Sulphurs: Theory and Practice

[hankaye]

CreationBear, Howdy;

Those are some kinda' pretty flys ...
Lovein' the 'wet' pix

hank

[CreationBear]

[quote]I love how the wire shows thru the dubbing /quote]

Thanks guys...kind of a "hot-spot"/Killer Bug concept, but I think it's scalable to all sorts of emergers.

[tie2fish]

Exceptionally good looking sulphur emergers, Jon. And the photos do a great job of showing them off.

[Otter]

I caught on both of these, but like it said, we were in the right place.

Not to detract on your discussion on sulphurs, but that little statement William becomes a huge statement when trying to determine if a fly is a good one or not in a particular circumstance. At times it can be incredibly difficult to make such a determination and many seasons to even go much beyond a five outta ten. What makes a good suphur (or whatever you are matching), does it work well during a major sulphur hatch when the river is alive with trout, does it work well during a sparse hatch, does it work well during quieter times when sulphurs are in season.

I envy anyone that has the time to fish the hatches and lie on the grass and snore between peaks of activity. - such anglers need not worry about winkling out a trout or two when the river appears so very quiet.

[redietz]

What makes a good suphur (or whatever you are matching), does it work well during a major sulphur hatch when the river is alive with trout, does it work well during a sparse hatch, does it work well during quieter times when sulphurs are in season.

Good questions. I usually find it easier to catch fish during a sparse hatch than during the "alive with trout" phase; you don't have as much competition from the naturals and the trout don't have thousands of naturals nearby to make comparisons.

The sulfur hatch in my area lasts from early May (it actually started in late April this year) and I can usually find a streams where it's still going well into July. Add that to the fact that it's really the only hatch that's happening on my home stream during that period and it means that both I and the trout get to see a lot of them. I've made these observations about the hatch:

1) Early in the season, the sulfurs are larger, the hatch more separated from the spinner fall, and the trout haven't seen too many artificials. At that time, you can be pretty sure that if you see fish rising to sulfurs in the early PM, you're looking at hatch, and some sort of an emerger pattern should take fish easily. Later in the day, you'll see ovipositing (egg laying) spinners, with trout taking flies out of the air. If you can bounce the top fly of a team up and down at the surface, you'll take fish. Even later, toward evening, the fish will be keying in on spent spinners. You can fish either dry spinner pattern (or parachutes or comparduns) or a soft hackle such a Partridge and Orange; the fish won't be too choosey.

2) As the season progresses, the hatch becomes much harder to read. The hatch and the spinner fall are often happening at the same time of day (toward evening) and it can be very difficult to determine which stage any one given trout is interested in. You can waste a lot of time (and there's not much of it at that time of day) if you guess wrong. By this point, the fish have seen a lot of sulfurs, and your replica has to be pretty close to even get a look. To make matters worse, there's going to be two different sulfur species on the water (three if you fish you include epeorus vitreus which fortunately I don't have to contend with) and you have to guess what size fly as well.

3) As the season is winding down and the sulfurs are mostly gone, the trout seem to be a bit more forgiving and will take a yellow fly just out of memory.

4) Not only size varies, but color varies, from species to species, from stream to stream, from dun to spinner, and even with time in the same insect. Although I usually think color is the last variable to worry about, with sulfurs during the height of the hatch, it needs to be considered. I carry many different sizes and colors of every different sulfur pattern that I use, and I use plenty of different patterns.

5) What works one evening won't necessarily work the next, even though conditions appear identical.

6) If you've got sulfurs figured out in the East, PMD's in the West are comparatively easy to figure out.

[CM_Stewart]

I'll take good marking and contrast over solids anytime.

I've heard that before and have found it to be the case in my own experience. And as for the plover hackled tups, I read somewhere that the hackle should be a golden spangled blue dun. Not sure exactly what "golden spangled" means in this case, but that sounds a lot like plover to me. In any case, the fish approve.

[gingerdun]

Guys,
This is one of the most interesting threads since I joined the forum. So many levels of connection and information, heightened by our recent experiences together on the Willowemoc. I'm enjoying being a fly on the wall, listening.

Lance

[tie2fish]

My home stream is the same as Bob's, and I'll second his remarks without exception, including his observation about sulphurs and PMD's. When I had a chance to spend a couple of days on the Snake River in Grand Teton Nat'l Park downstream from Jackson Lake a few years back, my box of Gunpowder sulphur patterns allowed me to take cutthroats with abandon during the sporadic PMD hatches.

[Otter]

Bobs opinions are pretty spot for many things. Why I raised Williams seemingly innocious remark is more in relation to pattern testing. For average Joe it is very challenging to test patterns, "groundhog day" being an anglers dream where you can test away to your hearts content under the same conditions. There are many things that remain the same from season to season, from hatch to hatch and dealing with these is a matter of experience, but there are variables that are difficult to get a handle on. Times when a pattern that loosely fits the bill is taken, times when it is ignored. Loose fits are ignored quite often, good fits less so but often enough too.

All boils back to some good core patterns and some colur variations and concentrating on prestation and reading a situation more than fly choice precision.

I recently witnessed a loud and extremly funny discussion between two rather excellent anglers over the merits of a subsurface pattern than had taken 36 trout in 2 1/2 hours fishing, the owner declaring it one of the best little olive nymphs he had ever used, the other angler called him an idiot declaring it to be more likely taken as a drowned smut. Who was right ?

or Was it just as William said, "right place , right time "

[letumgo]

In situations like this, my wife has often declared me an idiot, even when I am right. (humor - which is in no way helpful to the discussion)