Ugly Flies

When replying to the post by Padishar regarding scuds and thinking about
ugly flies, the thought process kicked in. A dangerous thing... Does anyone
have an opinion about ugly flies verses the fine, beautiful, sometimes
exquisite flies we all have in our fly boxes? I think I do and the next few
trips are going to be experimental in nature (assuming the trout are willing
participants). I am going to fish ugly flies along with not so ugly flies
using two similarly strung rods, equal alternating casts and imitating
drifts as closely as possible (definitely room for error).

Several flies in my fly box have been "retired". Two in particular. They are
ugly, falling apart and deadly. One is an old hare's ear coming unraveled
with broken wing case barbs sticking out, gold rib gone and missing 30 to 40
percent of the dubbing.
The other is a Kaufmann style black stonefly nymph. Same condition as the
hare's ear but worse. One biot for a tail with 1/2 biots left for antennae,
sectioned wing case twisted around hook and dubbing sticking out where it
shouldn't. Both these flies sustained vicious trout attacks taking more than
30 fish each.

Note: 20 + years ago I wrapped black yarn on a weighted hook (with biots) to
imitate the profile (silhouette) of a standard tied stonefly. There was no
discernable difference in the number of fish hooked. This "test" took place
during the stonefly hatch on the Deschutes. The yarn fly was ugly and an
embarrassment to show anyone after spending the time and effort to tie
perfect R.K. stones.

This does not mean ugly flies will be turned out on my bench on a regular
basis (though that may be the norm due to the aging process). And, yes. I
will continue adding to my collection of fly tying materials which is
enough now to last several lifetimes.

Any experiences or thoughts?

Thanks,
Guy

"Guy Thornberg" wrote


Any experiences or thoughts?



First thought ... form follows function ... so, by definition a fly that
works well is NOT ugly, a perfectly lifelike fly that looks like it will
crawl out of the box, but won't fool many fish, now that is ugly.

Second thought ( based mainly on personal experiences ) ..... internal
movement, and the look of life it gives, is the #1 most important thing in
nearly every case with nymphs and in a great many situations usually thought
of as "dry fly" Fibers that pulse in the current fool more trout than
'exact profile' by a huge factor, ime. Almost all my patterns ( the ones
I actually use, not 'my' in a creator sense ) incorporate materials that
attempt to make the fake look alive by suggesting internal movement.... such
materials are well known .. marabou, CDC, fur dubbing, sparse amounts of
sparkly stuff ( move a sparkly fly very slightly in the light, trying to
duplicate the way water currents might move it relative to the trout, and
the 'sparks' move suggesting internal movement ... to me, that, not the
"glow" accounts for 95% of the effectiveness of that addition of crystal
flash or tinsel ..) Watch a mayfly emerge and the internal movement is
far more obvious that any specific 'shape' .... watch a damsel nymph
swimming to shore and the INternal movement is clearly more obvious than
movement relative to the observer ( i.e. they wiggle like hell, but don't
get anywhere with much speed ) and both types of movement are far more
obvious than any form or shape.

About the only patterns I now use that don't intentionally have some "soft
stuff" in them to cause internal movement as they bend to current and breeze
are mallard quill no-hackle duns, .... and my main use of them is on windy
days where fully emerged duns are getting knocked over and blown into the
shore ...'profile' seems very important in this situation on flat waters,
but I bet the wind often contributes a bit of 'internal' movement then,
too. Oh, and fully spent spinner patterns .... but even there I've more
or less switched to 'half spent' patterns and try to suggest that last dying
flutter or two with fly design ( sparkle in wing ), with improved success.

"Larry L" wrote

snipped ( arthropodous or chitinous segmented?) verbiage

I meant to add that, imho, a "beat up" fly that outperforms a new one of the
same pattern strongly suggests a pattern that needs to be roughed up with a
dubing brush ( Velcro hook half on a Popsicle stick ) before being fished

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Guy Thornberg wrote:

When replying to the post by Padishar regarding scuds and thinking about
ugly flies, the thought process kicked in. A dangerous thing... Does anyone
have an opinion about ugly flies verses the fine, beautiful, sometimes
exquisite flies we all have in our fly boxes?

I think it depends on the bug and the circumstances. I don't throw away
bugs that look ugly. They often catch fish.

Mu

"Guy Thornberg" wrote in message
...
When replying to the post by Padishar regarding scuds and thinking about
ugly flies, the thought process kicked in. A dangerous thing... Does
anyone
have an opinion about ugly flies verses the fine, beautiful, sometimes
exquisite flies we all have in our fly boxes? I
----snipped a bit-------------

Guy, I have an old experience with ugly flies. I was fishing a tiny lake in
Western Washington State and I was in a small car top boat that allowed me
to fish the shoreline you couldn't reach from shore because of the brush. I
tied on an unweighted ratty looking hare's ear that I had bouncing around in
one of my fly boxes. I did this because there was some much overgrowth
hanging over the water, I thought I would start (my first trip out of the
spring, so I be rusty with my cast) out with a fly that would be no problem
if I hung up and lost. My first cast I hooked a crappie and within an hour
I had a small water bucket filled with fish. That fly started to come apart
almost immediately, but I kept fishing with the remnants cuz it was
producing (and I can be a bit superstitious as well). Eventually, even the
papermouths tore all the dubbing off and I had to change flies. I found a
nice hare's in my box, same color (or thereabouts) and caught only a couple
of fish the rest of the day. I have no idea, of course, if the bite was off
at the same time I changed flies or what, but it does make you wonder.

Chris

I am a great believer in roughing up flies before use and I wrote an article
on this subject in a NZ fishing magazine called 'Rufazgutz' - about flies
that look well rufazgutz - if you want a peek at it -
www.bishfish.co.nz/articles/rufazgutzz.htm


--
Tony Bishop
www.bishfish.co.nz
New Zealand

Corrected link:

www.bishfish.co.nz/articles/rufazgutz.htm


--
Tony Bishop
www.bishfish.co.nz
New Zealand

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 18:35:26 +0100, "riverman"
wrote:

(snipped)

--riverman
(Some folk just can't appreciate a thing of beauty. Its like casting pearls
before swine, I tell ya.)

What weight rod and line for pearls to swine? Do they take
artificials as well? Does one even need a tippet? Once you've hooked
them, how well do they fight?

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: lid (strip the .invalid to email)

"Cyli" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 18:35:26 +0100, "riverman"
wrote:

(snipped)

--riverman
(Some folk just can't appreciate a thing of beauty. Its like casting
pearls
before swine, I tell ya.)

What weight rod and line for pearls to swine? Do they take
artificials as well? Does one even need a tippet? Once you've hooked
them, how well do they fight?


Ahh, precisely.
:-)

--riverman

Thanks.
Thanks for your input & experiences. BTW, I typically tie nymphs sparse and
pick out thorax with a dubbing needle. Some of my buddies tie them with very
fat bodies and bulbous thoraxes - GRHE - Really couldn't say which has
caught more fish. (IMO sparse buggy ones, at least for me)
Guy

"Guy Thornberg" wrote in message
...
When replying to the post by Padishar regarding scuds and thinking about
ugly flies, the thought process kicked in. A dangerous thing... Does
anyone
have an opinion about ugly flies verses the fine, beautiful, sometimes
exquisite flies we all have in our fly boxes? I think I do and the next
few
trips are going to be experimental in nature (assuming the trout are
willing
participants). I am going to fish ugly flies along with not so ugly flies
using two similarly strung rods, equal alternating casts and imitating
drifts as closely as possible (definitely room for error).

Several flies in my fly box have been "retired". Two in particular. They
are
ugly, falling apart and deadly. One is an old hare's ear coming unraveled
with broken wing case barbs sticking out, gold rib gone and missing 30 to
40
percent of the dubbing.
The other is a Kaufmann style black stonefly nymph. Same condition as the
hare's ear but worse. One biot for a tail with 1/2 biots left for
antennae,
sectioned wing case twisted around hook and dubbing sticking out where it
shouldn't. Both these flies sustained vicious trout attacks taking more
than
30 fish each.

Note: 20 + years ago I wrapped black yarn on a weighted hook (with biots)
to
imitate the profile (silhouette) of a standard tied stonefly. There was no
discernable difference in the number of fish hooked. This "test" took
place
during the stonefly hatch on the Deschutes. The yarn fly was ugly and an
embarrassment to show anyone after spending the time and effort to tie
perfect R.K. stones.

This does not mean ugly flies will be turned out on my bench on a regular
basis (though that may be the norm due to the aging process). And, yes. I
will continue adding to my collection of fly tying materials which is
enough now to last several lifetimes.

Any experiences or thoughts?

Thanks,
Guy