Leach patterns are quite popular in Alaska for Cohos etc.
Why are they not equally popular in the more temperate climes for things like Stripers and Blues?
You mean HOTTT climates. They work great in the NW!
I use em all the time for bluegills, crappie, and everything else warmwater around here.
I guess it depends on what the fish are feeding on, especially in saltwater. That being said, they are my number one early spring pattern for all my warmwater fishing and a fair bit of trout fishing as well.
Jim Smith
I consider a leech pattern my ‘go to’ fly for 90% of my fishing, including both fresh and saltwater.
Bass (largemouth, samllmouth, spotted, and striped), pike, panfish, carp, walleyes, tuna, croaker, sand bass, corvina, bonito, roosterfish, dolphin (dorrado), barracuda (plus a plethora of odd saltwater fish I didn’t take the time to identify), one confused baby sailfish, and trout too, have all responded well to my ‘leeches’.
If they aren’t ‘popular’, I have no clue what fly is, at least with the fish. I find they work as well as, or better than, a clouser in most situations.
If other fishermen don’t ‘use’ them more, that’s just fine with me…
Buddy
Furled tail leach, boa leach and a buny fur leach are always in my fly box for bluegill, bass and carp. Tied froom a #14 up to a #8.
One of my favorite clam worm patterns for stripers is just a marabou leach pattern tied bright, orange, red, or yellow.
Quick and easy to tie and spit out a lot of numbers.
I grew up fishing farm ponds in Mississippi and never encountered a live leach until I moved to Georgia. Every farm in MS had at least one pond from a fraction of an acre up to several acres, I think its the law. They are mostly not fed from creeks but from runoff from the surrounding watershed, so no leeches. I think most of us “match the hatch” of whatever the fish in a body of water are eating so I never fished leech patterns or plastic leeches until I moved.
Leech patterns are one of my “go-to” patterns that I always make sure I tie up and carry with me for all my fishing whether warmwater or coldwater. They can be tied in many different colors to represent just about everything. The leech yarn has a lot of “movement” which I feel is one of the “trigger” qualities of the pattern. I cannot say that my warmwater/coldwater fish are “hitting” them because they think they are a leech or not because I feel the pattern does a great job of representing a hellgrammite too.
I find alot of times there are local patterns that people fish alot, and many people don’t think outside that box much. That’s really changing with the advent of this thing called the internet though. 
Here’s the ‘deal’ with ‘leech’ patterns.
Most of them, and certainly the one I use, don’t look anything like a real leech. They get called that, but that’s not what they are if you are looking at what they ‘imitate’.
They don’t really imitate ANYTHING. They don’t need to. They just look like something a fish would want to eat.
Folks need to get past the ‘what does the fish think they are’ stuff. Fish don’t think. They react to stimuli. That’s it.
A good ‘leech pattern’ has lots of attributes that ‘stimulate’, thus they catch fish. ANY fish, which is kind of the point. I’ve never flyfished ANYWHERE in the world where a ‘leech pattern’ didn’t produce fish. And, I’ve NEVER, in my whole life, seen a leech in the wild.
If you don’t fish with them, well, that’s up to you.
They work well, though, and since I like to catch fish, I use them often (oaky, I use them almost without fail unless I’ve fishing a specific method that precludes their use, like topwater bass fishing).
Buddy
…I don’t necessarily disagree. But I do have a good story.
Two seasons back my wife caught the fish of year (damn it): a measured 21" extra-extra-fat rainbow. Probably a male
because it did not have that petite little mouth. She was using my rod, with a 3" long black leech, tied on a snelled hook.
I dropped the anchor in the XXX River and netted the fish (and photographed it and measured it and cussed).
While I was twisting the hook out of its mouth that fish regurgitated (puked) a live, wriggling, 5" long dark brown leech.
So he was on the leech feed. Ate one. Burped. Tried to eat another. 'Cept he got Shanghai’ed by an evil, pale-faced humanoid.
This is a blurry photo, but it’s likely the only example of a Leech tied onto a snelled hook you ever saw.
…it is for me. I tie a lot and I ainnever seen this before. And it sure is a good fly (the one my wife used did not have
the orange dot up front)
I’ve seen leeches swimming while in my float tube. And while alot of leech patterns don’t imitate them exactly, depending on the action imparted to the retrieve, they can be made to resemble them. They swim with a rippling motion, and leech patterns with 2 distinct materials with differing actions are the closest. Like a mohair/marabou, plume/marabou, hackle/marabou…etc. All that I have seen were a deep maroon in color with a black or very dark maroon tinge.
One of my best patterns for freshwater Stripers, and big bass is a Zonker Leech. I’m in Tennessee.
If you’d like to see and experience leeches what you can do is bait them. Next time your at your favorite fishin’ spot bring along a raw egg. Give the egg a little crack and put it in the water with the shell intact. Put it in a net or something similar for a while. Overnight would be great. You will find leeches!
I always thought the Woolly Bugger, in black or a red brown color was a perfect match as far as a fly goes.
When you let the egg-suckers go make sure you note how they get about. That’s the presentation key.
If you’d like to see and experience leeches what you can do is bait them. Next time your at your favorite fishin’ spot bring along a raw egg. Give the egg a little crack and put it in the water with the shell intact. Put it in a net or something similar for a while. Overnight would be great. You will find leeches!
I always thought the Woolly Bugger, in black or a red brown color was a perfect match as far as a fly goes.
When you let the egg-suckers go make sure you note how they get about. That’s the presentation key.
What hairwing said. If you can’t do the overnight, at least crack your egg in low light or dark. This is easier done in still water as opposed to moving.