"bassrecord" wrote in message ...
Squirrel sez:

Several other thoughts:

(1) Try attaching a second fly, either on a dropper or by tying tippet to
the bend of the hook of the first fly. The gang effect often seems to
inspire strikes when a single fly wouldn't.

Yep it works plus sometimes it's good for two at a time.

balance snipped for brevity

Mustad makes a special cricket hook. As I recall they are 8X longs about
size 8 or 10.

If you thread the hook through a live cricket or grass hopper the insect
passes lots of body fluids into the water which excites bluegill and bass.

If instead you tie the live cricket or grasshopper onto the cricket hook
with fly tying thread the insect will pass fluids into the water from their
mouths and abdomen which also excites the fish

If instead you tie a cricket pattern onto the cricket hook and using your
fingers crush a cricket rubbing its bodily fluids into the cricket fly and
see if it excites the fish.

If instead you tie a cricket pattern on a cricket hook and fish it without
any cricket body fluids and see how it works.

You will have conducted a meaningful fly fishing test and I personally would
really appreciate hearing about your results.

Good luck!
John

We use to fish in some very clear water and I have done something
similar. The river we fished in had bluegill ( the bluegill were in
sloughs and still water connected to the river), catfish, bass, carp
adn who knows what else ( steelhead and salmon in season). We usually
took worms, chicken livers, grasshoppers or whatever bugs we could
catch.
The bluegill were hard to catch on worms as they robbed hooks with
ease. The way I caugth them was to use a # 8 or 10 McGinty with worm
"juice" on it. The chenelle body held a lot of "juice" and a juiced
fly outfished a plane one by at least 5 to 1. It outfished plain
worms by at least the same. They hit the fly and didn't let go.
I haven't tried this for 25 years but I'm sure it would still work. I
have seen flavoring sprays in the tackle shops for spraying on lures
but am not inclined to try them.
I have not found any real good bluegill fishing in Oregon but I would
like to. Bluegill and Crappie are IMO the best tasting warm water
fish.