On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:01:15 +0100, "Mike Connor"
wrote:

[snip]

Regards and tight lines!

Mike

and the other part -- having some idea about insect behaviour.

For example, I've read here and been told by people that they have
little success with Lafontaine's patterns. I don't claim to be a
genius with them either -- but I'd speculate that we're missing the
critical ingrediant that we don't fish these patterns correctly.

I'm putting an effort into knowing the behaviours of three common
genera reasonable well -- the ones I mentioned in the first post,
commonly known as the spotted sedge (cinnamon caddis), little sister
sedge, and the green rock worm. I'll be adding the Mother's Day
caddis as well, but it's lower on my list as it's mostly a spring
pattern, while the others are virtually all season. There are others
that are important to my area but these will do to start. Basically,
I can fish all of my waters with variations of three patterns in
various sizes, olive bodied gray wing, tan bodied brown wing, and
black bodied gray wing.

Hydropsyche (spotted sedge) tend to drift along the bottom for quite a
ways, then head upwards, the drift in the surface film as they
struggle to hatch. This gives fish two shots at then, the bottom
drift and the film drift. Once they emerge, they fly off quickly and
present little opportunity to the trout. Trying to appeal to trout
during a hatch with either an ascending pattern (LaFontaine's sparkle
pupa) or an adult, isn't going to get you very far. The best patterns
will be a pupal stage (in the pharate skin) dead drifted along the
bottom and a Yorkshire style wet for the ascending, surface fim stage.

Hydropsyche are diving egg layers so a a dry presented during egg
laying followed by pulling it under at the end and swinging it, should
take some fish. Makes life simple -- three patterns -- a weighted
pupal stage (ginger and brown), a tan Yorkshire style wet, and your
choice of your favourite dry, KRC or EHC -- all tied on a fine wire
#16 dry hook but as a size 14 wing. With these three flies, in my
area, you're good from May until September. I have a specific spotted
sedge diving pattern and it's a killer when the egg laying is on.

Little Sister Sedge (Cheumatopsyche) has a lot of the same traits but
being a smaller bug, things happen a bit faster -- not the same long
drifts as the spotted sedge. Both bugs have darker wings early in the
season and become lighter as the season progresses.

Rhyacophilia (green rock worm) are free swimming larvae (as oposed to
the net building spotted sedge and little sister sedge) so the GRW is
the only one of the three where a dead drifted larva will be a natural
behaviour. The other two can be dead drifted at dawn and dusk during
biological drift. Obviously, people take fish on these all during the
day, but you're presenting a behaviour with a low incidence of
coccurence during the day. Most larvae that are free swimming during
the day (other than the GRW) were probably dislodged by a grubbing
trout , sucker, or an angler's boot. GRW should be tied upside down
as they swim head down.

Peter

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