So that new Gammarus Foil or Kiley’s Scud Skin can have a more translucent effectiveness on a catch and- released to death trout, who may be fearing its next meal on a Pennsylvania spring creek for fear of being gouged in the mouth agin- once bitten , twice shy baby! Trout ain’t no dip shits!
Lethargic Streamer Follows- Maybe we are Missing Something
Finally in the streamer/swung fly approach, detail matters least here . A fish attacking a fast swimming fly usually from a distance, is on a mission to kill and destroy. Once it made its mind up to do that, it probably didn’t give a crap about whether it had jungle cock eyes or a red butt. Motion, speed, how the fly swims, silhouette etc. are the cardinal rules here. Thus is your streamer/intruder sexy enough to drive a fish crazy like a Game Changer or teardrop, swimming Temple Dog style Intruder ?, it’s up to the fish. Fly speed and swimming tempo or lack of it, will turn the fish off the hunt- that’s a whole book and podcast in itself ( Authors Note- Actually my Hallowed Waters Podcasts have covered the subject at great length with the many great guests like Rich Strolis, Kelly Galloup and others we have had on streamers/swinging flies/wet flies etc.- go to:
We often see long streamer chases go unfulfilled, only for the fish to turn off the hunt and swim away. It usually occurs when we are fishing high-up from a boat, and are close to the fish- chances are if you see the fish, the fish very well sees you. But it also important to note we fish probably 90% baitfish/sculpin motif style streamers. Maybe the big turn-off to some of our streamers is that the trout have conditioned themselves to taking crayfish- a very underfished streamer. On some rivers crayfish form a massive amount of the trout’s diet like on my Muskegon tailwater and Mossy Creek in Virginia. Here a slow, chugging, dull hop is the tempo to fish those patterns and what the trout are looking for- not a fast zip-and-strip streamer.
Fancy Stuff is For You and Ga-Ga Effect- Do a Sniff Test
There is nothing wrong with tying super intricate tied flies to imitate exact details. I do it all the time with my hatch matching and swing patterns. In heavily fished waters it may have an advantage of showing the fish something different and novel. But I think mainly it creates a gaga effect, builds confidence, and gets the admiration and attention from others.
A little while back I did a sniff test with a friend on very selective trout on a super over fished tailwater on the easts coast. He fished his very handsome, new age tied nymphs’ and wets. I fished old patterns like the Queen of Waters, Bread Crust nymph, Invictas and Coachman wets. We alternated runs and pools. Where he had good success, so did surprisingly I. In runs where he lacked success, I did well. Where I failed to hook-up, he did well. Rarely did we both do well in the same waters. What this proves is not all trout have the same level of selectivity and discernment .It also proves fish want something different- some more exacting, some more sparse and simple.
Sawyer Had it Figured Out
I keep going back to this magnificent genius. We can all firmly agree that one of the deadliest flies of all time is the Sawyer’s Pheasant Tail Nymph. We stand by it it because no matter how complex we tie our nymphs today, this most simple, sparse and clean pattern still hammers trout no matter where we fish it. Getting close to a hundred years ago, on the River Avon in Wiltshire, England, this magnificent ghillie, author and conservationist, looked at his world in a very uncluttered and a natural way all too rare in our complicated day and age. The PT’s association with the modern Euro nymph designs continues on the concept of sparseness and sleek silhouettes.
Frank Sawyer, with his deadly slow and steady stalking of the River Avon’s brown trout with his long Pezon et Michele parabolic nymph taper bamboo rods he designed with Charles Ritz, took nymphing to a whole new level of minimalism. His Killer Bugs and buzzers, along with his pheasant tail nymphs made extremely trout look gullible and feed comfortably on his patterns. As a Devil’s advocate it could also be that every trout was killed back then- no catch-and-release to make them snooty. And often after your brace of two trout were introduced and killed by a ghillie’s priest mallet, you were off the waters and in the pub spinning “when I ” tales over Scotch whiskey. There is a saying that ” only some flies catch the fish, and a majority catch the fisherman!”, This could not be more true for the Sawyer nymphing system. Since Sawyer trimmed and cultivated the weed growth along the Avon River as its river keeper, he examined thousands of natural Drunella and Baetis nymphs, and learned of their simplicity of design with pronounced body segmentation, which the pheasant tail fibers exhibit. He writes:
“ From time to time many other patterns have been described which represent the natural creatures from the human point of view. Exquisite without doubt, many of them are, but it is to the fish, not the human, which has to decide if they are attractive. So perhaps I look at things from a somewhat different angle. Through the years the fish have been the judge of my artificials I have constructed and reasoning things out I have come to the conclusion that the view of the fish must have primary consideration”. (NYMPHS AND THE TROUT-FRANK SAWYER)
It stands to observation and by Sawyer’s words themselves, the reason he doesn’t tie in legs on his patterns like the very intricate nymphs of today, is because a swimming nymph usually tucks its legs in while it swims, thus just using body abdomen and thorax jackknifes to create the swimming, slender motion.
“I was obsessed with the idea of making exact copies of all the animals I thought might be taken by fish as food, with the result that I have scores of different patterns, and indeed needed a considerable stock of materials to construct them with. In all, to imitate the majority of the swimming nymphs which should be mature and active during the summer months ,one would need, in theory, about 10 different artificials. I found it was possible to reject the majority of them and concentrate on those which were consistently accepted. My pheasant tail pattern, which has become so well known as a ”Sawyer nymph” needed no alteration. This pattern has been proved everywhere throughout the world and will, I feel sure continue to hold pride of place as an effective artificial. This I evolved to represent the trout’s view of the several olive nymphs which are active during the summer months. I feel the success of the pheasant tail is indeed due to the fact that it might well, in all the different sizes, be mistaken by the fish, for one or another of at least a dozen nymphs of various genus and specie,. Though I give full credit to fish in being able to differentiate between general colors and sizes”. ( Nymphs and the Trout-Frank Sawyer)
Now lets look at Euro nymphs’. One might say one of the most deadly nymphs’ in competition world championships was the ‘Frenchie’- the Pheasant Tail with an Orange Shrimp UV dubbing thorax. The Euro design is total sparseness of an abdomen with some UV/Prismatic Veevus braid tinsel material of some color spectrum, with a bead head in a jig style /Perdigon nymph. Buzzers are also of that sleekness-abdomen/ head. Thus the Euro concept is relying on a interweaving of UV rainbow colors/prisms in the body wrap/wire perhaps with a little collar of natural hackle/hair etc.- along with that pronounced bead/jig head as the most defining character. Is it the assumption that those mix of body tinsel/braid colors is the magic sauce that creates the hot bite?
Or is it the constant pummeling of the nymphs being dredged into one foot feeding lanes over-and-over that gets the bite and attention. I will say that a trout in an underwater situation has a better view of details in a close up range. But the deeper we go into the benthic structure, the less certain colors like red/orange are differentiated. In my humble opinion, what the nymph is being taken for or ‘forced’ to take, is it looks like a skinny piece of food- most likely a nymph or caddis/midge larvae, or even a small annelid. It would be cool if some comp fishers just fish all their Euro nymph bodies with a black thread- or no thread at all, if truth be told it is all about reading feeding lies of trout. And thus presentation, color ,UV rainbow collage of various materials really shouldn’t matter. They seem to be there for the fly tyer to get jazzed-up about it. “It looks like a …”, in yet another analogy in creating impressionistic fly designs- which is a hell of a lot of fun in itself. (Image below-master Euro nympher Torrey Collins)
The Orange Newt and the Nature Effect-And Other Natural Anomalies
The prey imprint, both from natal river foraging experiences and big sea hunting in migratory salmonids, along with color aggression, are the main focus of fly design for them. For river trout, it is is trying to match the hatch/prey forms as exactly and simply as we can. Yet what we are able to see is often not what is occurring in the meniscus or the benthos. Often in migratory salmonid fly designs, color is the primary driving force to tempt the aggression and urge to strike. Yet sometimes the two align for the perfect storm of natural influences and aggressive stimulati0on in the fish. Dr. Bror Jonsson, a brilliant fish behaviorist from Norway, that consulted on my Selectivity and Nexus books, has done studies on what stimulators drive spawning aggressions to strike certain fly patterns or fish to attack each other at spawning. Since the fish have been in the riverine state for months incubating for the spawn, their eyes have adjusted to the red/orange light spectrum than most. Couple these with the natural tendency of their optics to be stimulated by the changing red/ornage cheeks and colors of a spawning morphological wardrobe, it is no wonder why these fly colors work very well Studies have shown that smaller grilse males that have maintained their silvery big water garb are less likely to be attacked in the spawning gravel brawling arena than a grilse, that has formed kypes and a marble collage of red/orange/black spotting.
Conditioned Fly Responses to Natural Events
Combine those elements above, plus add a third situational color influencer to affirm the fixation on orange coloring, and you have that perfect alignment. Enter in here the ornage newt and the Doddi Orange salmon fly. I first heard of it on one of my visits to Gaspe Quebec. It was brought to the Gaspe by the late great Art Lee from his visits to fish Icelandic salmon rivers. Here it is an effective fly later in the season for salmon getting close the spawn in September. What I noticed in Quebec on the Grand Pabos River is that along the calcareous rocky shore lines there were Eastern Orange Newts. I tell this beautiful story in depth in my Selectivity book. On one pool I saw an orange newt swim along the rocky ledge of the Sardine Box pool on the Grande Riviere, and a huge surface boil ensued from where the newt was swimming- not sure if it was eaten /attacked etc.. In addition to the normal orange fixation already present, the newts were just affirming the aggression to that color. Needless to say the Doddi Orange- both in the original pattern and the Francis style, were my go-to fly that week that took some really huge salmon- male and female alike. It was truly a wonderful discovery.
Another confirmation of the strong connection with migratory salmonids and the red/orange spectrum was when I was guiding this past fall for our Great Lakes Landlocked Atlantic salmon. A certain large kyped-jawed male in the same lie and niche, would come 7 feet up to nose-up to a certain colored maple leaf that floated on the surface on windy days. It didnt do that with other brown and green leaves, just when that reddish/ orange maple leaf came by in the bubble zone. I have seen this on other Canadian Maritime rivers like on the Grand Cascapedia and York. One very nosy kyped-jawed male comes to mind on the Forks Pool that eventually fell to a Bomber after a week of trying. Eventually after dead drifting and twitching an orange Wulff-style bomber for several days, many follows, and nose-to-fly inspections, we got the curious fellow to commit and take the bomber in ultra-clear waters- it was euphoric to witness.
Aquatic insect imprinting is a strong influence on migratory salmon and steelhead behavior from their riverine parr/smolt states acting like foraging stream trout. Such it was with the White Fly hatch we encountered on the York River in September. The Ephron leukon mayfly is a bigger size 10/12 all white burrowing mayfly that comes off in the evenings on eastern waters during August and September. The hatch has massive spinner falls with fast swimming nymphs to the surface in emergence that are bound to create a stir amongst docile pooled-up salmon . As a troutsman/troutswoman you notice these things even though large adult salmon are not technically eating. At dusk all salmon /steelhead naturally boil and roll in pools. Small parr eat the mayflies and dimple in the pools along the edges to stay out of the way of the larger leviathan adults. But in the center of the pools under the bubble line, the heavy surface boils seemed to be increasing during the white fly emergence.
I had tremendous luck all week fishing a White Muddlers and white Wulff Stones in smaller doubles/tubes in sizes 10/12 etc. These are on the small side for Quebec salmon- Iceland salmon key in on #14-18’s at times. I assume the Iceland fish are taking them as Diptera and Simulium midge trigger strikes. Needless to say I was at the tying desk in the lodge after getting of the river and cranked those patterns out at the vice to give to my clients .Others paid dearly to posses them as their payments were thrown into the lodge Scotch whiskey fund. Our heavy consumption of the sumptuous, peaty nectar fueled our theoretical discussions on the salmon fly preference debate at cigar time after dinner .The smaller white patterns were a savior as they took some beautiful salmon like this beast below for client Shawn Murphy . Coincidently the Ephoron discovery came on the famous and difficult to get beat rights to- the White House Pool.
In retrospect I am not really implying we are out to match the hatch here- but sort of. Similar situations occur with Pacific steelhead on west coast rivers that have heavy, large stonefly hatches- and the Great Lakes with Early Black Stoneflies in the spring. These are anadromous/potamodromous fish that are not in the river to eat bugs, bur to spawn. However there was enough agitation from nature and the hatch that was piquing the fish’s interest. Thus if you have strike irritations albeit in aquatic insects , newts, tree leaf’s whatever, that alone could be a bite trigger motif that often goes unnoticed. Also territorial pecking order rights to pools and choice holding lies/niches, as in who has the hierarchical Alpha dominance, is a massive factor in the fall pre-spawn aggressive bite windows that usually take place near dusk.
Conclusions
The lessons to be taken from this piece are several. Don’t discard your old fly boxes and ties- resurrect them and fish them. Museum flies and nostalgic ones caught fish 100 years ago- they will still do that today. On heavily fished waters everyone is using the latest, hottest, exact match new fly design. When you put on an old relic you show the fish something it probably hasn’t seen, thus getting the curiosity/novelty take which is so critical on heavily pounded fish. Though the new Umpqua/Montana Fly Company/ Orvis catalogues etc. and new posts on social media have you drooling with a ton of hot new designs, the old versions will still work just fine. It all comes down to the confidence in which you fish your patterns. But most importantly, it’s studying the water and paying attention to the subtleties that go unnoticed. Always play the devil’s advocate in questioning why we do things a certain way. Why some pools and runs fish better than others- there is always a reason. Why some flies are time honored with tradition on some waters and others aren’t. Never accept the status quo and boring reasons like: ‘ because that is the way it’s done’. Knowing and logging in your anglers diary the signals and triggers that make fish go on the bite and in the mood. Read the water thoroughly, identifying underwater benthic structures that go unnoticed and that can set up taking lies and buckets in otherwise not often fished waters. Keep moving to find taking fish, while changing flies and rotating beats to find aggressive/active fish vs. snooty, stubborn dour ones.
Finally, don’t worry if someone beat you to the hottest pool or piece of water first. We anglers obsess about that. You have to realize that 90% of the fish are caught by 10% of the talented fishy and astute anglers who know their shit and have paid their dues- something a lot of anglers today aren’t willing to do today. With all the YouTube/ social media heroes out there, that 10% is shrinking. Pay attention to unique circumstances in nature, water types, riverine and land based food forms etc. that may have gone unnoticed and can provide the clues to cracking the code with your fly patterns. Respect time honored ghillie patterns that have worked well there for centuries in some cases- there are good reasons for you to explore why they are so effective, and tie variants on them to improve them. Spend more time sitting and observing. The more you blend in with the fish’s natural world and slow down, the more likely fish go ‘on the bite’ and the more that will be reveled to you. Its not just about having the right fly to rack-up big numbers all the time. There is so much to this awesome fly fishing journey which one could never learn in a lifetime. It’s ok to be disruptive and old school. Relish the ride.
Peace -and to a happy, healthy and productive New Year
Matthew Supinski
December 31/2024
PS- For more on this subject, consult my Hallowed Waters Podcasts, and Selectivity and Nexus books- pretty much sums it all up. And keep reading everything you can get your hands on- the older the books the better!. There is a whole world out there waiting on the book shelves for you to absorb and inspire you on your own journey.