I had given up fishing Renegades in the 80's because I couldn't figure what exactly they were supposed to represent, and I was pretty much of the imitative school at the time. Catching a fish on one was obviously dumb luck and a stupid fish. Never mind that they caught a lot of fish, and that the first 20" trout I ever hooked took one.
I stared fishing them again several ago and started asking a slightly different question than "what do the represent?": under what circumstances do they catch fish?
I've noticed that they seem especially good under for these uses:
1) As a midge cluster. They pretty work like a Griffith's Gnat, but more visible, and they give the fish a choice between a white cluster and a dark one.
2) When there are caddis on the water. With enough floatant they skate pretty well, and work as both a caddis emerger and an ovipositing caddis when fished wet.
3) As terrestrials. They're a reasonable imitation of both an ant and a beetle.
4) When there are olive spinners on the water. (I'm specifically talking about small baetids here, since olive means different things to different people.) I have no idea why this is true; the size 16 is way too big for the naturals and there is no resemblance in shape or color to the natural, but they work.
5) As a strike indicator.
Earlier this year, there yellow and lime sallies on the water in great numbers near sunset, at about the time I was expecting sulfur spinners. You would think than a parachute sulfur imitation would be significantly close to yellow sally of the same size that it would make an adequate substitute, but the trout wouldn't touch. They want something that's moving. A swung Renegade works, however. In effort to hone this idea even further, I tied up some that look like this:
Unfortunately, I haven't seen a stone fly of any sort since. I'm ready for next year, though.
(FWIW, for giggles I have fished a Renegade during a heavy sulfur hatch. Yes, the trout will take it in preference to a natural.)
The fly has one major limitation, at least for me, as I proved to myself once again this afternoon. I was able to every single trout that I saw rise (that I could cover) to take a Renegade -- 25-30 fish. Of those, I hooked 6 and landed 2. The stiff rear hackle works as a very effective weed/fish guard. Toward evening, I trimmed the rear hackle back to where the point of the hook was in front of it. It doesn't float quite as well, but I went 4 landed per six takes (and the ones I missed were too small to get the whole fly into their mouths.)
Keep the variations coming ...
