Purple Craze

[ducksterman]

.....

P.S. Regarding the wine-colored PMXs for the salmonfly hatch - seems to me most of the popular and / or commercially tied adult salmonfly patterns have way too much orange in them. I like to stick to dark and medium browns with only some orange "accents" for those flies which is much closer to the natural - "accents" as in the orange thread, a bit of orange in the body ( as in a furled extended body ) and the MFC speckled orange centipede legs.

Amen!........

[pittendrigh]

Fly fishing is situational. Don't you have to define the situation?
If there is a size 16 PMD hatch going on and the fish are keyed in on it, good luck with a purple fly!............
Make any sense?

This makes perfect sense, if (and only if) you un-questioningly accept the basic axioms of match-the-hatch doctrine. I'm beginning to doubt it more all the time. Size does matter. But if you have the right size and profile, color doesn't always. I need to get some spring creek time this summer, during PMD time. I can't make any PMD claims because I haven't tested it yet.

But I have tested this two April's in a row during BWO time, and last fall when the BWOs were going. When BWOs are on the water and fish are dimpling every where you look, soft hackle wet flies will (alas) out perform dry flies of any kind. The truly surprising part for me, is that small soft hackles with neon Edge Bright bodies seem to catch the most fish of all--better than more realistically-colored gray ones. Go to a bigger wet fly (no matter what the color) and you nearly get skunked.

Medium sized white jig-head streamers were wacking them last fall, on the Missouri every morning, right up until the BWOs started show at noon to 2:00pm or so. After that you couldn't buy a fish on the streamer. A big October Caddis used as a bobber, indicating for a hot-pink #18 soft hackle with a tiny bead head, wacked'em silly. The two or maaaaybe three fish that took the October Caddis tended to be bigger browns. On the soft hackle it was 98% rainbows.

addendum: There is a dark side to the purist-traditionalist way. Hey nay oh way. If you are a loyal believer, then won't tend to be an experimentalist. You won't encounter to new information, because you never looked for it. I tend to be the extreme opposite of the traditionalist. I'm sure there's a dark side to that path too.

[Byron haugh]

Pitt,,
Which pattern would have the better chance of success during a PMD hatch: My poorly tied fly below or the Purple Haze?

Now, as I've said, I might feel differently during a BWO hatch. In that case, an olive dubbed fly when wet will tend to darken up to the point that there might not be a significant difference between it and the Purple Haze.........

What do you think?

[John Rhoades]

What time of year are you fishing the Adams? I don't fish the purple stuff in midsummer on floats, and I think an Adams would do a better job of suggesting a fluttering caddis in the late evening. I frequently find that once September rolls around, the dry fly bite goes off like someone threw a switch, sometime between 4 and 5.

We used to fish #18 Para Adams are our main fall BWO, but with the rise of purple stuff we don't use them as much anymore. The Hi-Viz Para Gray Baetis has a slightly lighter gray body than an Adams and a dun hackle, so to us it looks more like the real bugs, plus that bright orange post is easy for clients to see.

I definitely suggest getting some of the spandex. It is great, great stuff. Make sure to wrap it under tension, and if you do it is quite durable as well as easier to work with than biots. Spanflex is the most common brand, but they don't make it in purple. We use MFC Wonder Wrap or Hareline Life Flex, both of which are available in purple. There's a lot of other useful colors for dries or nymphs: a variety of browns, ambers, olives, etc.

Oh, and I should note that the original signature version of the Purple Haze as tied by Carlson uses the spandex. Once it started getting popular, other companies started putting out their own without his name on them, and most of those are dubbed. I have had much lower success with purple Comparaduns, Para-Wulffs, and other dubbed flies than anything tied with the spandex, though I've done well on soft hackle Lightning Bugs tied with purple tinsel as well as Craven's Purple Jujubaetis, so I think the slimness of the spandex-bodied vs dubbed flies is a key. On the flipside, a guide I know likes to use wine-colored PMXs during the Salmonfly hatch, because the purple dubbing stands out compared to all the orange flies.

You could be right on the time of year part because I'm doing most of my Yellowstone fishing from late May to the beginning of October, when we leave for PA, and am not fishing a Parachute Adams anyway as much in September as I am in July, for example, that's for sure. I agree that the dry fly bite goes off in September by 4-5 o'clock (more often than not) -- of course it's pretty much dark by 5pm anyway and/or freezing cold, isn't it, on into September.

I think you're also right on the ribbing effect of the spandex being part of the reason this material does as good as it does. I often seem to have better luck with a ribbed fly versus a non ribber one - even if the traditional pattern does not call for ribbing.

[herefishy]

We keep talking about dry flies and emergers, what about the subsurface like Kelly's fly? I would think the deeper you get the more the purple would be effective. Like a purple PTN? I have fished purple princes and done well with them, but they had to have black wings rather than white - go figure. Next I think I'll try a purple hare's ear.

[pittendrigh]

RE> "Which pattern would have the better chance of success during a PMD hatch: My poorly tied fly below or the Purple Haze?"

Yours probably. I have a hunch the PMD hatch is different. But you never really know 'til you try. That is a very nice looking fly.
Old habits are hard to break, even for extremists like me. I spent sooo many days working for tips on Nelson's, DePuy's and Armstrong spring creek, dutifully trying to keep it real. Even then I was a firm believer in the "change pattern if they refuse" theory. That's what I was taught by all the other guides. But we always switched between various profiles, while still trying to keep size and color the same. When I was guiding the spring creeks in the '90s none of us were fishing with bright bodied flies. By the way, have you read John Mingo's "Fly Fishing the Montana Spring Creeks" book. He discusses the "change pattern" idea at length. Without ever committing to it one way or another.

Anyway, it is odd about the BWO hatch. On the Gallatin last two Springs I've been fishing two wet flies: one natural and one neon bright. And switching positions too--bright one on the dropper, bright one on the point. And at Spring BWO time the bright one's been winning. Regardless position.

On the Missouri in the fall you need a bobber, which for me has been an October Caddis. In near gale force winds, fishing from a moving boat, you can't keep track of two bobberless wet flies the way you can on a calm cloudy day wading the Gallatin in April. So last fall I fished a little of both. A generic gray soft hackle below the big caddis, and then a bright red one. I can't honestly say I noticed a difference between the two. But it's not easy to draw conclusions in extreme conditions like that. We did catch a lot of fish. If you could make a cast (which wasn't easy) there were thousands of dimpling fish in mid November.

I'd like to try fishing traditional PMD Sparkle Duns with extra extra bright yellow bodies. That experiment will happen this summer.

Ah. Another time extra extra bright seems to help is the Mother's Day Caddis Hatch. You have to use a bobber fly then too. Perhaps "have to" is a bit strong. But there are so many flies on the water you get dizzy. You lose focus. The water looks like a seething hallucination at times. A naturally colored and naturally sized fly simply disappears into the chaos. Lots of fishermen don't try to keep track visually. They swing wet flies across and down and set the hook when the line tugs.

Others run a realistic dry fly or wet fly off the bend of a big #12 Royal Wulff, and set the hook when the seething water dimples behind the big fly.
I do a little of both. But bright bright wet flies seem to work best, whether you're swinging them or casting upstream behind a bobber.

[Byron haugh]

Pitt:
Let's say you're being guided on a float on the Henry's fork below warm river. All of a sudden, the river is boiling with fish taking PMD's. You've been using a small pheasant tail nymph. The guide says "time to change flies". He takes your line and puts on an Adams. Say anything, or start casting it??

Please don't say " I wouldn't be using a guide". I wouldn't either, but go with it.

I think I would ask him to try this one instead:






View from the bottom:

[Bucky]

All I know is that the purple haze was one of my go to patterns the last couple years in Utah. It would consistently catch fish, in a hatch or no.

[Byron haugh]

Where do you fish in Utah? I lived there for a few years. Used to drive up to Yellowstone area. Did fish the Ogden, weber, Logan, south fork, and blacksmith fork and, of course, the Green

[Fly Goddess]

I have been fishing purple for many, many years. Not sure why it works but it does. #22 Purple Pupa and #16 - #18 Purple Quigley's Cripple. Give them a try. Also a #16 Klinkhammer.