Small Stream Flies

Afew seasons back, while fighting through the trees from the road down to some nasty little stream, I dropped my dry fly box. Not just any dry fly box, but one of those expensive aluminium all-compartment Wheatleys that when fully loaded with good flies is worth more than a top shelf rod and lunch.

Streamside, I went to unzip the special extra-secure pocket in my vest and found it open and empty. My heart stopped. The world stopped. Several hundred dry flies flown.

Maybe it was in the car, some three hundred vertical hard yards back up the hill? Maybe it was at the Brumby Bar in Jindabyne, where I’d fed and over-watered myself the previous night while sorting flies from the used and abused patch back to the box? Maybe…

In fact it was on the ground just ten paces behind me, a silvery beacon shining on my absentmindedness.

REDUCTION

Since then I’ve drastically reduced the number of fly boxes I carry, from lots to just three.

Two, holding everything I could ever possibly need on any moving trout water in Australia or New Zealand, are battered Wheatleys that never see much daylight for fear of loss. The third, a very small box, now lives permanently attached to my waders or vest or shirt via a high-vis lanyard. It contains only what I really need. Fully loaded, it holds no more than 20 patterns and not much more than 100 individual flies.

In reality, that’s much more than is needed on any small stream on any one day, but who the hell gets into fly fishing to keep things simple?

Before finding a permanent place in this box, a small-stream pattern has to prove itself. If it’s a dry it wants to remain so with little or no care. If it sinks, it wants to get on with it. Wherever it sits in the water column, if it’s not tough enough to grass a few trout and stay together, it’s soon gifted out to bludging mates or left at home.

SMALL STREAM DRIES

I’ll deal with dry flies first because on most of the overgrown, tiny pocket-water streams that I love, a dry is really the only way to cover all the water and a much easier prospect than nymphing.

Delicate and exquisite are words better used to describe a pastry than any pocket-water dry fly. So things like CDC, fine synthetic tails and intricate wings are out, and foam, rubber legs and hair wings are in.

My favourite searching fly is a small Stimulator, originally tied to represent Western US stoneflies. I find it the best all-round attractor there is, hands down. As a big bonus, a well- tied example seems to bounce off the bushes and snags thanks to the full body hackle. Larger Stimmies tend to twist fine leaders, but a #16 on a 3 or 4 pound tippet is ideal. In larger sizes the Stimulator is also a close-enough hopper fly on a small stream, particularly if tied with added rubber legs.

A thickly-tied #14 Royal Wulff is a great second choice for its all-round yumminess to trout and high visibility in fast water. A small parachute version can be handy if the fish get fussy and the water slow enough to allow it, and is also a life-saver should you stumble into an epic afternoon ant fall. However, in truth any of the Wulff-style Western dries or a Humpy are more than likely just as effective.

A new favourite this last season was Daniel Hackett’s Fastwater Dun. If trout are Clive Palmer, then this pattern is his cake. It’s a large, tough and simple deer hair fly that floats well and is easily seen in broken water. The fish really dig it even if it’s slowly sinking. In fact, at the end of the season it was pretty much all I was throwing around, and has become my number one dry fly even when the hoppers are on.

For actual hopper imitations, Muz Wilson’s Wee Creek Hopper in smaller sizes with yellow body and orange legs is very tough and floats brilliantly. It has provided some epic sessions on the upper Murrumbidgee in late summer without changing flies all day.

Worthy of late mention are any of the big Kiwi blowfly patterns. My current favourite is Stu Tripney’s Deadly Blowfly, a solid and buoyant fly made with lots of foam, which plops down on the water with some authority. If the Fastwater Dun is cake, on a wooded stream the Blowfly is the dessert trolley.

SMALL-STREAM NYMPHS

On Youtube, world-renowned fly fishing expert and guide Hank Patterson says that it doesn’t matter what nymph you use — green, blue, red, bead head or blue — because it’s ‘all the same crap’ and you should be fishing a dry.

As hard as it is to argue with the great man, there are times, particularly early in the season, when a dry just doesn’t get eaten. And even if it can be a total pain, indicator nymphing on small fast water is highly addictive.

I once tied my nymphs for specific streams and flows, and in a wide variety of sizes and weights. This of course ended up a complete sprawl spanning several boxes, and regularly caused total paralysis when deciding what to try next.

I still carry a fairly broad range just in case, but the numbers are low enough to remove any fear when it comes time to try something else.

The Cadillac Nymph by legendary fly fishing photographer David Lambroughton is my hands-down winner. It’s a pimped-out Pheasant Tail with lots of copper flash and a tungsten bead. In #14 and #16, no matter what’s hatching, it’s very effective. I also always have a couple of larger versions for the odd deep plunge-pool or high water.

Next best is almost anything tied small with a bead, usually my own small black Flashback. It gets a run on darker overcast days, if the water is a bit dirty, or if I’ve run out of Cadillacs.

For fussy fish, or clear low water, I lighten up the colour with natural hare’s ear and use smaller beads tied on narrow gaped long-shank hooks. These don’t catch much bottom even if they’re sinking too fast for a low flow, but will still dig deep on a larger slow pool, making them a good all-rounder.

Last, but still vitally important on its day is the caddis grub. My version is just a chartreuse wire body, clear-coated for longevity, with a head of spiky hare’s ear dyed green. It sinks quickly enough to be great on the wide gravelly ripples on the lower sections of the big alpine rivers, and on the nosebleed sections up top.

DOUBLE RIGS

Generally I don’t use double fly rigs. The tangles I get with them in the trees test my patience, to the point of childish tantrums even my five-year-old can’t match. But there is a time and place for them, like those long open pocket-water sections, or fast-flowing meadow streams early in the season before hoppers get a run.

I have two floating patterns that are mostly used just for this purpose. One, a hot orange #14 hopping-beetle-ant terrestrial thingy with rubber legs and nothing else, is really just a bobber with a hook. Unlike an indicator, however, it does take the odd fish. The other, a simple green foam beetle, is a better fly later in the season and will carry even a heavier bead-head nymph.

Favourite nymphs for this rig are #16–#18 bead-heads in natural colours but with a little flash or coloured wire in the body, or an un-weighted glass bead-head nymph in black or natural.

The dropper is always fairly short and the breaking strain less than the leader, hopefully to preserve the top fly in the event of an unreachable tangle or ‘long-distance release’.

What, no mention of the mighty Red Tag or the legendary Elk Hair Caddis? Don’t worry. They’re never far away, but zipped up safely, just in case.