I think this tends to oversimplify things, Sandy. Freestones are not all rapids, pockets, froth, white water, etc. There are typically many sections on freestone streams and rivers that are as smooth and placid as a spring creek, and clear enough to see the pebbles on the bottom through ten feet or more of crystal clear water. It is the latter kind of water that I plan to experiment on.Originally Posted by pittendrigh
John
The fish are always right.
John,
Yes, you are right. There are all kinds of conditions: the water itself(speed, volume, clarity, depth, rapids, debri, etc), how fed(spring, freestone, tailwater), water temperatures, what's in the water, on the water, in the sky, the sky itself, sun, air temperature, others. All these, to a lesser or greater extent effect how trout act or if you prefer another verb (react, respond, impulse) to natural and our offerings. Figuring out the puzzle is often quite a challenge. Have fun.
Allan
Very interesting.
On another post, I was looking for a pattern I now know to be the E.C. Caddis. Very effective for me in June.
Anyway, when I found out the name of the "author", I found his fly and a description by him. In it, he says this:
"The trailing Antron or Zelon imitates the trailing shuck and the brownish abdomen looks much like the portion of the pupal shuck with the caddis body still inside it. The bright green thorax replicates the emerging portion of the adult body. It is interesting to note that without the dual tones of the green and brown, the fly falls off noticeably in effectiveness. I am not alone in this observation, Gary LaFontaine in his classic book, CADDISFLIES, noted the same effect on several other caddis imitations. "
Seems to fit right in on this topic..........
Interesting, John... I would use two or three of those hoppers in a hurry. Black and yellow are two of my most productive colors for these types of flies!
The Green Hornet strikes again!!!
Long day ...
... fishing six different sections of river and stream and using six different color combinations, to include the five in the pix of flies for today, plus the standard FEB hopper / golden stone.
First, the allowed number of pix for one post ( 10 ) to show some of the variety of water fished and some of the fishies with the different color combinations flies stuck in their jaws.
This is basically a freestone stream and river system, and a number of the pix of the water fished show the bottom structure in six to ten feet of water. There is some disturbed surface in some of the pix, and there is some virtually still water in others. Where there is a mix of water types, most of the fishies came out of the soft water, and some came along foam lines / seams. In a couple places I did fish real pocket water and did pick up fish regardless of the color combination of the fly.
The biggest fish of the day ate the gaudiest of the flies, coming up from about eight feet to get it while it was mostly waffling slowly along on some very soft water shown in the third to last pic.
Just a quick summary. All six color combinations caught fishies. The numbers for different flies varied from a couple fishies up to ten or twelve. The difference in the numbers probably has more to do with the time of day a piece of water was fished than anything else. The earliest flies on the water caught the least fish - but they also did not draw refusals. Fishing picked as the afternoon wore on, and the last fly, another one of the really gaudy ones, caught the most fish.
With something around thirty five fish hooked and somewhere around twenty five in hand, it would be hard to distinguish today from a rather typical day fishing just the standard color combination FEB hopper / golden stone on this stream and river system.
Bottom line from my point of view - the color of the flies just didn't seem to matter. I thought the real evidence would be in which color combinations drew refusals - and none did. I will only qualify that with my usual comment that I only fish for nearsighted, color blind, dumb and starving fishies.
So this little piece of anecdotal evidence probably doesn't prove a thing. But I did have fun fishing through the experiment.
John
The fish are always right.
John, great experiment. Some years ago, i tied a pink caddis, ( pink dubbed body no wrapped hackle, a super gaudy shrimp pink zlon wing ), and i fished it on our hard hit tailwater, the one where the fish can tell who tied the fly and what hook its tied on. The only thing i did not change was the hook size for the current hatch.
By noon the old timers were no longer laughing at the color. I had attributed this to using something the fish had not seen before , using a 15 foot leader, and making d### sure there was no drag from the micro currents.
Just my opinion in what i had noted in my case. Experiment on please!
Please, support Project Healing Waters....Thank You
Water in a freestone system flows at greatly varying depths and rates. Many of the fish I catch on my home water come from many feet down and away through slow moving crystal clear water with plenty of time to look at the fly and move to take it or refuse it.
Certainly some sections of a freestone stream do present "now or never" situations for the fishy. Particularly the fast, shallow, highly structured sections. But the long, slow, deep runs are more akin to still water than pocket water.
John
The fish are always right.
Black and yellow ...
... are bluegill colors !!!
I tend to think of these flies as color variations on a golden stone pattern rather than a hopper pattern, since golden stones are a staple for the fishies on the river I was fishing, and while there are hoppers, there are not a lot of them. ( I did see a few hoppers yesterday, for the first time this year. They were small and the color was quite close to the standard color combination for the golden stone. )
Took pix of each fly yesterday before I fished it. The outdoor pix show the colors and details better.
Another thing that I forgot to mention in my report yesterday ( got to say I was bushed after driving three hours and fishing seven hours in mid 80's to low 90's temps ) was the size range of fish caught.
Most of the fish were in a 10" to 14" bracket, and all but one of those were West Slope cutthroat.
I think one of the fish in that bracket was actually a 13-14" steelhead. It is the largest pure rainbow looking trout I have landed on this river. I didn't look closely enough to see if it had any evidence of cutt hybridization but I am pretty sure it did not. That would make it an extremely rare fish in this system - it had to be a resident to be that big, and there just is no resident population of rainbows. All the rainbow looking fishies are steelhead, either very small, under 8", just starting their journey or very big, well over 20", on their return home.
The few fish over 14" were all cutts.
The fish under 10" were typically cutts with a few juvenile steelhead, down to about 5", in the mix. Some smaller fish did hit the fly, but weren't big enough to eat it and hook up.
John
The fish are always right.
What a class act your are indeed , Mr. John Scott.. keep em coming
simply love you photo reports...
I feel your enthusiasm voiced thru loud and clear,,
John,
Again, thanks for reading my article and then following it up with your own experiments. Great images and good reporting.
Some writers have suggested that trout in freestone streams might be less "picky" when it comes to color and that trout in spring creeks are harder to fool. Well, I have been fishing spring creeks extensively since 1971 and during that time I have caught some very picky spring creek trout on some pretty outlandish patterns, especially dry flies. I don't go out of my way to fish flies with wild colors, but my point is simply that color, especially on dry flies, is not one of the most important considerations. Size, shape, and behavior of the fly is more important than color. Even when the fly is wet, if it acts funny, or is at the wrong level in the water column, even if the color is spot on, your chances of success are reduced. Fish, whether trout or otherwise, eat things that act look and act like food. Your patterns that you used looked like food and I would place a bet that when you fished them you presented them so they looked like food. However, if any of my readers believes that color is very important for dry flies - may your tribe increase. It contributes to the plethora of fly patterns that are posted on FAOL.
Neil
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