A Year Long Project

[redietz]

For us newbie's that are following along, could you folks let us know what AP's and EHC's are? Thanks.

AP = The name of a series of nymphs, AP can stand for either "All Purpose" or
"Andre Puyens" depending on who you talk to.
EHC = Elk Hair Caddis

Some other common abbreviations:

PT - pheasant tail
BH - bead head (can be combined BHPT = bead head pheasant tail)
GRHE - gold ribbed hare's ear
P & O - partridge and orange.

[MontanaMoose]

Hello DruLeeParsec, AP= All Purpose and they're nymphs...sorry about the brevity of the post above, I was anxious to be the first to post the new thread. Black All Purpose Nymphs are general looking and contain elements that apparenty trigger trout to take from instinct and habit.

It seems that a huge percentage of trout diet consists of dark colored things that drift along close to the bottom. I suggested 12, 14 and 16 from experience and there was a time when I'd carry half a dozen of each size and fished them nearly exclusively with great success.

Tyes vary, but tailed, buggy bodied, copper ribbed, sparsely hackled or bearded are what I've found to be popular. I use copper wire from old car voltage regulators to weight black AP's and also for the rib. One thing I don't do is try to use all black materials. Some will cringe but I use whatever scraps I have on the bench from white to black, red or yellow then when I'm done with a batch I use a black sharpie to 'black' the flies. Everything. Rib and all...which for some reason seemed to increase my take rate.

Your Bear river sounds interesting.

Cheers,

MontanaMoose

[SonOfMartin]

Finally home. I really dislike airports. Like planes, but airports are another story.

Oh if I loose flies I will replace them. I just want to create a list of flies and stock the box with only those patterns. That's the challenge.

[farleycat]

I meant to say ZEBRA MIDGE in my earlier post on the Yellow Breeches...sorry about that
Bernie

[peregrines]

Interesting challenge, and great thread.

If you're carrying 3 altoid tins, unless they're "family size" ones, you'll want to make every fly work hard for you.

Fast water? Slow water? Freestone, spring creek, tail water, lakes too? High off colored water? Deep in water column? Natural insects, including terresterials? Major hatches? Different fishing methods?

One way to cover a lot of bases is to decide on a few "styles" of flies that will cover different situations and then make subtle changes in them when you tie them in different sizes, or modify them on stream. There's no right or wrong here, and I'm not familiar with your streams, but just to give you some ideas based on some of the waters I fish north of you Delaware River and some Catskill streams ...

Nymphs:

PTN (Pheasant Tail Nymph) size 16-20 on a standard dry fly hook would cover you for a lot of small slim mayflies, including a lot of Sulphur and Blue Wing Olive situations. If you tie them unweighted on a light hook you can fish them high, or add micro split shot to the tippet to go a bit deeper, or hang them off a dropper.

GRHE (Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear) size 10 2xl and 12-16 1xl (xl refers to the length of the shank of the hook, a 10 2xl hook like a Mustad 9271 has the shank length of a standard size 8. Odd numbered hooks are hard to find nowadays but they were more common "back in the day". A 12 1xl hook like a Mustad 3906B would be the same shank length as a standard "11").

Instead of tying a bunch of standard GRHE's in those sizes, I would tie a light version and a dark version.

Light GRHE - light tannish cream body, brown wing pads ginger or light brown tails and beard size 10 2xl (for Green Drakes) and 12-14 1xl for Gray Fox, March Brown, Cahill, White fly

Dark GRHE dark reddish brown body, black or peacock herl wing pad, dark brown tail and beard sizes size 12 2xl, and 12 -16 1xl. This would cover you for Isonychia, Quill Gordons, Blue Quills etc. You can tie them with or without beadheads, or mix it up.

Green Rock Worm heavily weighted size 14 if you have lots of caddis for short line nymphing in riffles

Zebra midge in whatever size, it sounds like you might want some.

Scuds if you fish spring creeks maybe?

For streamers, I'd go with something for fishing high water, or pulling large fish like a Black Marabou Muddler size 6, To make it more of guide fly tie it with a sculpin wool instead of spinning deer hair. If you like fishing streamers add a bucktail like a Black Nosed Dace to imitate baitfish or a bright attractor like a Trout Fin or Mickey Finn size 8. I would also add an unweighted Mini-Muddler size 12 to imitate sculpins or to grease and fish for a hopper on top in summer.

For dries, i'd also try to make them work hard:

Sparkle duns cover a lot of different situations and sorta cover you for emerger, cripples, dun and spinner mayflies and are a good durable slow water pattern. I would tie them in two shades, light and medium dark with small variations based on size.

Light version in sizes 10-18 is basically tan antron or z-lon shuck, bleached or very pale deer hair (compara dun hair) and a light body- creamy gray yellow 10 (Quill Gordon, White Fly), tan 12-14 (March Brown, Gray Fox) , creamy yellow 16 (Cahill, some sulphurs), pale yellow with a bit of orange (Dorothea). You could tie a Green Drake Version with split tails instead of a shuck, and creamy olive body on a 12 4xl (streamer hook like a Mustad 79580, which will get the size 8 right, but will weigh less than a size 8 standard hook because of thinner wire.)

Medium Dark Version in sizes 12 to 20 has a dark brown shuck, medium gray deer hair wings, and body would go from dark reddish brown (12-16) to olive (16-20). this would cover you for all kinds of stuff Isonychia, Blue Quills, Hendricksons, Quill Gordons in the red/brown sizes and BWO in smaller.

If you run out of a size in light or medium-dark, going to the next lower size in the same light or medium dark often works for the same hatch, so you don't need tons of back ups in every size and color with you on the stream, and can replace them as you need to.

If you want to fish wets, instead of the dry patterns, you can tie the above wingless, or with duck quill or rolled hen/partridge/mallard/woodduck wings etc, and turn or two of soft hackle on a dry fly, wet fly, or scud hook following the same color palette. You can also tie them as emergers like a DHE (Deer Hair Emerger) pattern on a dry or light wire scud hook (like a tmc 2487).

I'd also add some EHC (Elk Hair Caddis) for rougher faster water, and to imitate your local caddis hatches and maybe double for some small stoneflies:
Body/Wing/Hackle
Tannish Olive/Brown deer hair/light Brown, Medium Ginger etc 14-16 for a lot of caddis
Black/Dark Brown deer hair/Dark Brown 10-16 (for Grannoms, Dark Blue Sedge, Black Caddis and early season small stoneflies- Early Black and Early Brown).
Cream/Elk/Pale Ginger- 12-16 for Cream caddis and Yellow Stone (sort of).
You don't need to tie them all in every size in every color but pick from the list to tie some
so you have a range of colors and sizes of the naturals to be in the ball park.

Rusty Spinner 12-20 ( split tail, dark reddish-brown wrapped quill or biot, or dubbed body, no wings and a pale dun or cream hackle wrapped 5 times or so and left "in the round". A lot of mayflies look like this in their spinner form. You can skitter it around, or cut the hackles on the stream with scissors by trimming the bottom into an upside down "v" to sit lower in the water, or trim both top and bottom to sit flush in the film. Skip some sizes if you want to tie less, but that's a good range to work within.

Hope this helps to give you some ideas...

peregrines

[Ron Eagle Elk]

I'd have to have some Baillie's Spiders with me in size 14. These flies have been fooling fish since around 1835 or so. They are still around because they are so darned effective. Here's a picture of some Baillie's Spiders.



From left to right, Black, Red and Dun

Tying instructions for Baillie's Black Spider.
Hook: Daiichi 1640 size 14 or any straight eye, 2XShort dry fly hook.
Thread: Pearsall's Brown Gossamer Silk, well waxed till almost black, or any black thread.

Catch in the thread right behind the hook eye with three turns of thread. Snip off tag end of thread. Tie in Starling body or neck feather by the stem with the tip of the feather pointing over the eye of the hook. Wrap thread in touching turns down the shank till even with the hook barb. Wrap thread 1/2 to 2/3 way back to the hook eye in touching turns and let bobbin holder hang. Take the tip of the Starling feather in your hackle pliers and wrap the feather back, in open turns, to where the bobbin holder is hanging. Secure the feather with one or two wraps of thread then advance the thread toward the hook eye in open turns. Wiggle the thread as you wrap through the hackle to avoid trapping hackle barbs. At the eye of the hook make a small neat head, whip finish and trim thread and excess hackle.

For the Baillie's Red Spider:
Substitute Pearsall's Gossamer Primrose Yellow silk, well waxed till light olive in color or use a light olive thread. Substitute a reddish brown hen hackle for the Starling. Tying sequence is the same.

For the Baillie's Dun Spider use the same thread as for the Red Spider, substitute a dun hen hackle for the red. Tying sequence is the same.

Fishing Instructions:

If allowed, use a three fly wet fly cast using one of each color, then use what ever fly the fish are hitting. These are tied on light wire hooks, so they will be in or just under the surface film.
If using one, two or three flies, cast upstream and dead drift the flies downstream. Takes while the flies are upstream tend to be somewhat subtle. As the flies move past you and drift downstream, fish them on a standard wet fly swing, until the are directly downstream of you. Takes while the flies are downstream tend to be violent and aggressive

[fly addict]

Try a quill gordon tied in a wet fly style. My Dad swears by them on the Coduras. try size 14 or 16. Copper johns work great as well, Last, consider the pheasant tail is a bead head soft hackle (14-1--deadly as a dropper off a para adams (12/14) or an EHC 12/14.

[jcfly]

While I have never fished in PA., one of my all-time favorite dries is Charlie Meck's Patriot. Since he's from PA, the fly should work there as well as it does in the Catskills.

[SonOfMartin]

Thank you for all the responses and PM's sent. I've been down for three days with a virus and am just now digging out. Have to tend to work then I can get back to important things like tying. Please keep ideas flowing, I have a great list going so far.

Thank you,

SonOfMartin

[BadKarma]

Well since peregrines already dumped on my idea of scuds, maybe a couple Wooly Buggers. Say Olive and Grey.

But I have to agree that there must be Pheasent Tail, GR Hares Ear and the Zebra Midge.

I'm looking forward to hearing how this turns out. Great idea.