RE> "Silver Creek's good stuff above"
All of that is interesting indeed. But I may have a different take on refusals. We all know innocent fish will bite almost anything. I've seen that played out with everything from wilderness trout to bonefish in the bahamas (the closer to the lodge you are the harder those bonefish are to catch).
On Montana's various Paradise Valley spring creeks I've seen (many times) trout refusing natural mayflies. That tells you something. Those same fish will pile up into the eddy behind your legs as you wade the creek. So they're spooky and nervous from being caught too many times. But not smart enough to figure out the human waders have anything to do with it. Leaders and oversized or over-dressed flies do make them nervous. But so does the real thing at times.
There was a period (now long gone) when there was an over-grown willow bank stretch at the upper end of DePuys Spring Creek (below O'Hairs) where not many fishermen ever got to (there is now a path). In those days the fish in that stretch were wilder. They were much harder to approach, which meant they were nervous about any disturbance or foreign noises in the water. But far easier to catch, if you managed to get into the water without disturbing them. So my point is a bit ambiguous: wild fish will eat almost anything. Picky, well-pounded fish are indeed harder to catch. But it's not clear how much a better looking pattern really makes--because they have been observed refusing naturals. They're just nervous. About everything.
......still blabbering....
We are fly tiers. We try as best we can to imitate the real thing. And a well-tied Sparkle Dun will catch many more fish than a Royal Wulff during a PMD hatch. But so will a bunch of other pattern shapes too. I think size and color matter most of all. Plus a natural drift, a quiet cast and a sunken leader. Beyond that I'm not so sure where edges of effectiveness are. I'm still not convinced they ever see much more than a fuzzy dimple.
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