Fish food for thought

[willscreek]

Would powerbait work on the famous limestone streams here in southcentral PA? I personally think very poorly of that crap but I must admit that it works on uneducated trout.

 

[chromefinder]

Sure it would work... put yourself in the position of the trout.

Which would you rather eat?

A piece of filet mignon that smelled & looked great?

or

A piece of filet mignon that looked great but didn't smell at all?

The bait / scent guys are going to win every-time. It's not even open for debate unless were talking about a dry on top.

 

[PennKev]

chromefinder wrote:

The bait / scent guys are going to win every-time. It's not even open for debate unless were talking about a dry on top.

Natural baits, yes, definitely. Gimmicky baits like power bait...

Meh.

There's no silver bullet. Nothing works all the time. Good old red worms and minnows might come close though.

Kev

 

[jayL]

Power bait is killer on stocked trout. I always attributed that to the fact that it's similar to hatchery chow.

I'm sure wild fish would eat it, just as they eat corn and bread, but I doubt it's the best way to approach them.

 

[djs12354]

I know I'm new to this Fly-Fishing thing, but how do you tie a Power Bait?

 

[Bruno]

 

[barrybarry]

Yes. It would work. Without a doubt. Get over it. Take the high road and pretend it wouldn't.

 

[Fishidiot]

It would likely catch fish on the limestoners. I've often believed that half the efficacy of Powerbait was the bright colors. Try a Greenweenie or an orange glo-bug and wild trout, esp small ones, will eat them like candy.

 

[Squaretail]

Work? Yeah, I'm sure you'd catch something on it if you fished it long enough. When I was a kid my sister caught them on a piece of chewed Juicyfruit, and then caught one on the sivery wrapper.
But minnows beat all other baits on wild brownies by a noticable margin.

 

[willscreek]

I agree with Squaretail. Before I fished with nymphs and buggers, I was a minnow chucker. If I still used live bait, they would be my choice but I always thought minnows were hard to keep alive. I guess the reason for my power bait question is that I've been thinking a lot lately about what the best bait is to catch trout. I mainly fish for wild trout now but I fish over stockies too. The upside to a fly is that wild and stockies that have lived through the opening weeks know them and eat them. The downside to a fly is for me anyhow, a freshly stocked trout will go for powerbait or something along that type of thing instead of my offering.

 

[JackM]

Sucker spawn and other egg pattern imitate the powerbait hatch pretty well. In other words: 6 of one, half dozen of the other.

And, Bruno's gummy-nymphs look delicious as well.

 

[PennKev]

willscreek wrote:
The downside to a fly is for me anyhow, a freshly stocked trout will go for powerbait or something along that type of thing instead of my offering.

Not true.

Few fresh stocked fish will pass up a well presented hares ear, wooley bugger, etc. They are conditioned to try to eat anything that drifts by them.

The question comes up on the board from time to time, "What flies should I use for stocked trout?" My answer is always the same: The same flies you'd use if the fish weren't stocked. If you have the typical hare's ears, prince nymphs, pheasant tails, and caddis you can catch stocked trout and lots of them with little need for any other patterns. Then, when you fish a wild trout stream you'll be well prepared for that too.

Kev

 

[Chaz]

Absolutely!!!!

 

[Grey]

PennKev wrote:

Not true.

Few fresh stocked fish will pass up a well presented hares ear, wooley bugger, etc. They are conditioned to try to eat anything that drifts by them.

The question comes up on the board from time to time, "What flies should I use for stocked trout?" My answer is always the same: The same flies you'd use if the fish weren't stocked. If you have the typical hare's ears, prince nymphs, pheasant tails, and caddis you can catch stocked trout and lots of them with little need for any other patterns. Then, when you fish a wild trout stream you'll be well prepared for that too.

Kev

I don't know about that. Granted, most any trout under water will take the patterns that you mentioned. But, year after year after year I fool many more stocked trout with bright, gaudy patterns like eggs, weenies and worms than I do with the natural stuff. Especially over the freshly stocked, soft mouth variety.

And when they are really new to the stream, try swinging those patterns. Screw the dead drift.

 

[jayL]

I have done very well on fresh stocked fish with understated flies, but generally always did best with larger, brighter offerings that I wouldn't use anywhere else but the steelbow circus.

 

[quillfly]

best stocker fly for me has always been the spun deer hair pellet
hook (any egg or caddis or curved emerger )
tread (the one you use the least, have most , have on bobbin at time)
entire fly-deer hair clip to resemble pellet

when asked on stream state it is a midge cluster pattern similar to GG 🙂🙂

 

[lestrout]

Along quillfly's lines, I've always wondered why beetles often work out of the normal terrestial season on stockies. Do they work better in brown than black?

A lot of anglers love the Goodard Caddis, and I've wondered if they would do just as well if they skipped the pesky hackle and nettlesome antennae.

tl
les

 

[PennKev]

Grey wrote:

PennKev wrote:

Not true.

Few fresh stocked fish will pass up a well presented hares ear, wooley bugger, etc. They are conditioned to try to eat anything that drifts by them.

The question comes up on the board from time to time, "What flies should I use for stocked trout?" My answer is always the same: The same flies you'd use if the fish weren't stocked. If you have the typical hare's ears, prince nymphs, pheasant tails, and caddis you can catch stocked trout and lots of them with little need for any other patterns. Then, when you fish a wild trout stream you'll be well prepared for that too.

Kev

I don't know about that. Granted, most any trout under water will take the patterns that you mentioned. But, year after year after year I fool many more stocked trout with bright, gaudy patterns like eggs, weenies and worms than I do with the natural stuff. Especially over the freshly stocked, soft mouth variety.

And when they are really new to the stream, try swinging those patterns. Screw the dead drift.

I think it's all a matter of what you have confidence in. The actual patterns seems to matter very little in my experience. If YOU are convinced you need tie a bunch of freakish looking flies to catch stockies, go for it. I'm not, so I don't. Year after year I spend several days in the early season catching stocked fish one after another with nothing more than typical classic nymph patterns. Find the fish, get a good drift, hook fish, repeat.

Heck I don't even get very crazy with steelhead flies. My suckerspawn are usually pastel or subdued shades... ...when I use them! Give me a box of hares ears in natural and black, and a few yellow, peach, and cream SS and I'm good to go. Steelhead get way too much credit for being selective to color of pattern in my opinion. And on days when they do seem to be picky, I find the small dark or natural colored nymphs are the flies that work anyway.

I have total confidence in the patterns I mentioned in my previous post. I'm just not one of those guys that buys into the idea that you need a bunch of specific flies whether it is to match hatches or having a selection of gaudy paterns. If anything size is important and I'd rather have several sizes of a single pattern than several different patterns.

Kev

 

[Grey]

PennKev wrote:
I think it's all a matter of what you have confidence in. The actual patterns seems to matter very little in my experience. If YOU are convinced you need tie a bunch of freakish looking flies to catch stockies, go for it. I'm not, so I don't. Year after year I spend several days in the early season catching stocked fish one after another with nothing more than typical classic nymph patterns. Find the fish, get a good drift, hook fish, repeat.

Heck I don't even get very crazy with steelhead flies. My suckerspawn are usually pastel or subdued shades... ...when I use them! Give me a box of hares ears in natural and black, and a few yellow, peach, and cream SS and I'm good to go. Steelhead get way too much credit for being selective to color of pattern in my opinion. And on days when they do seem to be picky, I find the small dark or natural colored nymphs are the flies that work anyway.

I have total confidence in the patterns I mentioned in my previous post. I'm just not one of those guys that buys into the idea that you need a bunch of specific flies whether it is to match hatches or having a selection of gaudy paterns. If anything size is important and I'd rather have several sizes of a single pattern than several different patterns.

Kev

Hi Kev,

I agree with most everything you wrote. Like you, I don't believe that the fish we are chasing are nearly as selective as guys give them credit for, especially with nymphs.

However, I don't agree that we can just attribute it to the confidence argument. I've run the same natural patterns as you are talking about right behind and in front of the bright, attractor patterns that I'm talking about and I'll reiterate that I've had much greater success on the attractors such as eggs, weenies, and worms. I've also seen many of the guys I fish with have the same results.

I know that it doesn't matter, and I'm not trying to convince you to see it my way, just sharing my own experience and opinion.

 

[Grey]

quillfly wrote:
best stocker fly for me has always been the spun deer hair pellet
hook (any egg or caddis or curved emerger )
tread (the one you use the least, have most , have on bobbin at time)
entire fly-deer hair clip to resemble pellet

when asked on stream state it is a midge cluster pattern similar to GG 🙂🙂

The pellet fly has always been a mystery to me. I've been to a couple hatcheries through the years and the food fed to the trout was always a very small round pellet variety (smaller than a pea) and sinks as soon as it hits the water.

I would assume that this is what is fed at all PA hatcheries, but am I wrong? Are they sometimes fed larger pellets that float?