Went out over lunch today and ended up catching 5 total. Took me a good 30 minutes to figure out what they were looking for. Turns out, the fly itself didn’t really matter the retrieve, however, was very critical.
The first one was on a nice easy hand twist retrieve, so I thought slow. I tried to keep it slow and would see them swim up to the fly, follow for about a foot and dash off. Figgured it was too fast still, so I slowed it down more. Same results. Changed from a white crappie candy variant to a faux bead head hairs ear and caught another one. Figured I had 'em now, they had just wanted more of a ‘bug’ than a ‘minnow’ pattern. No more on that one. Tried a black wooly bugger and got the same results. It would not sink more than a foot in the water column though, so I thought maybe I was too shallow. Switched to a green bodied wooly bugger with black tail and brown hackle. It was sinking deeper and I was seeing them follow again so I thought I had them.
Got frustrated after a ‘bad’ cast and was pulling it in quicker when I caught my third. I may have been retrieving slow, but I don’t think I am slow, so I took the hint. Quicker 1-2 foot strips or quicker hand-twist retrieves and I quickly caught the next two. Unfortunately it was then time to get back to work, so I had to leave. Also, unfortunately it is supposed to start raining quite hard tonight and rain through tomorrow (It is headed your way next Rick) so I doubt there will be any fishing til at least the weekend.
How are all y’all doing?
Don