By B.W. Bugger
Sitting with friends on a dock along the "Holy Water," I captured a lone mayfly that hovered within reach. It nestled comfortably in my hand as we examined it.
None could identify it and I received some good-natured abuse. After all, someone named after a fly should be adept at such a task.
Inside the lodge, Carl Richards, author, dentist, and amateur entomologist, was deep in research. With the encouragement of my friends, I carried in the fly seeking his opinion. Carl, preoccupied, wished no interruption. He consulted his wrist watch without a glance at the mayfly. It was 3:30 p.m.
"It's a mid-afternoon dun," he growled and returned to his work.
Somewhat chastened, and amused, I returned to the dock and released the fly.
At the Midwest Fly Fishing Exposition a few years ago, Gary Borger, scientist, author and video star, was in deep discussion with hatch-master, author, architect, and artist, Ernie Schwiebert. They were exploring the insect life of the Manistee River tossing Latin to and fro: Rhyacophila, Hydrosyche, Peteronarcys . . . , with only an occasional lapse into English.
Bystanders followed the conversation eagerly, gleaning the odd tidbit here and there. After ten minutes of such excruciating detail Borger turned to Ray Schmidt, a Manistee expert, who had nodded occasionally at salient points of the discussion.
"Ray, you know the river as well as anyone. How do you fish it in early April?," Borger asked the tall, grizzled guide.
Schmidt pondered the question. "Well," he began, recalling years of fishing the big water. "In the morning we use a little brown thing and if that doesn't work then in the afternoon we switch to a little green S.O.B."
Some years ago I was fishing the North Branch with my usual elk hair caddis, catching little but enjoying myself immensely. In a streamside conversation I received the solution from a North Branch regular.
"You need a hare's ear nymph for this river," he explained. "That's how I catch ninety percent of my fish."
"And what other patterns do you fish?" I inquired, eager for further instruction from my learned friend.
"I only fish a hare's ear," he replied, and then began to wade upstream.
By the time I could think of a reply he was around the first bend.
Few fly fishing topics are more confusing or more hotly debated than fly selection. With research delving into the minute details of trout feeding habits and the life cycle of insects, fly fishers are bombarded with dozens of new patterns every year. In our worst nightmares, we imagine that soon we will have to carry library card files to locate needed patterns.
There has to be a simpler way.
Remember the Royal Coachman, Adams, Humpy? These impressionistic patterns imitate no insect exactly but their outline suggests food to a waiting trout. And they catch thousands every year.
Why?
An old bit of advice: If it looks like food, floats like food, and is presented like food, trout will take it as food.
To state it more emphatically, the five most important things about trout fishing are: presentation.
Hatch matchers belittle an overly simplified approach. And they are right. Trout do feed selectively and oversimplifying your approach will cut your success rate.
Why not try a compromise system that avoids the "thousand-pattern-syndrome" but also offers choices beyond a "one-fly-forever" alternative?
Mayflies undergo a distinct color cycle during the year. The early hatches of the spring are dark. But they lighten as the weather warms, and then darken again in the fall. If you stick to one silhouette (traditional, parachute, no-hackle) the only changes will be color and size.
Make your early season patterns dark, gray to brown, sizes 12 to 16 for the Hendrickson, Paraleps, mahoganies, and brown drakes. In late May, add yellow for the sulfurs and Dorotheas that hatch through mid-July. Sizes 14-18 will cover most water. (Save some larger gray and brown patterns for the gray and brown drakes.)
A selection of dark olive flies tied in sizes 16 to 22 will simulate the various blue winged olives hatching throughout the year. Add a few specialty patterns for some of Michigan's best fishing; Trico spinners in the 20-22 size and Hexagenias, size 4-8 on extra long hooks will cover the sublime and the outrageous.
For late summer and fall retain your tiny olives and add browns and grays, size 18-22. Fall hatches can be prolific and trout surface-feed with abandon.
Caddis flies remain my favorite surface pattern and favorite searching pattern when no hatch activity is visible. The elk hair caddis, tied both light and dark, in sizes 14-18 is perfect. I fish it with a traditional slack line or skitter the fly to imitate an egg layer.
Finally, for mid-summer keep a selection of ants and grasshoppers with you. Terrestrial fishing is often the only daylight surface action you will see in hot weather.
Not only will this approach work for you but it will lighten the load of fly boxes you need to carry. You'll wade easier and longer and that alone will give you a greater chance of success.
It works for me. I hope it works for you.
RWOL
© Copyright 1997 - , Anglers of the Au Sable, Inc. All rights reserved. Last modified: January 20, 2005
