Re: Got silver?
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 8:25 am
I think I can tie up this thread some. Let me start with an example from my wife's spinfishing experience.
She came to me spinfishing and not flyfishing, and we both found she could predictably outfish me in stretches of river that were deep and slow. She copied other spinfishemen who claimed high catch success and settled on two types of lures that caught well: Kastmasters because they cast well and were not as expensive as ... Rapalas, which seemed to catch better than anything else. But not just any color. Plain silver would catch, and plain gold, and silver and gold, and silver and blue, but hands down for both lures were brown troutish colors first and rainbowish colors second. And I think no surprise considering what the trout probably thought these lures resembled. Our rivers have a small minnow base other than young of the majority Brown Trout and minority Rainbow.
Re my flies, I thought silverish size 14s and 16s were working best this spring-fall. Some of my typical patterns are pictured over on DUBBN's Vacation thread - http://www.flymphforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=20
I posted to see what you thought of silverish. Nobody replied with real agreement or disagreement, and I assume you are caching just fine on a variety of colors (and sizes). Now what I think is 1, I might be fooling myself or 2, the high predominance of caddis in the freestone rivers I fish are in fact especially well resembled, at probably the exciting pupating-hatching phase, by silverish 14-16 flies.
What's happened since some time in November is that I began to catch sometimes more fish on a dark trailer fly, or a tiny one, and began not catching fish in the usual turbulent sections, but in soft sections instead. I never see caddis in the air any more. My local fly shop staff tell me the only insects sometimes heading for the surface now are midges and Baetis. I have been trying so many different flies recently that I have no impression of a color or size that is special.
I still think silverish is special, in my caddis rivers, for 3/4 of the year, and maybe in other caddis rivers too. Maybe I will get a different impression next year. But, for now, like Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.
She came to me spinfishing and not flyfishing, and we both found she could predictably outfish me in stretches of river that were deep and slow. She copied other spinfishemen who claimed high catch success and settled on two types of lures that caught well: Kastmasters because they cast well and were not as expensive as ... Rapalas, which seemed to catch better than anything else. But not just any color. Plain silver would catch, and plain gold, and silver and gold, and silver and blue, but hands down for both lures were brown troutish colors first and rainbowish colors second. And I think no surprise considering what the trout probably thought these lures resembled. Our rivers have a small minnow base other than young of the majority Brown Trout and minority Rainbow.
Re my flies, I thought silverish size 14s and 16s were working best this spring-fall. Some of my typical patterns are pictured over on DUBBN's Vacation thread - http://www.flymphforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=20
I posted to see what you thought of silverish. Nobody replied with real agreement or disagreement, and I assume you are caching just fine on a variety of colors (and sizes). Now what I think is 1, I might be fooling myself or 2, the high predominance of caddis in the freestone rivers I fish are in fact especially well resembled, at probably the exciting pupating-hatching phase, by silverish 14-16 flies.
What's happened since some time in November is that I began to catch sometimes more fish on a dark trailer fly, or a tiny one, and began not catching fish in the usual turbulent sections, but in soft sections instead. I never see caddis in the air any more. My local fly shop staff tell me the only insects sometimes heading for the surface now are midges and Baetis. I have been trying so many different flies recently that I have no impression of a color or size that is special.
I still think silverish is special, in my caddis rivers, for 3/4 of the year, and maybe in other caddis rivers too. Maybe I will get a different impression next year. But, for now, like Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.