LetortAngler wrote:
When I first started fishing the Grannom hatch with Lafontaines patterns, I bought and tied up a few emergent sparkle pupas in tan, olive, and black (dark gray). Not sure why the pattern was sold commercially in black, but I bought a couple anyway. My first Grannom season fishing these flies, I used the Tan and Olive Emergent Sparkle Pupa, and to be honest, I had a tough time fooling fish on these flies. Most fly shop Grannom patterns are apple green colored or darker tan, so I continued with this color scheme even though they were not working that well.
The following day I arrived to the stream and like the day before, the water boiled with rising wild browns taking the emerging pupas as they began to hatch. I put on the same ESP in Tan/Olive and casted into an area with at least 10 rising browns - only to fool one fish. I finally nipped the tan/olive fly off and tied on my last emergent sparkle pupa, the Black/ Dark Gray version. The very first cast over a riser resulted in a solid hook up of a big wild brown. The next 3 consecutive casts all got a take as well. Here was a situation I found that fly color made all the difference. Since that day many years ago I’ve carried the black ESP version for the Grannom hatch and it has turned a once frustrating hatch into a more enjoyable experience. Give it a try this spring.
;-)
