I’m not trying to drag the controversy regarding the use of strike indicators over to the fly tying board but I’d like to see if you all could help me out.
I’ve fished with those football shaped indicators on a few occasion after friends have raved about how good they are. I personally haven’t had much luck with them but I did notice an interesting phenomenon while using them. I had more fish hit the indicator than the nymph I was trolling with. Now for the rest of the story, sometime in the past year I saw a pattern on the WEB for tying a fly that looked remarkably like one of those football shaped indicators. Problem is I don’t remember where. Anyone else seen this, heard of it, or have any info regarding it?
If not, what other fly patterns do you like or recommend as an indicator?
Thanks in advance.
Joe B
SW Ohio
“I grew up in PA, I work in Ohio. My heart still belongs to PA.”
Hi alra195,
First, any parachute dry fly will work for a indicater fly. Insted of using white for the wing try using bright orange or yellow. If you still want to fish a nymph tye one on as a dropper fly. I use about 14" of mono or floro tied on the hook bend, so the dropper fly still makes it deep enough. If you don’t like the dropper fly / dry fly idea,and just want to use a indicator, I use Bio-Strike from the loon company. Both of these ideas work good for me. You will still have the fish strike at the bio-strike but you can adjust the amount you use, and it’s reusable and environment safe.
alra195,
I’m not familiar with what you are asking about, but I guess you could use an egg fly and grease it up with floatant. I like using a Stimulator as an indicator because it floats well and is easy to see. You can add poly yarn as an overwing in the color that you can see best on the water. The fish don’t seem to mind.
Joe
I had more fish hit the indicator than the nymph I was trolling with
alra195, trolling is not the best technique to use with this setup
You can use an orange/yellow bomber, as in Atlantic Salmon style, either with deer hair or foam and it is very, very good.
Naturally, a foam hopper like a club sandwitch would be great too. And google “bung fly” for links and images to UK indicator fly patterns. Indicators are banned in competition so anglers simply use these indicators on a hook.
FlyTyer magazine recently had an atricle on making a bluegill popper style fly from foam strike indicators, look in the ‘Fishy’s Flys’ section. It was a simply popper using the foam football as the body and some webby hen saddle feathers as a tail.
I am currently tying ‘indicator’ flies to re-stock my fly boxes and here is a list of patterns that I commonly use…
size 12 parachute adams (by the dozens)
chernobal ant
foam hopper, cricket or cicada patterns
foam sailor ants in size 10 thru 12
large royal coachman, trude style wings
large PMX (parachute madam X) sixe 10-14
I ike using flies for the reason you mentioned, sometime those silly trout try to eat the indicator! The only down side is that I need to re-tie a leader to adjust depth when using a fly, with an indicator I can just slide it up or down. I find as my eyes get older I prefer indicator flies with large white parachute wings.
When I read your post I had to laugh out loud! My friend who owns a fly shop and is a river guide told me that he had so many fish hitting his football indicator that he went home and glued a fly hook in the indicator and has never had one hit it again!! Go figure!
Just take a size 14 or 12 dry fly hook and wrap a sticky pinch float around the shank.
They come in flo orange flo green and white.
You could color the white ones with markers. The possibilities are endless, Oh I almost forgot don’t forget to smash the barb and throw away all those other flies you won’t need anymore! LOL
“A smart man learns from his mistakes,
A wise man learns from others”
Thanks all for the responses (even the tongue in cheek ones!) I think I?ll tie some stimulators for those rare occasions I?m going to try fishing with an indicator. I cut my teeth on nymphing without an indicator and just can?t seem to make the adjustment to fishing with one. Like I said in the original post, I had more fish hit the indicator than my drifting nymph. Thanks again for the helpful suggestions.
Joe B
SW Ohio
“I grew up in PA, I work in Ohio. My heart still belongs to PA.”
Best dry fly for me last year was foam-backed Convertible (check out Fly Of the Week 3rd quarter 2005). Only difference I made was to add a strip of 2mm foam (try and match color of dubbing as close as possible). The fly was unsinkable, even after taking a number of fish - it did great job as an indicator, too. No reason you couldn’t mod a Stimulator, too - Charlie Craven has one of these on his website (http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox)
