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Anyone have experience either fishing using Water Boatmen or tying them.
Yesterday I observed some water boatmen activity and had never seen it before…was able to have some success with a prince nymph…then came home and researched them a little…did the google thing and checked my Philip Rowley book and have searched this site…so am somewhat up to speed… but I’m wondering if any of you have had experience and have more to offer…in the way of fishing techniques or tying water boatmen???
Incidentally I’m thinking a little variation may be to tie the biots on the prince nymph along the under surface on the body instead of on top to mimic the air bubble sheen that is talked about…
Try taking a clear plastic bubble, coat half of it with black paint and put that on a hook. You have to slide them over the hook eye. The bubble is more oval than round. I put a couple of legs on the front with some dubbing to hold the bubble on the hook.
I found some a few years ago that were black on one half and silver on the other half. They worked great in the ponds in Colorado.
Now… If I could remember where I found them. I don’t even have the tags for the packages, plus, I’ve lost all the flys or they were destroyed by fish…
I brought one home once and put it in the sink to watch. I think the body silhouette and is important to match, but what really stuck out was those legs kicking to get itself around, it was like it was on speed or something, it’d swim around like a madman. So I’d go with thin rubber legs to get more movement ut of them, lots of choices for the body, but I think foam would be great then use split shot if you wanted to get it down. Then twitch the bejesus out of it.
The patern I use has a pale wool body with a back shell of pheasant tail fibers with a couple of fibres left sticking out to the side, sloping back from the eye as far as the bend. They are deadly in back waters or on lakes. I normaly cast it ahead of the patroling trout and just let it sink. If it lands a couple to three feet in front of the trout it will normaly hit it on the sink. You can also fish it blind iether sink and draw or in fastish strips.
All the best.
Mike. 8)