I was reading a mid '70’s issue of Fly Fisherman magazine a few weeks ago and ran across an article by Art Lee which discussed fishing streamers in the middle of a hatch.
Wondering how many of you have used this tactic, and what kind of results you have had ??
I’ve done it maybe 2 or 3 times, after I felt I caught enough fish on dries to try something else. I did so after a buddy told me about the technique. I fished the streamers very high in the water column to simulate a minnow feeding on the same flies that the trout were feeding on. Not enough sucess to do it again, but I thought it was a worthwhile idea.
Now swinging soft hackles during the same time can be magic.
When I fish the White Fly hatch on the Susquehanna and the bass decide to make me feel like an idiot by refusing my dries; I will often times switch to a LARGE streamer trying to simulate minnows or other small fish slashing after the duns or spinners…
…it WORKS!
BTW - Art Lee was one of my fishing heroes as a kid and I adopted his bandanna around the neck as a tribute!
I read about this in a book one time, and I can’t remember what book it was, but it said to do this. The theory is that you won’t catch what’s dining on the hatch, but what’s dining on what’s dining on the hatch.
Hi,
Not quite drifting a streamer, but I’ve found that after my deer hair caddis dries were slimed beyond recovery during a caddis hatch that swinging an Invicta wet fly would continue to produce the goods! I would also suggest soft hackles through the rise as well.