How Would You Have Approached it?

[paparex]

I was fishing a small reservoir in Southern Idaho with Triploid Kamploops Fish was good and hard. Picked up a few with indicator and midges and a few more with a green apple colored leech. The caddis were hatching, the midges were hatching and the callibaetis were hatching. But the usual adults and emergers weren't working. As i pulled my boat up on shore near dark, I could see fish, large and small, working the open areas of the weed beds within 20 feet of the shoreline and in 4-6 feet of water. The little fish would fly completely out of the water and you could tell their size easily. For every 6 small fish a large 20+ inch would disturb the surface or would regularly and rhythmically "porpoise" the surface.

How would you approach the rising fish in the next 30 minutes of daylight? Floating line? Types of flies and presentations. The water was nearly still with an occasional chop from the wind.

[Mike Connor]

Fish a team with a hatching "semi-dry" ( Deer hair or similar) caddis on the point, a callibaetis on the middle dropper, and a buzzer on the top dropper. Floating line. Leave the flies to drift with an occasional small twitch and keeping only loose contact. Keep your eyes on the floating fly. If it moves, disappears etc, then set the hook. You don't have much time to capitulate on such situations so it is best to have a few leaders set up appropriately which you can just change to suit. Although the rig will work into the darkness, it is then much harder to see the flies. You can increase the time by using a white fly. Suitable "indicator" flies;



You can also use these in the same matter on fast moving water.

TL
MC

[Mike Connor]

Unfortunate typo there! "Capitulate = Capitalise"

TL
MC

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Mike,

I just assumed you meant that the fish would be so big they would take your entire cast of flies when they broke you off. Grand technique.

REE

[willowhead]

Cool flies..........

[skunkaroo]

The technique Mike describes is called a washing line in the UK. The floating point fly is often a booby, but the flies Mike indicates would offer a more natural (and more palatable) silhouette.

Another option would be to use a floating line or midge tip with three "pulling flies". The bob fly (a bushy palmer or a muddler) would be your top dropper, the middle dropper would be a wet such as a soft Zulu or red tag, while your point would be a cruncher or smaller lightweight nymph. This set up is not fished static, but with a slow figure eight retrieve from an anchored boat. It works best with a ripple or light chop on the surface. The palmered flies are generally good stillwater caddis imitations, while the cruncher and/or nymph covers the mayfly/damselfly end of the spectrum.

Another option is to go with a straight floating line and three appropriately sized dry flies fished static, although for Kamloops rainbows, I think you would get better action with slightly submerged flies.

Here's a little something worth trying as a top dropper on a "pulling" cast (the top one has been a real performer for Kamloops rainbows):





Aaron

[William Anderson]

Aaron, these are fantastic flies for such a purpose. Beautifully photographed as well.

w

[skunkaroo]

Thanks. They're loosely based around some of the stuff I saw Davie McPhail tying. The first is a riff on the Dunkled wet fly, while the second follows a basic olive bumble or the like. I've tried adding some knotted pheasant tail legs to the first one, and we'll see if performs any better for the effort later this month.

Aaron

[letumgo]

Aaron - Wonderful flies! They remind me a lot of some miniature muddler minnow variations I saw a couple years ago. They were tyed by Dave Wiltshire (http://davewiltshireflytying.blogspot.com/). Fran Better's used to tye miniature muddler minnows. He would trim off different parts of the fly, depending on what he wanted to imitate, or how he wanted the fly to fish. I think this would be an ideal feature for competition fishing.

http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=45070&st=0&p=369528&hl=dwiltshire&fromsearch=1&#entry369528
http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=45008&st=0&p=369075&hl=dwiltshire&fromsearch=1&#entry369075
http://davewiltshireflytying.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

[michaelgmcgraw]

Muddled bumble, there's the muddled bibio. I think I've seen a bunch of the U.K. traditional lake flies tyed with a muddler heads.