Trout poppers
I still wonder why so many fly anglers still use foam and yarn ball bobbers when nymph fishing, when you can just as easily use a foam salmon fly or foam hopper indicator..............that catches fish. Makes no sense at first glance. And at second and third glance even less sense.
OK. Some traditionalists won't use an indicator at all. I respect that attitude--although I obviously don't follow it. What I don't understand is using a pink foam bobber that does not include a hook, when you could just as easily use a fat unsinkable fly that (for me) almost always ends up catching the fish of the day.
In recent seasons I've been experimenting with ever bigger foam salmon flies, so I can fish them as a bobber for ever larger and heavier nymphs and streamers. How big is too big I began to wonder? I haven't found that answer yet.
I fished an un-named Montana river today, that still hasn't completely cleared up from spring runoff. At one point this morning I had a 2-1/2" long behemoth salmon fly in front of a long and heavily weighted black leech. And a 22" long hog fat hump shouldered mean-snouted brown took the salmon fly. Now that was a fish. He cleared the water three or four times before bulldogging down into the current, falling flat on his side like a splashing porpoise each time. I caught several other smaller fish on that fly too. The fish were on the bite today. At least until 2:00 this afternoon. And then it shut off like a light switch. But when the bite was on the giant dry fly was what they hit the most often. I caught one 15" brown that regurgitated a 4 inch leech in the net. But it was the almost three inch long salmon fly that got him to the net.
I'm going back out there again soon. And next time I'm going to fish some real bass poppers. Frog spots and all. There really is no difference between a popper and what I fished with so much success today. A made for bass popper will do just as well. I'm sure of it. And that's something you don't hear much about in the cold water context. I'm still smiling. What is a brown trout popper anyway? The (Big) Brown Bopper?
Real female salmon flies are about 1-7/8" long. The photo below is a foam salmon fly a tad less than two inches long. The fly I used today (that wacked'em big time) was bigger than natural. A good 2-1/2" long. This in a stretch of river that might have seen a smattering of flies two week ago. But no chance of one today. I've netted big browns on October on these flies too. They seldom catch the most fish (today was an odd exception). But they almost always catch the biggest one of the day.
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