Caddis searching pattern - from failure to success

Peter Charles wrote:


If I see any caddis hitting the water, that's my signal to get these
swinging. If I see bulging or jumping rises, that the signal to swing
emergers and tossing dries instead. If I see nothing anywhere, then
I'll swing these through a riffle simply because I don't like
nymphing.


Although, IMO, dead drifting nymphs is THE most effective technique day
in and day out, it's not a very fun way of fishing. Swinging wets and
some of the other nymphing techniques are much more fun. However, they
are not as consistently effective and it's hard, at least for me, to
determine when they are going to be effective.

Willi

On Mon, 02 Aug 2004 20:38:52 -0600, Willi wrote:



Peter Charles wrote:


If I see any caddis hitting the water, that's my signal to get these
swinging. If I see bulging or jumping rises, that the signal to swing
emergers and tossing dries instead. If I see nothing anywhere, then
I'll swing these through a riffle simply because I don't like
nymphing.


Although, IMO, dead drifting nymphs is THE most effective technique day
in and day out, it's not a very fun way of fishing. Swinging wets and
some of the other nymphing techniques are much more fun. However, they
are not as consistently effective and it's hard, at least for me, to
determine when they are going to be effective.

Willi



I think the success of nymphing is also because more people do it a
lot of the time, plus they're applying it to places where fish are
known to be. The typical nympher fisher walks up to a run, sees no
surface activity and ties on a nymph then catches a whack of fish.
Would he have caught the same or more with another technique? Maybe,
but most anglers I know are two dimensional: dries or nymphs, so we
don't get to find out.

In heavily fished waters, the ability to do something other than nymph
can connect you with a lot of fish. Nymphers tend to stand in one
spot, swingers tend to move, so I frequently fish up to a nympher,
then walk around to continue downstream. It's quite common for me to
catch a fish on both sides of him as his pounding have pushed fish out
of the run. I really don't feel at a disadvantage by resorting to
other methods.

Peter

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"Peter Charles" wrote in message
...

snip

The typical nympher fisher walks up to a run, sees no
surface activity and ties on a nymph then catches a whack of fish.
Would he have caught the same or more with another technique? Maybe,
but most anglers I know are two dimensional: dries or nymphs, so we
don't get to find out.

snip


What about streamer fishing? At what point would someone choose not to use a
dry or a nymph, but a streamer instead?




-------------------------------------------------------------
"...more and more of our imports are coming from overseas."
-George W. Bush

On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 05:57:36 GMT, "Hooked" wrote:

"Peter Charles" wrote in message
.. .

snip

The typical nympher fisher walks up to a run, sees no
surface activity and ties on a nymph then catches a whack of fish.
Would he have caught the same or more with another technique? Maybe,
but most anglers I know are two dimensional: dries or nymphs, so we
don't get to find out.

snip


What about streamer fishing? At what point would someone choose not to use a
dry or a nymph, but a streamer instead?



Streamers work best in off colour, fast water, but anytime is streamer
time. When I haven't been able to match the hatch and there are fish
rising all round me, I've tied on a streamer and slayed 'em. The use
of a streamer is more "angler's choice" than anything else. It's a
big fish method and I've used large streamers in search of big browns,
knowning full well that I'm passing up opportunites for lesser fish.

Peter

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On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 05:57:36 GMT, "Hooked" wrote:

"Peter Charles" wrote in message
.. .

snip

The typical nympher fisher walks up to a run, sees no
surface activity and ties on a nymph then catches a whack of fish.
Would he have caught the same or more with another technique? Maybe,
but most anglers I know are two dimensional: dries or nymphs, so we
don't get to find out.

snip


What about streamer fishing? At what point would someone choose not to use a
dry or a nymph, but a streamer instead?



Streamers work best in off colour, fast water, but anytime is streamer
time. When I haven't been able to match the hatch and there are fish
rising all round me, I've tied on a streamer and slayed 'em. The use
of a streamer is more "angler's choice" than anything else. It's a
big fish method and I've used large streamers in search of big browns,
knowning full well that I'm passing up opportunites for lesser fish.

Peter

turn mailhot into hotmail to reply

Visit The Streamer Page at http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...ers/index.html

"Peter Charles" wrote in message
...

snip

The typical nympher fisher walks up to a run, sees no
surface activity and ties on a nymph then catches a whack of fish.
Would he have caught the same or more with another technique? Maybe,
but most anglers I know are two dimensional: dries or nymphs, so we
don't get to find out.

snip


What about streamer fishing? At what point would someone choose not to use a
dry or a nymph, but a streamer instead?




-------------------------------------------------------------
"...more and more of our imports are coming from overseas."
-George W. Bush

Willi wrote in message ...

Although, IMO, dead drifting nymphs is THE most effective technique day
in and day out, it's not a very fun way of fishing. Swinging wets and
some of the other nymphing techniques are much more fun. However, they
are not as consistently effective and it's hard, at least for me, to
determine when they are going to be effective.

Willi


As a general commentary . . .

As a follow-on to my last post -- I think that emerger fishing offers
the maximum advantage to anglers, not nymph fishing. The bulk of the
instar larval and pupal stages of burrowing/crawling mayfly and
cased/net building caddis are mostly unavailable to trout, living as
they do in the interstitial zones of gravel, pebble, and cobble or
burrowed into the silt. Before they're ready to emerge, they're only
available when dislodged or during biological drift. Grubbing trout
can get at some but we can't imitate that approach. Better nymph
opportunities lie with the free swimming larval forms that the nymph
fisher can easily imitate and use to enjoy success, but they only
represent a fraction of the total nymph population. However, it's
during emergence, when even pupae tucked under rocks must expose
themselves to predation, that our best shot exists.

The nymphing trout basically sits in its feeding lie picking off
drifting larvae, rarely straying very far. But the trout feeding on
emergers is far more bold, roaming about, and more likely to be
actively feeding, as opposed to the static trout that is
opportunistically feeding. These two conditions, exposed larvae/pupae
and actively feeding fish provide us with our best chance, however as
Mu points out, this is also the toughest form of fishing to get right.
I'm sure many successful nymph fishers unwittingly blunder into
emerger success by drifting their nymphs along with the emerging
mayfly larvae.

These two points together, with the tendency of caddis to emerge over
prelonged periods during the day and the season, are the reasons why
I'm try to pay a lot more attention to these emergence opportunities.
My recent Whitemans experience can't be taken too far but it is
encouraging that presenting a fly that is both visually and
behaviourally correct can get much better results than the "chuck 'n'
chance it" of blind nymphing.

Peter

Peter Charles wrote:
Willi wrote in message ...

Although, IMO, dead drifting nymphs is THE most effective technique day
in and day out, it's not a very fun way of fishing. Swinging wets and
some of the other nymphing techniques are much more fun. However, they
are not as consistently effective and it's hard, at least for me, to
determine when they are going to be effective.

Willi



As a general commentary . . .

As a follow-on to my last post -- I think that emerger fishing offers
the maximum advantage to anglers, not nymph fishing. The bulk of the
instar larval and pupal stages of burrowing/crawling mayfly and
cased/net building caddis are mostly unavailable to trout, living as
they do in the interstitial zones of gravel, pebble, and cobble or
burrowed into the silt. Before they're ready to emerge, they're only
available when dislodged or during biological drift. Grubbing trout
can get at some but we can't imitate that approach. Better nymph
opportunities lie with the free swimming larval forms that the nymph
fisher can easily imitate and use to enjoy success, but they only
represent a fraction of the total nymph population. However, it's
during emergence, when even pupae tucked under rocks must expose
themselves to predation, that our best shot exists.


I disagree with this. Biological drift occurs to some degree throughout
most days and gives the trout who are "holed up" during non feeding
periods the opportunity to eat with little effort. Research has shown
that early mornings are the time of the most biological drift, but it
does occur throughout the day. That's the strength of dead drift
nymphing with weight etc.

IMO, the strength of drifting a nymph along the bottom is that it will
generally interest at least some of the fish that are in a nonfeeding
mode. It will also take fish that are actively feeding. All the other
techniques that I'm aware of primarily rely on taking only actively
feeding fish.



The nymphing trout basically sits in its feeding lie picking off
drifting larvae, rarely straying very far. But the trout feeding on
emergers is far more bold, roaming about, and more likely to be
actively feeding, as opposed to the static trout that is
opportunistically feeding. These two conditions, exposed larvae/pupae
and actively feeding fish provide us with our best chance, however as
Mu points out, this is also the toughest form of fishing to get right.
I'm sure many successful nymph fishers unwittingly blunder into
emerger success by drifting their nymphs along with the emerging
mayfly larvae.

Actively feeding trout are much more fun to target, IMO, and I try and
seek them out. However, for most of the year in most waters, these
feeding periods are very limited both in occurrence and duration.


These two points together, with the tendency of caddis to emerge over
prelonged periods during the day and the season, are the reasons why
I'm try to pay a lot more attention to these emergence opportunities.
My recent Whitemans experience can't be taken too far but it is
encouraging that presenting a fly that is both visually and
behaviourally correct can get much better results than the "chuck 'n'
chance it" of blind nymphing.


I think it's definitely more fun and is more effective during the right
time and in the right place. I also think that anglers are missing out
by not learning these different techniques. I'm not trying to convince
you to chuck and duck, I don't find it particularly fun, but I'm also
convinced that day in and day out throughout the season across the
Country, nymphs dead drifted along the bottom are going to catch far
more trout than any other technique.

Willi

Willi wrote in message ...



I disagree with this. Biological drift occurs to some degree throughout
most days and gives the trout who are "holed up" during non feeding
periods the opportunity to eat with little effort. Research has shown
that early mornings are the time of the most biological drift, but it
does occur throughout the day. That's the strength of dead drift
nymphing with weight etc.

IMO, the strength of drifting a nymph along the bottom is that it will
generally interest at least some of the fish that are in a nonfeeding
mode. It will also take fish that are actively feeding. All the other
techniques that I'm aware of primarily rely on taking only actively
feeding fish.


Biological drift is a dawn & dusk phenomenon with some occurrance
during the day, on that we're agreed, however, I'm linking this info
with a point I made earlier. I find that nymphing is most appropriate
to defined slots, seams, and trenches that are deeper than the
surrounding water and clearly defined. While you can nymph anywhere
in a river, watch most nymph anglers and they head straight for these
types of features. If I approach this sort of feature, I usually bust
out the nymphs too.

The nympher relies on practically hitting the fish on the nose with
the nymph --works great if the current and bottom structure cause the
fish to line up and hold in a relatively confined and clearly defined
area. If you have to get a fly to the fish in these features then
nymphing with weight provides your best shot. However, fish are not
confined to just these areas and to search broad riffles, big flats,
and other such undefined river features with a nymph can be a very
unproductive approach. Fish working the flats tend to cruise, fish
working riffles move rapidly to feed -- both can be covered more
easily by the swung fly than the dead drifted nymph.

If we confine our fishing to the typical deep slots, then I agree with
you that the nymph is best, but move beyond these areas and other
methods will prevail. I'm particualrly interested in riffle dwelling
caddis with broad (time-wise) emergence patterns. These caddis tend
to emerge in the afternoon, for example, but almost throughout the
entire day, there is some sort of activity with them. A moving
emerger or egg-layer, presented even when no activity of this sort is
present, will still attract attention as the trout will not likely
have had an opportunity to "forget" this insect behaviour since it is
a daily occurance over most of the season. IOW they're constantly
primed to react to caddis emergence/egg-laying, especially for
Hydropsyche, Ceratopsyche, and Cheumatopsyche in my waters.


Actively feeding trout are much more fun to target, IMO, and I try and
seek them out. However, for most of the year in most waters, these
feeding periods are very limited both in occurrence and duration.

I'd be prepared to suggest that their are actively feeding fish
somewhere in a river at almost any time. Obviously weather patterns
and other issues can turn them off, but under normal conditions,
there's always some actively feeding somewhere. I find that the
riffle dwellers tend to be active as these fish are in their feeding
lies, as opposed to the trench dwellers who are sitting in their
resting lies.



I think it's definitely more fun and is more effective during the right
time and in the right place. I also think that anglers are missing out
by not learning these different techniques. I'm not trying to convince
you to chuck and duck, I don't find it particularly fun, but I'm also
convinced that day in and day out throughout the season across the
Country, nymphs dead drifted along the bottom are going to catch far
more trout than any other technique.


Well Willi, there's only one way we're gonna settle this . . .

Peter Charles wrote:

Well Willi, there's only one way we're gonna settle this . . .

The gauntlet is thrown. My money's on Willi. :-)

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Cut "to the chase" for my email address.