Picky fish?

[tjm]

did it look like this? http://www.troutnut.com/specimen/682 

 

[tangledup]

7 hours ago, tjm said:

did it look like this? http://www.troutnut.com/specimen/682 

 

It looked very similar to that (although I have to admit that I'm not very good at picking the subtle differences in these insects yet). The flies that I noticed on my creek were lighter than the one pictured on trout nut. They were almost yellow. 

[fishinwrench]

5 hours ago, tangledup said:

It looked very similar to that (although I have to admit that I'm not very good at picking the subtle differences in these insects yet). The flies that I noticed on my creek were lighter than the one pictured on trout nut. They were almost yellow. 

All of the important mayflys in Mo. are cream, or very light olive.   

Hendrickson's, Red Quills, and Brown Drake's exist.... but they have no FISHING importance here.    Learning about those bugs is fun, but don't let it slow down your angling learning curve, because THESE trout don't care.   Ants and beetles are usually more important than Mayflys and Caddis.

One minor exception....the Current has Trico's

[snagged in outlet 3]

28 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

All of the important mayflys in Mo. are cream, or very light olive.   

Hendrickson's, Red Quills, and Brown Drake's exist.... but they have no FISHING importance here.    Learning about those bugs is fun, but don't let it slow down your angling learning curve, because THESE trout don't care.   Ants and beetles are usually more important than Mayflys and Caddis.

One minor exception....the Current has Trico's

Blue wing olives too??   Caddis, adams, BWO's, stimulators, ants, beetles, griffiths gnat and crackle backs oughta cover you.  

[tjm]

Most of my flies are woolly worms of some variety like the crackle back or Griffith's gnat,  stimulators look to me like woolly worms with a wing. An old favorite of mine was the Tom Nixon  .56er another woolly variation. Plamered flies are one of the oldest patterns still popular. They can be fished wet or dry. 

9 hours ago, tangledup said:

subtle differences i

head size, shape, color; number of tails, length of tails, body segmentation, length  of legs might be places to look at, knowing month of year and time of day that a species hatches helps. ~45 years ago I bought books, checked books out of the library, took copious notes  and made drawings of the books they wouldn't let me take home and cut up paper catalogs to get picture of the fly patterns that represented the various species and learned tons about the nymphal behavior of all the bugs common in the northeast, turned over a lot of rocks etc.  Knowing all those things made me catch fish, but as time went by my tying time diminished and my hatch matching became fish three or four generic nymphs and two dry flies. In all those 45 years I personally have never encountered the mythical  time and place where the hatch of one species was so terrific that nothing else worked. Caddis pupa and larvae are present in most streams always. Small chironomids are very common, in the warm months terrestrials are falling into the water often enough that any splash will draw a fish to look, foam beetles or ants tied simple are a good bet in daylight hours.

Spend your study  time on the under water forms of the insects rather than the airborne version, fish can't fly very well.

[tangledup]

Sooooo basically what I'm hearing is that I'm over thinking it and making it too complicated. Got it!!! I have a tendency to do that.

[fishinwrench]

1 hour ago, tangledup said:

Sooooo basically what I'm hearing is that I'm over thinking it and making it too complicated. Got it!!! I have a tendency to do that.

I did too, for way too many years.   I just wish I could take the time I spent concentrating on the things that don't matter, and have that time applied to other things like the angle the line lays on the water when it's drifting, and managing slack.   

[ness]

I think, in general, people get a little too hung up on matching the hatch, especially in MO. By the calendar/by the clock hatches are rare in MO. And the hatches we do see aren't the clouds of flies that get written so much about in the literature and instructional books. 

I'll have a selection of dry flies from pretty small up to medium, say 20 to around 12. Smaller dries are going to be Elk Hair Caddis, Light Cahill, Adams, and parachute varieties so I can see them better. I always have larger Stimulators on hand -- for terrestrial fishing and for dry/dropper rigs. 

Nymphs are generally small too, say 20 to 14. Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear, Pheasant Tail, Copper John, and Prince.

Other wet flies would be Kruse Leech in olive and Wooly Buggers in olive, brown and black. I just never latched on to soft hackle fishing.

When I first started hacking away at this I'd drive myself nuts buying and tying everything I'd seen or heard worked for somebody else. I spent more time jacking with my flies than showing them to fish. I also spent a lot of time in the trees. Over time I learned that the presentation of the fly was so much more important than the 'right' fly. And you can't present the right fly as often if they're in the trees behind you or you're changing flies every couple minutes. 

So I'd recommend working hard on good presentation of flies. Learn where to place them and how to keep them drag-free: with your line up and off the water, and by perfecting mending. The tippet should match the fly size but it should also match the conditions: smaller tippet for calmer water.

It's good to know how to do roll, bow and arrow, sidearm and steeple casts for small streams. Practice those at home or on a local pond -- before you get to the pool full of fish. 

On a small stream it's a lot easier to spook the fish and you won't catch spooked fish. Keep low, watch your shadow, make your casts count, and don't rip the fly off the water. Stay out of the water as much as possible. If you come crashing in and spook some little fish in the riffles below a nice pool they're gonna shoot on ahead and spook all the rest. When you approach a decent spot, plan your approach well in advance. Sometimes you've got to backtrack, cross over and re-approach from the other side to have the best chance of success. And, sometimes you just won't be able to fish a spot. Like Dionne Warwick said, 'Walk on by.'

I fish two flies a lot of the time. Not just a dry and nymph dropper but a dry/dry with a smaller, harder to see fly below a larger one. This helps when I want to present a small dry but can't see it due to the size, glare, old age, or whatever.  I'll also fish a small, unweighted nymph below a dry when they're feeding at or near the surface but there aren't visible flies.

As for wet flies I'm using an indicator less and less. I figure a stimulator that looks like a grasshopper is less likely to spook a fish than a chunk of chartreuse styrofoam will. But I'll still use them in deep or changing-depth water since they're easier to adjust. Use what works for you.

Anyhow -- sounds like you've got pretty easy access to a sweet little stream. You're a lucky guy.  

Hope this helps. 

[tangledup]

20 hours ago, ness said:

When I first started hacking away at this I'd drive myself nuts buying and tying everything I'd seen or heard worked for somebody else. I spent more time jacking with my flies than showing them to fish. I also spent a lot of time in the trees. Over time I learned that the presentation of the fly was so much more important than the 'right' fly. And you can't present the right fly as often if they're in the trees behind you or you're changing flies every couple minutes. 

So I'd recommend working hard on good presentation of flies. Learn where to place them and how to keep them drag-free: with your line up and off the water, and by perfecting mending. The tippet should match the fly size but it should also match the conditions: smaller tippet for calmer water.

 

One really good piece of advice I received when I first started tying flies was to pick one or simple flies to learn. Purchase what was needed for those flies, get proficient at tying them, then pick another one to learn. Theory being, if I chose my materials wisely, before I knew it I would have materials for many different flies. He was absolutely right. And for someone like me, who likes to jump into any new hobby with both feet, it was a great way to get started but stay focused and organized. I am still only tying nymphs and streamers (haven't graduated to dries yet) but my small collection of tying materials has grown exponentially since I began tying in February. 

 

Unfortunately I did not receive similar advice regarding the streamside aspect of fly fishing. It was a hobby that my son and I decided to pick up together and have received most of our education from YouTube, podcasts, and furiously flailing our lines around in the air. I'm sure we've pissed off numerous other fisherman as well as giving them some laughs. We are slowly getting better and actually manage to even get our flies in the water sometimes. We have recently discovered a local fly shop and the owner and employees have been a great help to us. They have given up casting and tying tips and lesson as well as just general fly fishing advice. 

[ness]

What fly shop?