What is the worst fly?

[falcon]

McMurray Ant. Someone once quoted that is the single most deadly pattern etc etc.... REALLY?

 

[redietz]

falcon wrote:
McMurray Ant. Someone once quoted that is the single most deadly pattern etc etc.... REALLY?

And I would agree with them. I wish I could still buy the bodies. (Yeah, I know I could make them, but fur ants are just too easy to tie.)

 

[Prospector]

Although it seems to be the favorite fly of many people, I can’t catch trout on sucker spawn. Muskrat nymph is a close second, but I think it’s because I tie them too fat.

 

[rrt]

Muddler Minnow.

 

[kobalt335]

Prospector wrote:
Although it seems to be the favorite fly of many people, I can’t catch trout on sucker spawn.

Same here. I have caught decent carp on them however.

 

[outsider]

Decades ago I fished small muddlers with good success. Haven't fished one in years. My nemesis flies are San Juan worms and egg patterns.

Case in point: There's an accomplished fly fisherman I talk to at the Tully. We compare flies. Two years ago we were fishing the same stretch of water. I was doing well, as was he. So he showed me the single egg pattern he was using that morning. Told me it served him well over the years. So I tied exactly that pattern and fished it on several occasions in the past 2 years. Couldn't catch a fish to save my life. Ditto with San Juan worms using a variety of colors.

 

[moon1284]

I've caught lots of fish on muddlers. Stripping, swinging, skating on the surface. I've caught steelhead swinging them as well.

When I first started fishing the catskills my go to was to wake up early while it was still dark and swing muddlers close to the surface. Fish would almost always break the surface attacking the fly. It was pretty deadly.

I will admit they take some time to tie.

 

[csoult]

ryanh wrote:
The hares ear a pt are my go to 95% of the time. Can't buy a fish with the gree weenie. I think a lot of it is personal confidence in the fly to fish it long enough to get results.

Green Weenie and tan worm after a thunderstorm is DEADLY!!!!!

 

[troutbert]

The Mickey Finn is a famous pattern, but I never did well with it.

 

[TwoDogs]

Based on what I hear and read, I may be the only "fisherman" around that is consistently skunked with both mop flies and woolly buggers.

 

[RLeep2]

Fly that should produce, but never has for me - Muddler

Fly that doesn't produce even over unselective fish on the streams for which it was designed - Mr. Rapidan

Fly for which there is no reason for it to even exist - Montreal Wet

 

[BrookieChaser]

Pheasant tail.

 

[pete41]

muddlers worked great in Montana--when they still released rainbows.use to wade down the madison or yellowstone,fish two muddlers at once and quite often would catch a double.Thought I was the worlds greatest fisherman,then they stopped releasing the dumb-bows and muddlers eventually disappeared from my fly box-

 

[sarce]

Add me to the list for muddler minnow. And also shocked by those who haven't caught a trout on a woolly bugger, that fly is probably responsible for 20% of my trout every year. I mean there are days where I don't even carry other flies besides that one in different sizes and colors.

Just goes to show the variety of ways people enjoy fly fishing and the variety of techniques that can fool a trout.

 

[afishinado]

sarce wrote:
Add me to the list for muddler minnow. And also shocked by those who haven't caught a trout on a woolly bugger, that fly is probably responsible for 20% of my trout every year. I mean there are days where I don't even carry other flies besides that one in different sizes and colors.

Just goes to show the variety of ways people enjoy fly fishing and the variety of techniques that can fool a trout.

^ agree about the wooly bugger.

It's one of the few flies that catches fish any way you fish it > drifting, swinging, stripping or just letting hang in the current.

It's almost always my go-to fly to teach noob FFers in a stream or river.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

The one that doesn't zip up right before your interview

 

[Bocianka1]

The fly i catch the least fish on year round is the coffin fly. But that has more to due with it being really effective during the green drake periods and not so much in the off periods. It's such a large dry fly that i find it hard to fish effectively when there aren't a lot of coffin flies or mayflies around because it doesn't seem to match up to too many other bugs in terms of size (at least where i've fished).

This thread almost makes me want to challenge myself. Go take my "worst" fly, or my most off-season fly and deliberately fish it for a day when it shouldn't be as likely to produce. I bet it would help hone my other skills like presentation and approach when fishing with a handicap like that.

...on the other hand, who wants to purposely tank a possibly good day fishing. i have enough slow days as it is without inviting more of them.

 

[redietz]

Bocianka1 wrote:

This thread almost makes me want to challenge myself. Go take my "worst" fly, or my most off-season fly and deliberately fish it for a day when it shouldn't be as likely to produce. I bet it would help hone my other skills like presentation and approach when fishing with a handicap like that.

I do something similar from time to time. I fish often enough that sometimes it's more interesting to find which flies won't work than which will. (Generally I wait until after I've already caught a few to try this.)

 

[wbranch]

a Montana stone never really performed for me.

When I was a kid, and just starting to fly fish & tie, I had great success with the Montana on the Beaverkill below the Junction. It was an easy fly to tie considering it has only three marterials; a black or brown webby saddle hackle, the chenille for the body and wing case, and another color chenille for the thorax. I used to stand at the head of the Cairn's Pool riffle and tie on a #10 black Montana tied on a Mustad 9671 hook and 2 - 3 BB's and fish that riffle from the head to where it softens out into depper water and always catch half a dozen browns.

For whatever reasons, probably because it is too easy to tie, I've not had one in any of my nymph boxes in over forty years.

 

[redietz]

For whatever reasons, probably because it is too easy to tie, I've not had one in any of my nymph boxes in over forty years.

Same here. I caught plenty of fish on it, but it just fell out of rotation in the flies I fished regularly, and likely for the reason you mention. I went through a phase where I was only tying complicated patterns, simply because I could. I got past that phase, and if I still fished nymphs, I'd revisit the pattern. It certainly worked.