Despite the colder temps, I still managed to get out for about 5 hours on the water yesterday and test out 2 of the streamers I received from the swap.
First one I tied on was GenCons Wolly Bear which turned out to be a solid fly with great movement. The bear hair had some buoyancy to it, so I added some extra weight to get it down deep, the bead head also helped. In the short time that I had this pattern on, I hooked into a nice wild bow on the swing.
+1 GenCon
Second fly I tested out was Laurels Thin Mint Bugger. Tying this one on I knew from the get-go this pattern would acquaint itself with a few fish. As I was fishing downstream in a section that I really didn't think held any fish, I made a cast to a shallow undercut of watercress and out shot a very nice brown that I fought with for only a few seconds until he shook off. The same thing happened with the next couple fish not getting a good hook set. Probably my fault entirely, but I did notice that the tail is about 2x longer than the shank which may or may not of resulted in a short strike.
A few pluses about this pattern is that it got down deep with that beadhead , and the soft grizzly hackles you chose were just right, not too stiff.
Deff 2 great ties Laurel and GenCon, luckily I didn't lose them yet 🙂 so I will continue to put them to good use.