On 11/28/04 4:57 PM, in article ,
"Willi & Sue" wrote:

Larry L wrote:

As we all know, most bugs come in a span of sizes, even in the same species
and watershed. It's possible to find PMDs from smallish 14s down to 20s
for instance on the water at one time, although a couple different species
are involved.

Now, I have experienced several times when the trout would only ( or mostly
only :-) take the smaller examples on the water.

My question ... have you ever seen times when trout got selective to the
bigger examples of the same insect type when more than one size was
available?


I mostly have experience in fishing smaller Mayflies, so maybe with the
bigger flies it's different, however, with flies 16 and below, it's hard
to go too small but easy to go too big. I find that generally, if the fish
are going to be tough, they will readily take a fly smaller than that
on the water but seldom will take one bigger. That said, I do try and
use the largest fly I can and still have success. They're just easier to
see and you tend to get more solid hookups.

Here's something I've been experiencing in the last two months or so. My
waters have not had much in the way of hatches- usually midges are the only
thing active. However, I observed occasional splashy rises- to who knows
what. So I experimented with using large-ish dry flies to see if I could
get the riser to do his thing, this after being frustrated by trying to fish
the impossible to see #22-ish olives and what have you. It has worked at
least a half dozen times- good trout making an opportunistic rise to
something that isn't hatching. In my case, I've been using #12 Adams. Fun
way to fish, too, especially in clear water when you can see the trout
making the approach.

Bill