Folks…what’s your favorite Stimulator’s size-color-materials combination?
I love the all-peacock with brown hackle and olive wing, on #8 size.
Waterfox
Since most of our stoneflies around here are much smaller than the western ones I prefer Stimulator’s in size #18, Bleached Elk hair wing & tail, Ginger body hackle, the classic royal body - 1/3 peacock hurl + 1/3 red floss + 1/3 peacock hurl, for the head I like orange dubbing with a slightly undersized grizzly hackle.
I’ve tried tying them on #20 hooks but it’s just too bloody hard to get everything to fit on a hook that small.
-Darryl
“If we carry purism to it’s logical conclusion, to do it right you’d have to live naked in a cave, hit your trout on the head with rocks, and eat them raw. But, so as not to violate another essential element of the fly-fishing tradition, the rocks would have to be quarried in England and cost $300 each.”
~John Gierach
Darryl, I can’t imagine a size 18 Stimulator…a size 20…that’s a virus, not a fly…
Waterfox
Size 16 and 18 are what I am using right now for the little black stones we have.
Joe Fox
I tie lots of them in size 6 and 8 with yellow body/Grizzly hackle and deer hair wing and tail, with a black thorax/Badger hackle, rubber legs. I use it a lot in the small streams up in the Cascades, and the fish seem to love them. I have been tying a fly that is a cross between the stimulator and mikulak sedge (Stimulak!). Basically a Mikulak sedge rear end with an extended thorax, front hackle and rubber legs. Seems to work too.
They are fun to tie, and fish like em too. What more could you want at the bench?
Have fun, Jeff
i tie most on a size 10 streamer hook.
All black. Size 8 and 10. Elk hair, rooster hackle, and rabbit fur dubbing. We don’t have any stoneflies that I am aware of in Florida (at least where I fish) but the Hybrid Longear bream and Warmouth love them so maybe the Stimulator suggests something else to them like a hopper or cricket perhaps.
Robert B. McCorquodale
Sebring, FL
“Flip a fly”
I still remember the morning “UP NORTH” at “THE LAKE”. The water on “THE LAKE”, was as smooth as a mirror, in the early morning light. Sitting in “MY BOAT”, I notice the little circles that appeared on the water surface, that is the first time I actually noticed the “Trico’” resting on the water surface. Where the circle were, there no longer was a “Trico”, as the Sunfish had just sucked them under the surface for Breakfast.
I had no dry fly that small, so what was I going to do? I looked into my fly box, and pick-out a size 10, Orange Stimulator. Tied the fly onto my tippet, and cast it out on the water. Then lit up a cigarette, and muttered under my breath about not having any size 20 dry flies…
Poured a cup of coffee into my cup, and then looked up to see a large hole in the lake, where my “Stimulator” had been a couple of seconds earlier.
The hole in the lake, became a vortex, sucking my boat towards it. Luckily my outboard motor started up, and kept my boat from away from the vortex, as the lake level quickly disappeared.
Then I found myself sitting in “THE BOAT”, resting on the muddy bottom of what a few minutes before, had been “THE LAKE”.
There laying on the muddy lake bottom, was this beautiful, Largemouth Bass, with the “Orange Stimulator” hooked in its mouth. The fish has swallowed all the water in “THE LAKE”, to take the "Orange Stimulator.
It took me a couple of hours to drag, my boat, back to the dock…
~Parnelli 
Nice story Parnelli…got a chuckle out of it
As for the original post…I have yet to find a stimulator pattern that hasnt worked for me in the right situation. I guess if I had to pic a favorite…it would we an orange crystal stim while fishing for cutts on the Selway and Lochsa during October Caddis hatches . The traditional orange stim also works good during this hatch.
Take care everyone and cya around. Mark
[This message has been edited by MarkKillam (edited 13 April 2006).]