Wolfgang wrote:

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
...

And I'm guessing that Wolfgang's Pass Lake in large sizes would work.
(And I plan to find out if I can ever get some time on the water.)

Somewhere in the stacks (well, "heaps," to be more precise.....but you know
what I mean) I have a pattern book which includes the Pass Lake tied as a
streamer, and I seem to recall (though this is by no means certain) that I
once encountered a reference stating that this was its original incarnation.
The swept back hackle and trude style hair-wing lend credence to this
theory.

IIRC, when I first saw mention of the fly (probably from your own
posts here on ROFF), I did a little research on it and found examples of
it tied and fished as a streamer. For my purposes, I've tied a few
modeled after the one you gave me, plus a couple a bit closer to the
Trude style with heavily wrapped hackle.

I tied some as streamers many years ago but never did well with them.
However, this was generally the case with most of the multitude of patterns
I fished in those days, even proven standards, due largely, I suppose, to
the fact that if they didn't produce immediately I kept changing flies till
something did.

That sounds familiar. Ironically, these days, if anything, I tend
to stay with a fly too *long*. :-)

And for those who are wondering about the Pass Lake -- Wolfgang gave
me one (what was it ... about a #14?) shortly after he arrived in the
Smokies, and it was responsible for the biggest fish I caught in the
whole trip, plus several smaller fish (and one LDR the next day that may
have been even larger than the big one I landed).

And all while sulphurs and yellow sallies were in the air. I still
don't understand how a black chenille-bodied, white calftail-winged,
brown-hackled fly can pass itself off as a yellow-bodied may or
stonefly, but I stopped questioning it after the first couple of
strikes. :-)

Ah, so you've been using those, too? I don't know what the fish take
them for, but I've had good luck catching Guadalupe bass down here on
them. When fishing rivers I make a normal upstream cast and then let them
swing downstream from me before retrieving. I probably get almost as many
hits on the swing as on the drift.

As we discussed down in N.C., this technique is sometimes amazingly
effective, especially with the Pass Lake and, to an even greater extent,
with the EHC.

Exactly. And then there's the old tried-and-true method of just
dangling the fly in the water and dragging it behind you as you walk
upstream. :-)

Wolfgang
by the way, a new text in Nahuatl showed up in PG yesterday.

Whaaa?! I need more info, please.


Chuck Vance (hey, these things don't happen every day)