"Ken Fortenberry"

It's at this point that someone always says You ain't never
fished the glass smooth, crystal clear waters of Some Creek
where the trout all have PhDs and eyes like microscopes.


As a traditional user of the "Some Creek argument" let me say,

I don't think wings are that important either, even on Some Creek 99% of the
time. BUT, most of those PHDs on SC don't eat fully emerged duns very
often, either G. When they do, I use winged patterns ... no-hackles and
thorax ties ... in deference to tradition as much as trout

Vince Marinaro was a wing man, the first to insist they were a 'key" but, if
I remember correctly, even he didn't stress color. His point, and it's a
good one, imho, is that a true dun is first visible in the trout's window
via it's wing and thus the wing serves to increase the feeding lane size and
get a trout's attention early, both. His "Modern Dry Fly Code" would be
excellent reading for anyone truly interested in the "wing question"

Generally, even a mayfly species selective fish that will eat a Dun will eat
an emerger of the same species. Emergers don't have the wings fully
upright yet and a wingless tie with poor floatation in the rear half is a
BETTER emerger imitation than a 'high floating, high winged' pattern. Add
the fact that any segment of the fly beneath the film will be visible to the
fish far sooner than parts above the surface and most times it simply
doesn't make sense to fish true dun patterns, period.

MY experience with true DUN patterns has been that a slightly 'cartooned'
wing, oversize for the hook, and darker than natural, can be effective.
However, I recently had a situation on a SC ( Silver ) fishing Tricos that
were clearly taking duns. I couldn't hook one until after I trimmed my
'cartoon' wing to natural size, then hooked several of the same fish that
had refused the same, untrimmed fly.

SO, from my perspective as one of the SC types, I think the wing can be
important on the rare occasions that duns themselves are important (i.e.
fish are selective to that stage) None of this matters if the fish are
eating whatever comes by .... an 'every ten casts' test ain't a test of
mayfly DUN patterns UNLESS they wouldn't take any caddis or midge or
attractor or even mayfly emergers during the test period ... if fish are
locked into a specific mayfly dun, THEN tests of color and winging start to
matter, but not until that very rare selective feeding occurs .. IMHO.
For dun patterns, I believe that a hackle collar is plenty 'wing' most of
the time ( hackle stacker = one hell of fine pattern ) and more solid
winging material isn't 'really' required. BUT, there IS a certain pleasure
in following fishing tradition and I enjoy fishing/tying no-hackles and
thorax duns for that reason, and wish the fish would give me reason to more
often.