Nice fish in 11 mile Canyon this morning. Still taking brown San Juan worms and small midges. At times a tiny (size 26) sparkle wing RS2 was the ticket on the picky trout up high in the canyon close to the dam. Some PMD's and caddis fluttering about but mainly still a nymphing game for now.
Nice...we were skunked there the weekend before. It was so crowded and we got there late and of course, had the wrong color San Juans. Always pays to have a guide!
ReplyDeleteI try to encourage folks to problem solve with out a guide. It helps to kind of have a check list in your mind while fly fishing. I go down the list in my head if I am not hooking fish. Sure, sometimes it is the fly (Yes.. Brown is usually the best but we caught fish on pink and red San Juans also). There can be other variables such as presentation,(are you getting a perfect drift), depth (amount of wt), Tippet size, leader length, position and type of strike indicator, type of water /time of day (getting there when the river is crowded can me tough). I am seeing more and more caddis on the water and fish are chasing them so this is also the time to start " matching the hatch". So try some caddis imitations. Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteI often find that When the caddis are emerging i have good success with a dry elk hair caddis and a dropper fly that imitates the caddis fly larvae, i like a gold or a silver bead head caddis fly larvae in lime green or cream color depending on the species of caddis fly that i see on the rocks in the stream. When i go to the canyon which is every couple of years now i always start with a size 18 flashback phaeasant tail nymph and a size 16 bead head prince nymph I usually do very well on this simple two nymph setup. I have always czech nymphed the canyon and it has always been a great technique in the deeper pocket water in the canyon.
DeleteI am living and fly fishing in the German southern state of Bavaria and the dry fly fishing here is phenominal, i have only had to nymph fish once and it was two weeks ago. The nymph they were taking was a Blue beadhead, blue copper John, and i was using a purple foil, with dun CDC and a tungsten bead head nymph that i develooped for grayling but i was catching a ton of trout on it as well as a few grayling. I will be a bit rusty once i get back to the states and i have to take up nymph fishing again. But in response to you asking me if i had used a certain caddis fly pattern, from the description of it i developed one over here that is quite similar, i use a size 14 scud hook and i tie on a piece of lime green sanjuan worm material as low on the bend of the hook as i can get it, I leave about 1/8 inch hanging off the hook, then i tie it on using the wraps as the segmentation and i use a dry fly black dubbing for the head. once the fly is complete i taper the worm tail with a lighter just the way that you do with a San Juan Worm, it makes for a really good caddis larvae pattern, the first cast that i fished it i caught a nice brown trout.
DeleteYour caddis sounds like an interesting pattern. Caddis patterns that catch fish are interesting to me. The Pupae of some species are good swimmers and are often what the trout take as they swim up to the surface. I have often wondered why trout even eat larvae patterns during a caddis emergence??? Maybe the larvae patterns are in the ball park of looking like the pupae and that is good enough and so they work?? Or maybe it just works as an "attractor" pattern.I guess it does not matter. If the fish eat them that is great. I have looked at live caddis pupae and they are strange little creatures that don't really look too much like the green caddis larvae we are familiar with. But it still works. . Decades ago I remember more than once just fishing a bushy Hares ear nymph during a caddis hatch and it worked well.Mean while it sounds like you have some great dry fly fishing!!! Yes, it is strange how much nymphing we have to do around here.
DeleteSounds like a good system. I like how different people have slightly different approaches and it all works...(and at times, does NOT work). I guess the river allows us our own individualistic styles. And, yes using different techniques such as the Czech nymphing. All good stuff. Have you tried that "Candy Caddis" larvae yet. Kind of a lime green. Interesting used of materials and colors. Check it out
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