Now, I know that opinions are like…well, we all know what opinions are like. But it seems to me that an emerger pattern is one that intends to mimic/represent an aquatic insect leaving the nymphal shuck to become an adult insect.
This pattern, though, does not try to represent “an quatic insect leaving the nymphal shuck to become an adult insect.”
To the best of my knowledge, it’s representing an insect (grass hopper) that by accident or intention wound up in the water and has started to break through the surface film.
Am I being too literal, here, or would ya’ll agree that calling it an emerger pattern is wrong ?
[This message has been edited by MikeZRed (edited 20 April 2006).]
Uhm, I’m not sure I follow that, completely, Mr. Castwell.
I mean, I understand what you’re saying about Joe, but are you saying that the pattern isn’t really an emerger? or that I am mistaken and it really is an emerger ?
I should add, though, that I liked the pattern he had for the evening. It was an extremely simple hopper pattern that ‘spits’ as you retreive it. . . can’t wait to try it tonight.
I believe he is wrongly calling it an emerger because it will sit in the film the water surface rather than on top of it. He might be mistaking it for a Caddis emerger (which it is not). As they say, close, but no cigar. Well actually not that close.
I guess my tying isn’t really THAT bad, I don’t think.
In this instance, though, I made a couple bad material substitutions (ribbing blended into body), rushed the dubbing (my god that’s a long process), and made an extremely poor choice of feather for the hackle.
And the legs looked awful 'cause I have fat fingers and couldn’t get a knot tied in the pheasant tail fibers.
BUT
It looked sufficiently like the finished fly at the link above that you could tell that it’s a parachute terrestrial, not an emerger.
[This message has been edited by MikeZRed (edited 20 April 2006).]
Mike I have that same fat finger problem. I found a crochet hook works wonders for tying feathers into knots for legs and the like, (Walmart for a buck)
Who has time for stress when there are fish to catch.
Nick
Maybe he was making a subtle joke…saying without saying it that there was no way YOUR fly was going to float on the film.
Maybe he was just mistaken. I’d sure hate to think I could never talk to a fly fisherman/tier/website owner again just because they made one mistake. I would have missed a LOT of good stuff I’ve learned over the years with that attitude!
My New Year’s resolution is to have more fun…even if YOU don’t.
A hopper is not an emerger, however, I have on occasion mistakenly thought I fly was supposed to be imitating something other than what the tyer intended, particularly if it wasn’t well tied. I wouldn’t over-think the issue, we all make mistakes occasionally.
I think I’d have to agree with you, SilverMallard.
It seems I wasn’t very clear in the original post. I’m more interested in what qualifies something as an ‘emerger’, and whether or not anything that floats ‘in’ the surface film instead of ‘on’ it qualifies as an emerger.
Is a hopper not an emerger because it represents an adult insect? Or is a hopper not an emerger because of the way it sits in/on the water? Or can some hoppers, representing adult insects, be emergers, if they sit in/on the water a certain way?
Or is there a better way to define what an ‘emerger’ is than I did in the original post ?
[This message has been edited by MikeZRed (edited 20 April 2006).]
To the best of my knowledge, it’s representing an insect (grass hopper) that by accident or intention wound up in the water and has started to break through the surface film.
Isn’t a grass hopper a terrestrial (land born insect) no matter what position in the water it is in? I always thought an emerger was a aquatic insect (water born insect).
“Any meticulous attention to color or detail (in a flypattern) is wasted effort”…“The game(of nods)is played by tying a resonable facsimile of the insect being taken by the trout. Then many variations of this basic pattern are tied with only slight differances in each of them. These are in turn cast to a visible feeding trout, and his reaction noted very carefully…Each fly is cast as long as it receives a nod from the trout. When it no longer excites any nods it is discarded for a new variation”
Vincent C. Marinaro “In The Ring Of The Rise”
(1976)
I learn more about the world while talking to myself when fishing alone
[This message has been edited by Jonezee (edited 20 April 2006).]
Just because it floats below the surface film doesnt make it an emerger. Caddis emerge, may flys emerge but hoppers dont emerge. Like sombody else said the fall in.
Hi,
My gut feeling is like everyone else, that to call a hopper an “emerger” is incorrect.
However, part of me wonders if it’s an ambiguity at work here. For example, a regular hopper that floats high can rightly be described as a “dry fly”. If one designed a hopper that represented a drowned hopper, then it could be called a “wet fly”. Both could also be described as “terrestrials”. The former (dry/wet) names refer to the “style of fly” while the latter (terrestrial) refers to what the fly “represents”.
The term “emerger” could be a bit ambiguous because one could use it to describe what the fly represents (an emerging mayfly or caddis fly) or use it as a term to describe a “style of fly” (one that should float in or just below the surface film). If Joe was using the term “emerger” in this latter way, then a parachute fly, regardless of the “thing it mimics”, would probably be called an “emerger”.
Regardless, I hope the class was useful!
Jeff
[This message has been edited by JeffHamm (edited 20 April 2006).]
“You can call me Jay, you can call me Ray, but you never can call me Johnson!”…Was the punchline, from an TV Commercial (so many years ago, I forgot what product the commercial was pitching!)
Terrestrials can be “Dry” (floating on the water surface. Terrestrials can be “Wet” (beneath the water surface). Terrestrials can be “Submerged” (resting in the water surface.
I believe the person, who called the Hopper pattern, used the word “Emerger”, for lack of a better word, to describe it function and purpose. Maybe we should call all “Emerger’s”, “Submerger’s”?. This would probably define the situation better for all categories of fly by “Type” and “Use”.
~Parnelli
“All Rules are Written in Stone!” (Subject to change, due to “Extenuating” and “Mitigating” circumstances!)
[This message has been edited by Steven H. McGarthwaite (edited 20 April 2006).]