Confessions v2

[jayL]

About two years ago, I made a thread to confess that I hate muddler minnows.

Now that I've learned about kelly galloup style tactics, I've gained a new appreciation for the floating sculpin pattern, even though it still sounds like a sick joke to me.

I'm going to air a grievance with another popular pattern here, especially after reading it in one of the many "must have" threads that we've had over the years.

I hate prince nymphs. I have never caught a trout on one. I have caught fish on zug bugs, go2princes, etc, but never on a traditional biot winged prince. I have zero confidence in them, and rarely fish them hard.

Anyone have any common flies that they feel don't work?

 

[ryguyfi]

I'm the complete opposite of you Jay... I have no confidence in a basic pheasant tail and catch many fish on the prince. Wierd huh? I also don't think I've ever had a muddler on the end of my line. I also have had little success with streamers made of hair, like the clouser for trout. Marabou is my friend. I've caught bass on them, but no confidence in them for trout.

 

[bam]

Muddlers will take fish up in the water column, but I like to lead mine up or use a lot of shot and fish them deep. They fish best along the bottom, and in my experience outfish buggers 2 to 1 in clear water.

Never caught a trout on a prince, just steelhead.

single round yarn eggs are my nemesis. I carry spawn exclusively for all my egg patterns...

 

[MKern]

I rarely (almost never) fish a hare's ear.

I also don't think I will ever link them.
However, I have had success with a hare's ear that used gold flashback.

BTW, Changing the color to a darker dubbing doesn't make it a hare's ear to me. that's just a mayfly initation.

 

[ryguyfi]

I use hares ears in every color of the spectrum. Makes it easier for me to match hatches I'm not prepared for and for just general fishing.

 

[jayL]

You can get a ton of different dubbing colors from a hare's ear. I can tie the pattern in a number of shades. What about using a dyed hare's ear?

Very interesting. So you would define a pattern by its color, mkern? I use a hare's ear to match a ton of different hatches, but I use different shades of them. Maybe I'm more imitative than I thought. :-D

 

[afishinado]

Jay,

I'm with you on Princes. I think it's really a joke fly where guys tell rookie FFers to fish it, and when they leave the room, everybody snickers and laughs because they put one over on another one.

 

[jerseygeorge]

Re: Muddlers

Natural and yellow muddlers were a mainstay of my fishing as a kid, up on the Flatbrook in Northern Jersey. We caught lots of trout on them. I still carry an assortment of them, but have not caught a fish on one in over 30 years.

 

[wayne32pa]

Jay I agree with the hatred of princes!! My father-in-law swears by them but I have zero faith.... Mind you at time I feel that my entire fly box is against me... I've even started to lose faith in my alltime favorite Dynamite!

 

[RLeep2]

I don't have a very high opinion of muddlers in general.

I've had a mercurial relationship with Prince nymphs. There are times when they've been absolutely useless and other times when they've been essential. There doesn't seem to be an intermediate ground with the darn things. I carry quite a few of them from #10-16. A lot of them are bead heads, most in fact. I've never caught a fish on a Prince with a silver bead. Actually, I think I can count on both hands the number of fish I've caught on any nymph with a silver bead. Gold and copper are different stories though.

Where I do most of my fishing these days, scuds are supposed to be big deals. I've never done any better on a specific scud pattern than I have on a weighted blob of muskrat fur. Worse, actually

I don't think much of comparaduns intended to imitate any mayfly bigger than a size 14. I've had poor results with them. Smaller ones are a different story though. I think in situations where the naturals are not exhibiting a lot of hopping and fidgeting around, they are the premier mayfly imitation. When bugs are skittery, they are less effective, IMO.

I think Matuka style streamers are about useless. But I don't think anybody ties them any more anyway..

For the places I fish, I find dark green uni-wire Copper Johns to be very effective. I think the copper-bodied ones are ok, but decidedly inferior to a regular flashback PT. Black-bodied ones have their place, albeit somewhat narrow. I've never done well on red-bodied ones.

I don't really have any place in my boxes for flies with hard vinyl bodies, a la the old swannundaze stuff or its descendants like V-rib or larva lace, etc. I've found all these to be poor performers as well. This may have more to do with my mediocre tying skills than anything else.

Generally, it's been my experience that the more specifically imitative a fly is of a certain insect, the more poorly it performs.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

afishinado wrote:
I'm with you on Princes.

That's odd. The "other" Tom C - "Afishn" loves prince nymphs. They're his favorite nymph pattern, and he does VERY well with them. He never calls them prince nymphs - he calls them prince's nymphs.

Last Spring, he was hammering the fish on Kettle Creek on his "prince's nymphs". I switched to one, and did the same. I never had too much success with them, but probably because I didn't have confidence in them. That's changed now, and some of my biggest fish last year were caught on prince nymphs.

A heavily weighted tungsten beadhead prince nymph makes a great point fly on a dropper rig...

 

[DGC]

I can't think of any I lack confidence in. I do tend to assign a size at which a pattern performs best, and my confidence in that pattern falls to the extent you get away from that size. A prince to me is best in # 12 and 10. A small Prince just doens't look right to me. A PT at that size I don't even have in the box though maybe I should. They look best in 16 to 20. You get the idea.

 

[njk3395]

I agree with jay on muddlers.. ive tried them many of times and have never caught a fish.. and as far as princes go.. i carry them with, there has been days where they worked.. but i still prefer the hare's ear over any nymph.. just by changing the size and dubbing color you can match pretty much any hatch

 

[MKern]

I just think died hare's ear, or other dubbings aren't the same pattern; at least to me.

I tie a fly developed by an old friend called the 2 minute possom. It usues possom dubbing and is turkey taly for the tail and the wing case. Very similar to most mayfly nymphs. However, in my head it's a different fly than a hare's ear.

I just don't really think a hare's ear closey mimics any mayfly nymph. I've never seen a tan nymph.


BTW, a huge pet-peave of mine is when people wait to get on the stream to tie on and only after they flip 20 rocks. You don't know what's in the stream already? I'll clue you in...it's brown, olive, or olive-brown. And most people only have zugs, princes, PT, or hare's ears. Oh, and if it's March, midges and olives are active, and possibly caddis.
Oh and most flies are poor imitations of the actual bug. I'm not saying they don't catch fish, but if that list above is most of the flies you carry, stop flipping over rocks.

 

[njk3395]

heh, there was a guy doing that today.. really old guy walking around in water up to his waist reaching down and flipping rocks.. he must have lost his balance atleast 15 times.

 

[FlySwatter]

MKern,

What if we just like bugs? Are we allowed to flip rocks then? :lol:

 

[MKern]

Don't get me wrong, I flip rocks too. Especially if I've never been to that stream.

I like studying bugs as just a bug interest and to become a better fly fisher and tyer.

However, you can't surprised what's under there; it's mostly brown, and in aquatic plant mostly green.

I'm just saying don't study a particular mayfly and then tie on a beadhead prince nymph.

Oh, and you should have arough idea what's in the water anyway.

 

[troutslammer]

i think we should add , yellow-brown , pinkish -brown , amber -brown. and if it is the end of march and weter temps hit 50 degrees for a few days then it could be quill gordons or blue quills ? but not likely to happen in march. when you flip rocks it helps you know what is in that particular area of the stream , some sections have alot of one species and not many of another .

 

[MKern]

Trout slammer I was only talking about nymphs.

And if one section has a lot, downstream will shortly.

My point is......
You can flip a million rocks, but you'll never see ANYTHING that looks like a zug bug, or most other nymphs that people carry.

I can see doing it if you have immitations for specific insects, but you can't buy those in most fly shops.

Also, just because it's March doesn't mean there aren't sulphur nymphs swimming around. They are there, just smaller than in June.

 

[fly_flinger]

This thread is really funny. RLeep hasn't had luck with silver beads or red copper johns. I tie all my flies with silver or gunmetal beads and have had great days with red copper johns.
The scud was a fly I would have mentioned last year if this topic was brought up but I've seen the error of my ways. Last October I started fishing scuds and have caught a bunch of fish on them. I now have one tied on probably 75% of the time. Zug bugs have never really produced for me. I don't think I have even 1 in my box. Prince's nymphs have been good to me at times but only when I've used cdc instead of biots for wings. And the muddler, to me, is a waste of fly box space.