The Snowshoe Emerger
First, it mimics the the most important stage of the emerging insect - an insect that is struggling to break through to the surface by breaking through the surface film/tension and then flying away as an adult insect. That is what most of the aquatic insects do and the majority of those insects don't make it. The majority of the rises that you see on a trout stream are trout grabbing these insects while in the film AND NOT ADULT insects riding on the surface. That's why an insect pattern that mimics the emerger work the best. That is why traditional dry fly patterns of will fail often.
Why does this pattern work? Well, it's how it's built. The photo shows a fly pattern that has a dubbed rear body that is meant to SINK below the surface film and a front body, because of it's material, is meant to FLOAT, just like a natural insect. The front body is made of snowshoe fur or deerhair (the wing). They both work great and in patterns in the size 12 to 16 range they work best and in this size range do much better than CDC which gets waterlogged and slimmed easily. Snowshoe and deer hair will win because they are rugged and clean up easily. There are many synthetic wing materials out there but I like the natural materials in the same way that I prefer shooting a recurve or long bow instead of a compound bow. (hope you know what I'm talking about)!
It may be a while (April) before we will cast to fish that are not sipping size 28's.
Every once and a while I'll check out the euro blogs and see a steady loop of dive bombing trout with heavy beadheaded nymphs that really don't represent any real trout food and are nothing more than attractor flies. They catch fish but so do I with flies that represent insects or tiny minnows in a more natural state.
The great flyfisher, Bob Wyatt, changed my mind on a lot of surface fishing and made me a better flyfisher.
Ken
2 comments:
Ken,
I love that (sub) surface fly because it looks like the real thing! I've seen mayflies struggling to break through the surface film only to have trout suck them off the surface. It is great fly fishing!!
MT
There's a time and place for everything. Tightline/dropshot when nothing is hatching, and emergers/wets when the hatch is on. BTW I do use Wyatt's patterns and they do work.
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