Never-Fails

Trout thrive in similar circumstances all over the world and eat more or less the same things wherever they live. You’d think this would make fly selection easy, but apparently not. We know it’s not easy because there are thousands and thousands of different fly patterns. The reason is that trout are so finicky they’ll refuse flies that look to us like pretty good imitations of whatever food they’re eating. Many people call this fussiness ‘selectivity’, a term that actually includes several different trout behaviours, but gives us a reasonable excuse for not being able to catch them.

Famous Henry’s Fork fly-tier and guide Rene Harrop says he often carries up to eighteen fly boxes, stuffed with flies. If Rene’s boxes carry as many as mine does, he’s got something in the order of 3,000 flies on board.

This is all good fun. And we’re ready for that day when the fish just don’t want anything you throw at them, until you finally nail it with the killer fly. We all have had this experience, and it’s another of the timeless narratives that make up the ancient lore of fly fishing — the fly that finally caught the trout that refused everything else.

Most of us have a few such killer flies in our box. The odd and disappointing thing about most of them is that they seldom work quite so well again. That hot secret blowfly or willow grub pattern — the one you used on the day you spanked those super-selective trout — has produced only desultory responses ever since, no better or worse than the flies your partner is using.

One explanation is that the fish are now educated, and worse, they now recognise and avoid that specific pattern, so you either need to show them a fly that looks even more like a real blowfly, or something new and completely different. Round it goes, where it stops nobody knows.

PHEASANT TAIL NYMPH

I just got hold of Matt Supinsky’s new book, Selectivity: The Theory and Method of Fly Fishing for Fussy Trout, Salmon and Steelhead. Supinsky, an experienced Michigan guide, reinforces the classic case for the educated, selective and ‘fussy’ trout. It’s all because of catch-and-release, he says. The answer, apart from perfect presentations — which we must assume is a given — is better flies. He gives us several hundred to work with, and I’m sure most of them are very good. Supinsky extends his theory of selectivity to Atlantic salmon and steelhead, which raises the question of just what he really means when he uses the term ‘selectivity’, but let’s stick to selective trout here.

As I browsed through his book a couple of things jumped out at me. One was Terry Lawton’s photograph of a card of some authentic Sawyer Pheasant Tail nymphs. If you’ve been at this game for any time at all, you’ll know the PTN and almost certainly have a few in your fly box.

Supinsky says ‘If I had to fish one fly pattern in the world, the Pheasant Tail Nymph would be it… This simple design is very effective for S/R (Selective/Reflective) trout when all other nymphs fail.’

A true ‘never fail’ fly, and I couldn’t agree more. And even more so with the particular way those authentic Sawyer nymphs are tied. Simple, no-hackle jobs that you can turn out in under a minute. My kind of fly. Trout ammo. Here’s a nymph you can really depend on, even for the most educated trout — what Supinksy calls ‘selective and reflective’ chalk stream and spring creek brown trout — the wariest and most suspicious fish in all fishdom. He does, however, go on to list another two dozen or so nymphs, because, after all, this is a book about selectivity.

Let’s take a closer look at just what kind of fly we’re talking about here. Not much, really. Just a few barbs from a cock pheasant’s tail feather, wrapped up the hook shank as a herl, with a slight bulge at the front end to suggest the thorax of the insect. What insect exactly? Well, the mayfly. All of them.

Sawyer’s originals were actually pretty crude affairs, tied with copper wire rather than thread for durability and weight. Make no mistake, these are extremely simple flies. They caught lots of difficult trout, and still do, anywhere.

That’s right. Here’s a fly you can use anywhere that trout feed on mayflies, which is nearly everywhere trout swim. The Sawyer Pheasant Tail is probably the ur-pattern, the archetype for the true generalist design — the ‘don’t leave home without it’ trout fly. These aren’t the usual commercial tie for the PTN, which are generally a bit more elaborate so customers think they are getting their money’s worth. These are the ones tied by Frank Sawyer himself for his great and seminal work on nymphing for chalk stream trout.

REALISM

The idea that trout refuse a fly on the basis of it not being realistic enough has some problems. Anyone who has fished for trout long enough knows that, in itself, realism just isn’t enough. Personally, if I was in one of those imaginary situations where I was forced to choose between a super realistic nymph and a simple Hare’s Ear or Pheasant Tail — and, let’s say my life depended on it — I would unhesitatingly opt for the HE or PT. I don’t know any experienced angler who would choose differently.

Something has to explain the fact that an impressionistic fly will almost always outfish a supernaturalistic one. Personally, I think there’s something going on in a ‘generalist’ pattern that increases the likelihood of it being eaten by a trout. I think there is something about the lack of specific imitative physical features in the fly that strengthens the stimulus to eat the fly. Okay, I know — just bear with me a little longer here.

Let’s take the famous fussy trout. Let’s put him in a New Zealand backcountry stream where food is at best variable and inconsistent most of the time. This fish, often a big one, has staked out some turf where he will intercept just about everything that drifts downstream in and on the water. These big trout are exposed and very visible, and they ‘know it’ in their trouty way, so are ready to bolt at the slightest disturbance.

Due to the low density of trout, these backcountry streams in fact receive more than their share of pressure per trout than streams with heavier populations. These big solitary trout are credited with not only being spooky, which they certainly are, but also having the capacity to remember and avoid specific fly patterns that they have previously been caught on, or have simply seen too often and ‘refused’.

ANECDOTES

A theory and five bucks will maybe buy you a cup of coffee, so all we really have to go on is anecdote against anecdote. I’ve got an actual river in mind here, a medium-sized stream with a healthy population of big brown trout. This stream has limited access, but several guides work it. The gaps between guided visits are readily filled by anglers who obtain permission when there’s an opening. This means, of course, it receives steady and relentless pressure all season, nearly every day. Because of the limited access, when you’re on it you don’t see any one else, so you don’t feel like you might be fishing to trout that have been ‘educated’. I’ve fished it maybe half a dozen times. It’s good fishing.

I first fished it with a real Kiwi backcountry angler — hard-going, aggressive and an extremely successful trout hunter. He had two concerns: first that no one was up the river ahead of him, and second that the fly he was using had not been seen by the trout before, at least not recently. Given these two prerequisites, he was supremely confident that he would catch any catchable trout in the river, and often did. He wasn’t a fly tier himself, a thing that has always struck me as a disadvantage, since you are then stuck with finding ready-made flies that do the job you want, but aren’t tied with your needs specifically in mind.

At the time, tussock cicada were prevalent, so fly choice for me was simple — a size 10 Deer Hair Sedge, my go anywhere go-to fly. It doesn’t look exactly like a cicada, but it’s close enough. My friend was worried that the stream had received relentless guided pressure over the previous couple of weeks, and he had been on it himself for two days the week previous. On that trip he had problems with trout ignoring his flies. After much fly changing he struck on the answer, a Coch-y-Bonddu, the old standard British pattern, and finally caught some trout. He reckoned the fish had just seen too many cicada patterns and wanted something different.

The tussock cicada hatch is a major food source on the South Island, likely the biggest of the year on that stream, and there is little else on the water at that time of year. So, there is no way the trout have stopped eating natural cicadas just because they’ve been caught on cicada patterns. Does this mean the trout have begun to notice and avoid the unnatural aspects of artificial cicada patterns, such as our attempts to imitate wings and eyes and legs, or, importantly and unavoidably, the hook?

That day I caught and released upwards of 30 trout on my simple, near-enough, hare’s ear bodied, no-hackle, Deer Hair Sedge. I missed a lot of trout too, as you do, so the score could easily have been higher. It couldn’t possibly have been better trout fishing. I knew then and know now that if I find a trout in a feeding posture, and tussock cicada have been on the water recently, and I don’t spook the fish, the old DHS in an appropriate size just never fails. That’s saying a lot, I admit.

BANDWIDTH

Basically, I just sidestepped the whole anxious fly choice process and used a fly that has a broader bandwidth, so to speak. A fly that looks ‘close enough’ to whatever the trout are eating allows me to concentrate on good stalking, casting and presentation to make the sale. The ones I didn’t catch were the ones where I screwed up the cast or the presentation. Every time.

If the fish were as pressured as that, and the concerns that my friend and many other experienced anglers have about trout avoiding patterns and hooks are based in fact, then what was going on there? If the trout had seen too many cicada patterns and other flies, and presumably had been caught on them, how do you explain the success of that simple scruffy DHS?

This is probably the simplest and crudest fly I know. I use no hackle that obscures the hook, and I use strong wide-gape hooks for better hooking. Clearly there was no fussiness or hook avoidance involved — the hook on the no-hackle DHS is abundantly visible.

I’m not trying to convince you to use this particular fly, but am just saying that this fly and the simple Hare’s Ear nymph, and a couple of other simple generalist patterns such as the good old Pheasant Tail Nymph, will see you through far more situations than you’d think. And not just scraping through a day either, but often working better than much more specific patterns. These are your true never fail fly patterns.

LESS IS MORE

My hunch, which you have been on the edge of your seat waiting to hear, is that these generalist impressionistic flies actually project a stronger stimulus to eat the fly rather than let it pass by. This is my less is more theory. These flies don’t have all the physical details of the natural, but do have GISS — general impression, size, and shape of the natural food. The vague impression is just enough to keep what I think of as the ‘stimulus/response loop’ open until the fish finally eats the fly. It looks enough like food to stimulate a response, but the only way a trout can be sure it isn’t just another seed pod or bit of stream flotsam is to eat it. The rest is up to you, so don’t screw it up.

One possible explanation for trout refusing specific cicada patterns is that maybe it’s precisely the attempts at realism and triggers — the sparkly wings, legs, eyes, and the extra bells and whistles commercial ties often include, like hi-vis sight indicators —that put the fish off. Who knows? But I have to accept that the anglers who testify to this avoidance behaviour are seeing things clearly and have made excellent presentations of those flies.

What I do know is that for nearly any situation I come across, a handful of very simple generalist patterns do the trick.

Okay, maybe never fail is just too strong for you. If that degree of certainty freaks you out, let’s call it a seldom fail. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Bob Wyatt’s book What Trout Want and fly-tying DVDs are available at www.flylife.com.au