What about the Hook?

dryflyguy said:
I'm saying that they're highly selective, from the crazy amount of fishing pressure the river receives
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This....and it's a major bug factory. Those fish have the luxury of being selective (ie, only eat cripples, etc.).
 
In one of his books, George Harvey talked about an experiment he once performed on Spring Creek.
His aim was to see how much difference using heavier tippet meant - as far as having fish reject a fly over it

Japanese beetles were abundant in Central PA at that time.
He gathered a bunch, and started throwing them into a nice section of stream, that he knew held a lot of fish.
And soon had chum line of nice trout taking them as fast as he could toss them in.

Then he started throwing in beetles, in which he had inserted a section of heavy tippet.
Fairly lengthy pieces of something like 0x or 1x tippet, if Im recalling correctly.
And the fish gulped them just as well, apparently ignoring heavy sections of line sticking out of each end of the bugs
 
dryflyguy said:
In one of his books, George Harvey talked about an experiment he once performed on Spring Creek.
His aim was to see how much difference using heavier tippet meant - as far as having fish reject a fly over it

Japanese beetles were abundant in Central PA at that time.
He gathered a bunch, and started throwing them into a nice section of stream, that he knew held a lot of fish.
And soon had chum line of nice trout taking them as fast as he could toss them in.

Then he started throwing in beetles, in which he had inserted a section of heavy tippet.
Fairly lengthy pieces of something like 0x or 1x tippet, if Im recalling correctly.
And the fish gulped them just as well, apparently ignoring heavy sections of line sticking out of each end of the bugs
Click to expand...
Fish are used to having all sorts of thing hanging out from potential prey -- guts, excrement, etc. They're not looking to avoid them -- there's nothing in their DNA that would give them the instinct to avoid them.

What is scary to fish about heavy tippet is the drag it creates (which doesn't happen unless the tippet is attached to rod.) Something long and apparently swimming on its own volition could be a predator. A hook isn't.
 
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I have fished the Delaware once or twice. By the time you get into the 3rd or 4th big hatch of the year, they start to get a little gun shy.

Most of the time I think that rivers difficulty stems from 3, 4 or even 5 hatches overlapping. The fish on the left is focused on eating the tan caddis pupa swimming to the surface, fish in the middle is eating sulphurs but only the cripples and the fish on the right is switching between grey fox and olives. They'll make you look like a newb in a hurry. You finally figure it out and then move to the top of the pool for a shot at some risers you had seen. Nothing you'd just caught fish in works! Correct. Those fish are eating spinners and egg laying caddis but you don't know that as the clouds of egg layers are 3/4 of a mile upriver from where you are standing 🤣

I'm being dead serious that I use around 3-4 patterns from mid April through mid May. I don't think profile and color are nearly as important as appropriate size and drag free drift. Csoult fished with me the other spring...I made 9 casts, hooked 8 and netted 7 of them. That's accurate shooting 😁. The water was covered with hatching mayflies and I was throwing a caddis pattern 🤣.
 
Maybe this spring I can get my head out of my arse and take some video of feeding fish, drifts going over the fish (hopefully) and then show what the fish was caught on while comparing it to what's actually on the water. Most of the time I throw junk but it's low riding and sparse.
 
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krayfish2 said:
Maybe this spring I can get my head out of my arse and take some video of feeding fish, drifts going over the fish (hopefully) and then show what the fish was caught on while comparing it to what's actually on the water. Most of the time I throw junk but it's low riding and sparse.
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Show us that low riding, sparse junk!
Sorry….too good of a statement to not comment on! 😁
 
I have a theory involving this. I don't have the time on the Delaware like kray but I've been on a stream or two. First, I'm a firm believer that it's drift over fly in most situations. My father would always tell me it's not the fly, you suck.

Anyway here's my theory, on why we switch flies and all the sudden a fish takes. You come to a pool with a rising fish you make a cast and your fly drags. The fish sees this abnormal movement and will not eat that fly even if it comes through the zone on a natural drift five seconds later. After making a few bad drifts you've learned how to get a good drift by adjusting your position, mend, angle etc. Now you switch flies and make a better drift and wham. Most people walk away thinking it's the fly, I believe they are wrong. I'm not saying this model holds every single time but I've seen it way too many times to be a coincidence.

Very good fly fisherman really make their first cast count.
 
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dryflyguy said:
You obviously haven’t fished the Letort or Delaware River
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Delaware, yes. Letort no. Doesn't change a thing I said. You're catching fish with a fly possessing a massively distorted feature. In fact, it re-inforces my point. A man walking around with a 2 1/2 foot penis exposed would not garner attention from a trout. Forgive the scurrilous reference.
 
krayfish2 said:
I have fished the Delaware once or twice. By the time you get into the 3rd or 4th big hatch of the year, they start to get a little gun shy.

Most of the time I think that rivers difficulty stems from 3, 4 or even 5 hatches overlapping. The fish on the left is focused on eating the tan caddis pupa swimming to the surface, fish in the middle is eating sulphurs but only the cripples and the fish on the right is switching between grey fox and olives. They'll make you look like a newb in a hurry. You finally figure it out and then move to the top of the pool for a shot at some risers you had seen. Nothing you'd just caught fish in works! Correct. Those fish are eating spinners and egg laying caddis but you don't know that as the clouds of egg layers are 3/4 of a mile upriver from where you are standing 🤣

I'm being dead serious that I use around 3-4 patterns from mid April through mid May. I don't think profile and color are nearly as important as appropriate size and drag free drift. Csoult fished with me the other spring...I made 9 casts, hooked 8 and netted 7 of them. That's accurate shooting 😁. The water was covered with hatching mayflies and I was throwing a caddis pattern 🤣.
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I've had somewhat similar experiences up there in later spring too.
March browns, gray fox , sulphers, and several kinds of caddis - all hatching at one time.

After trying all the above patterns with no success, I'll finally do a closer inspection.
And notice some small olives in the mix too.
Switch to a #20 BWO pattern, and start catching fish.

And I didn't move or change my tippet size - things that would have changed my presentation
This has happened to me fairly often up there, so I wouldn't call it a fluke.
 
ryansheehan said:
I have a theory involving this. I don't have the time on the Delaware like kray but I've been on a stream or two. First, I'm a firm believer that it's drift over fly in most situations. My father would always tell me it's not the fly, you suck.

Anyway here's my theory, on why we switch flies and all the sudden a fish takes. You come to a pool with a rising fish you make a cast and your fly drags. The fish sees this abnormal movement and will not eat that fly even if it comes through the zone on a natural drift five seconds later. After making a few bad drifts you've learned how to get a good drift by adjusting your position, mend, angle etc. Now you switch flies and make a better drift and wham. Most people walk away thinking it's the fly, I believe they are wrong. I'm not saying this model holds every single time but I've seen it way too many times to be a coincidence.

Very good fly fisherman really make their first cast count.
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Your theory is interesting. And there could be a lot of truth to it.
But I still think that changing patterns can make a difference.

During my early years on the D, I had a real problem catching fish during spinner falls.
Traditional poly winged patterns just wouldn't work for me.

One day a was talking to a guy who lived on the river below Lordville, about it.
He seemed like a very knowledgeable fly fisherman.
And he even told me that D trout are pretty tough to catch on spinners.

So, I decided that I needed to come up with a more realistic spinner pattern.
And went to work on it that off season.

I got some materiel called web wing, and made cut spent wings out of that.
Looked a lot more like the naturals to me.
And the following year, finally had success with my spinner patterns.

Or did I - just by coincidence - start making better presentations?
 
dryflyguy said:
I got some materiel called web wing, and made cut spent wings out of that.
Looked a lot more like the naturals to me.
And the following year, finally had success with my spinner patterns.

Or did I - just by coincidence - start making better presentations?
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Or the fly just laid on/in the film better, which in a sense boils down to presentation.

Pattern and presentation aren't entirely independent. If where you're fishing in the column matters how the fly sinks/floats makes a difference, and it may have nothing to do with appearance. Perdigons don't really resemble anything, but the Euro nymphers love them, because they sink well. OTOH, they would make lousy dry flies. A dry fly that skates well (like a skittering caddis) or sits half submerged (like a klinkhammer) can make a lot of difference when one of those is appropriate, and it has to do with how the acts, rather than what it looks like.
 
redietz said:
Or the fly just laid on/in the film better, which in a sense boils down to presentation.

Pattern and presentation aren't entirely independent. If where you're fishing in the column matters how the fly sinks/floats makes a difference, and it may have nothing to do with appearance. Perdigons don't really resemble anything, but the Euro nymphers love them, because they sink well. OTOH, they would make lousy dry flies. A dry fly that skates well (like a skittering caddis) or sits half submerged (like a klinkhammer) can make a lot of difference when one of those is appropriate, and it has to do with how the acts, rather than what it looks like.
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Good point, that is well taken.
However, you're getting into why certain PATTERNS work better than others, IMO.
Or maybe even comparing emergers to dry flys

The OP's first post seems to making an argument that, because the hook point is such a big unnatural looking part of the fly, the fly PATTERN itself - or how we tie it - doesn't really matter much. ( If I'm reading it right)
Guess it's all POINTLESS - pun intended.....
 
I caught fish on this fly:

IMG 2256


Go figure...
 
There's 3 that I use pretty frequently. None of them stay floating real long so minimal casts and make them count


Screenshot 20221209 1659562
Download 13
Images5
 
The one you called a dun is actually a Renee Harrop caddis emerger. And winged one with the CDC on the back is it Renee Harrop bubbleback canis and the one with the white polywing is a DS emerger.

All three are relatively difficult to see at 30 ft and virtually impossible to see it 60 ft. At least for me. They also stop floating after about a dozen casts until you completely dry them again
 
krayfish2 said:
The one you called a dun is actually a Renee Harrop caddis emerger. And winged one with the CDC on the back is it Renee Harrop bubbleback canis and the one with the white polywing is a DS emerger.

All three are relatively difficult to see at 30 ft and virtually impossible to see it 60 ft. At least for me. They also stop floating after about a dozen casts until you completely dry them again
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So the biggest picture is the DS emerger?
The next size picture is the bubble back caddis?
The small picture is a caddis emerger?
 
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