On Apr 3, 5:09 pm, "Larry L" wrote:
With flies, in the film, and with dries, I feel confident saying that "a
little smaller is better than a little too big" in reference for patterns
fished to selective situation fish.
My question is this. If you are fishing a nymph deep to imitate a specific
insect, at a time that insect is active and emerging ... i.e. a "selective
nymphing" situation .... and your box is empty in the correct size ....
would you put on bigger or smaller? I don't have a lot of confidence
in my nymphing, though I usually catch some fish when I resort to it.
Your, in depth, experience can help me make decisions with more faith, and,
right now, decide which end of the size spectrum to emphasize as I stock
boxes for the season. Thanks.
A lot depends on where you are fishing, the prevalent insects, and how
you are fishing. Usually, as other posters remarked, nymphs are larger
and sometimes darker just before they hatch.
Many people rely almost entirely on generic nymph patterns for
mayflies and indeed other nymphs, things like Pheasant tail nymphs,
hares earīs and similar stuff, and this works quite well, but more
specific patterns tend to work better. In some cases, very much
smaller nymphs may be successful. Personally I never go below a size
18, as I dont like fishing very small flies. On occasion, fish are
fixated on very small stuff like chironomid pupae and similar. In such
cases a very small imitation may work very much better than a large
one.
Here is some general info;
http://www.first-nature.com/insects/...is_rhodani.htm
Nymph shown here;
http://fdf.flies.tripod.com/sitebuil...odaninymph.jpg
Here are a few more images;
http://images.google.com/images?q=ba...-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Or the BWO Blue winged olive;
http://www.ifly4trout.com/hatches_in...eal_baetis.htm
You really need to know which insects you have where you are fishing,
how they behave, and tailor your artificial accordingly.
TL
MC