Bamboozle
Well-known member
Dear Prospector, and others,
I've caught many fish on a lot of creeks using a simple tent caterpillar pattern consisting of 1/8-inch black foam cylinder lashed to a hook with a grizzly hackle palmered over the body tied on long shank 10 or 12 streamer hooks.
I fish them like I fish most terrestial patterns, with zero stealth. The only thing that I do is make sure the fly splats firmly in the water close to the targeted fish. More often than not the fish seem to respond to the sound and turn to investigate. Some just outright smash it on impact, but some need a slight twitch of the fly to coax a response. I use the same technique for fishing Crowe Beetles and Japanese Beetle too. Try splatting your flies the next time.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
I was too lazy to palmer my foam version with anything which may explain my lack of success...
However the Chauncey Lively pattern I used for decades that was supposed to imitate gypsy moth caterpillars was a bunch of black deer hair palmered with ostrich herl which looks great...
...except to fish.
Maybe they don't like ostrich and I should have used grizzly hackle or they knew it was supposed to be a gypsy moth caterpillar and they were dining tent caterpillars.
Chauncey's version from the November1982 PA Angler Magazine is attached...
