Little Gray Nymph

[flytyerinpa]

Looking for some help, I live in Pa. and cant walk the streams any more, so I started fishing lakes, from what I understand lake fly's and stream fly's are different. So I fish with this guy, he's has his quirks, so most of this year he has been killing the trout last time we fished he had hits or fish on almost every cast. On the way home I asked he what the hell he was using, all he said was a small maybe #18 gray nymph, now I'm not the smartest but I know there are loads of gray colors light, med, dark, and all the mixed in colors gray brown, blue gray, on and on. When I fish a nymph I was tough to fish it on the bottom, as soon as his fly hits the water he starts his retrieve. The fish were raising so I'm thinking maybe they were taking emerges . Its almost like a game to him taunting people, I would never ask him what he was using during the time we are fishing, but when he asks me I not only tell him I give he one of the fly's I'm catching fish on, not that happens very often. My question is does anybody have any idea about what fly he is using ( small gray nymph that lives in lakes )

[okflyfisher]

My guess would be callibaetis which are sized from 14 to 16 lean toward gray but there should be some local experts

[ScottP]

I'd try

1. A hare's ear nymph
2. A hare's ear softhackle
3. A new fishing partner (I had one with quirks, too; wasn't worth the agitation)

Regards,
Scott

[NJTroutbum]

My guess would be one of two things. A #18 Grey Midge or a Grey Cressbug/Scud pattern. Here are two examples for PA waters. Tie the Cress pattern in natural Hares ear.

https://youtu.be/sY6WVDvTglE

https://youtu.be/xlUgTa38lfs

[Silver Creek]

1. Are you keeping any fish? Check the stomach contents.

2. Just catch one fish and sample the throat with a stomach pump.

Before anyone gets up in arms, I posted about stomach pumps on another BB and the following post is addressing the issue that stomach pumps kill fish. Most of the readers of my post do not know that FAOL has an article on Stomach pumps.

http://flyanglersonline.com/articles/ldy/ldy9798.php

Here is my post:

The solution is the proper use of a stomach pump, more properly called a throat pump.

Secondly, before anyone posts that we are taking food out of the fish or that stomach pumps kill fish, allow me to provide a few facts.

First to the argument that we are taking food out of the fish and robbing it of energy. The fact is that the fish uses up more of its store of energy during the fight to escape us than we take by sampling its throat. The argument that we are "robbing" the fish of food and energy is a hollow argument when made by a fly fisher whose goal is to hook a fish and fight it until it can resist no longer.

As to the argument that stomach pumps kill fish, stomach pumps have been scientifically studied and they have very low mortality. Certainly catching the fish places the fish at greater risk than a stomach pump and much greater risk than doing a shocking survey on fish. I strongly believe they are less stressful that the grip and grin photos we all take from time to time.

"Strange and Kennedy (1981) assessed the survival of salmonids subjected to stomach flushing and found no difference between stomach-flushed fish and control fish that were held for 3 to 5 nights."

Stomach pump article:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/vi...%20Contents%22

In the article above, the goal was to remove stomach contents. The goal of a fly fisher is to remove the throat contents which are the last few items eaten. Throat sampling is less invasive than stomach sampling.

The New Fly Fisher - Tip #28: Throat Pumps - YouTube

Tom Rosenbauer talked about stomach pumps on a podcast. I was able to track it down.

Go to the URL below for Tom's Ten Tips for Identifying and Matching the Hatch

http://hw.libsyn.com/p/b/8/9/b89c2a2...&l_mid=2597234

Tom starts discussing stomach pumps at about 20:58 into the podcast. He says, ""I'm not so sure how safe that is for trout. ?? I don't think there have been any studies done on mortality of fish that have had their stomach pumped. Probably most of them survive but you never know?.."

I have corresponded with Tom Rosenbauer after he made those comments and I sent the research on stomach pumps to him. In his podcasts since then he endorses stomach pumps and in this last podcast (8/15/14 on Steelhead), in the fly box section, he talks about his findings when stomach pumping trout. So Rosenbauer is on board with stomach pumps.

Carl Richards and Doug Swisher of Selective Trout fame used stomach pumps to gain the knowledge to write that book. Carl Richards wrote the chapter titled What Trout Eat in the The Complete Guide to Fishing with a Fly Rod published by Fly Fisherman Magazine, ISBN: 0-87165-013-4. The stomach pump is given over 3/4ths of a page coverage in picture and text on page 46. I quote from the text, "If fish are feeding underwater, two methods can be used to discover what they are feeding on. The best way is to catch a fish (usually one dummy can be taken using an attractor, fished wet, such as a Coachman) and pump his stomach with a simple stomach pump." From the caption for the pictures, "Above, a stomach designed for trout is an effective way of discovering what the fish are feeding on without harming it."

More recently, Brian Chan has also recommended "stomach" pumps as a method of safe sampling. As a Senior Fisheries Biologist, he is probably aware of the above scientific article from reviews in Fisheries Science.

Ruby Mountain Fly Fishers: Throat Pumping Trout

This is the method that I use:

Fill the pump completely water and then push out 1/2 of the water by compressing the bulb. Insert the tube gently into the throat and release the bulb so the remaining 1/2 of the bulb re-expands sucking up the food into the plastic stem. If nothing comes out, then without pulling out the tube, compress the bulb gently push in some of the water and then suck it back but don't suck material back into the bulb. Now release the trout.

The material in the tube should come out in the order that the fish ate it with the last item out being the one the fish ate last. You should not have the items into the bulb or else they will get mixed up and you won't know for sure what was eaten last. If you did suck material into the bulb, examine the food and the freshest item was probably eaten last.

I rarely pump now since I usually know what the fish are eating. However, for the beginning fly fisher it is a wonderful educational tool. A portable sampling net and the stomach pump forms the two best methods of learning what the fish are eating.

The best way IMHO to sample a fish with stomach pump is first to net the fish, no matter what it's size. Then before even taking off the hook, keep it in the net and in the water. Turn the fish upside down. This is almost always disorients the fish and keeps it from struggling. Quickly sample the fish, then drop the pump into the net, remove the hook and release the fish.

You can then examine the sample after releasing the fish. This method is the least traumatic and I have found it to be the fastest way to release the fish. It rarely takes significantly longer than most people take to just remove the hook and release the fish. It is better than lifting the fish out of the water.

Like many techniques in fly fishing, I believe using a stomach pump is what could be termed a fairness issue. Some fly fishers feel that nymphing is somehow unfair, and some nymphers think nymphing with strike indicators is less fair than fishing without. The Dry Fly vs Nymphing ethical argument originated with Halford and Skues and in some circles that argument continues to this day.

Halford and Skues: "This Chalkstream Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us" | MidCurrent

So if you don't want to use a stomach pump, don't. But research has shown that stomach pumps are not a resource issue.

The experienced fly fisher has little need to throat pump a fish. But for a beginner, I think it is a valuable learning tool that does not harm the resource.

A throat pump is especially valuable when used in the context of fishing emergers. Emergers can be a difficult for beginners to sort out and a throat pump is one of the best tools in figuring out what is actually happening. Hence my suggestion that a throat pump is a valuable tool to study emergence.

Truth be told, the greatest threat to a trout is the most effective fly fisher because they catch the most fish. Studies have shown that hooking mortality even with barbless hooks is 3.5 - 4%. We inadvertently kill 1 of every 25 fish we catch. Catch and release 1000 fish in a season and you have killed 40 fish. I have had 50 fish days on the San Juan and two trout probably died.

This site is dedicated to educating fly fishers on how to catch more and more fish, but we do not consider this an ethical issue. Fly fishers, and I include myself, tend to forget that even C&R fishing with a fly is a blood sport.

The reality is that as we become more adept at catching fish, more fish will die regardless of how careful we are.

[flytyerinpa]

No I don't keep any fish just fish for the fun of it.

[whatfly]

First and a bit off topic, Silver Creek, I admire your encyclopedic posts greatly, although this one sounds like a repost (and yes, have heard the complaints about the stomach pump, so much so I only use it sparingly myself).

flytyerinpa: Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing what your fishing partner is using, unless you can post an image of said fly. There are any number of types of food that are grey and found in stillwater, and okflyfisher along with NJTroutbum have hit the usual suspects (mayfly, chironimid, scud, cress bug) and I suppose one could add caddis to the list too (not sure if these are as prevalent in PA lakes as western stillwaters). Size 18 sounds a bit too small for callibaetis, but you never know and could just as easily be another mayfly. There are any number of patterns your could try from scud patterns to the Miracle Midge to the Muskrat Nymph, and beyond. You said he was fishing this with rising fish, but you did specify the type of rise form and if there was a hatch. Splashy rises usually means caddis. Less energetic but noticeable rises means mayfly either duns or emergers. Very light rises often denotes spinner takes. ScottP's recommendations are good ones because those patterns would cover all these situations. I might add to the list a WD40 in grey, which sort of looks like a mayfly, but is basically a midge pattern and is easy to tie i smaller sizes. You could also seine the water to see what's around, if you forego the stomach pump.

A final possible solution is to steal his fly box the next time he's not looking...

[John_N]

I don't fish lakes a lot, but when I have, it seems like the movement/retrieve that you mention is more important than the specifics of the fly itself. Keeping the nymph at or near the bottom is more critical in moving water where the fish have to hang there for the cushion it provides from current, but that dynamic doesn't exist in still water obviously. I would try a soft hackle in a gray-ish color, roughly that size, though I doubt it has to be exactly an 18 either, and then experiment with different speed and cadence retrieves. You should be able to look over at your friend and get a pretty good idea of how he's retrieving the fly - if he's catching fish, I suspect that would be more valuable to copy than the exact fly in question.

[DaleW]

There was a friend who use to tie small nymphs, especially for ponds and small lakes. He called it a "bottle brush". It was tied with tan thread and rabbit hair. He used a size 16 hook for a copper bead, and, if no bead head, used a size 18 hook

[idlerick]

I can't believe you're still associating with the guy. He's unbelievable!