FLYMPH FORUM

Last week I noticed that this section is the least used and but for Dubbns excellent mouth watering, nerve tingling, jealousy evoking posts it may as well not exist.

I can, but admire the extraordinary skills displayed in tying section and fly dressings sections and the extraordinary passion that goes into the posts is self evident. They are but a means to an end, the end being the tempting of a trout or whatever species is your target with a pattern that you have designed to fulfill a certain purpose.

The comaraderie here is without compare, the cabin does a great job, the fly dressing and fly tying sections are excellent.

I do not know why it is not so, but it seems to me that if we all shared a little of our on the water techniques, knowledge, ideas, experiences , successes, failures in fishing spiders/flymphs/wingless wets that it would close the circle. The patterns and tying techniques are but trailers, hows about we try and show the full movie, warts and all.

Just a thought !!!!

So to start the ball rolling as it were and I really do hope that others join in the conversation.

I enjoy fishing many different methods from deep nymphing to tiny dries and have over the past 30 years or so hunted salmon, sea trout brown lake trout, stocked rainbows and now its wild browns on a river. All a huge and varied experience that has brought immense pleasure. What comes natural to many can be hard work for me so when it came to learning to catch browns on the river, the entomology, methods etc... it was never gonna happen quickly, so its a little learned at a time. I never felt the desire to buttonhole or box myself in by limiting myself to certain techniques so always I have sought not to be a master angler but more to be a jack of all trades, open to ideas, open to trying something new if it made sense to do so.

When the urge to investigate the world ot wetflies for brown trout on rivers, after all I had fished them sucessfully on lakes and rivers for salmon and sea trout, looking for other options to fish subsurface. I, like probably nearly everone else here embarked on a journey of discovery. I did not abandon my other methods but sought to see whether or not the wetflies could cover certain situations where dries , emergers , nymphs were not working well , yet the trout were feeding well.


On this journey I learned very quickly why so many people fish their wets facing downstream , its a damm sight easier to catch a few trout. Those that do it on my river invariably catch small trout and prick dozens of fish every session and though I do it occassionally except when the caddis are high on the trouts agenda I have found it to be less than satisfactory. Sure I can try and target , tease the fly to where i want it to go - but the fundamental problems of fishing anything downstream on a river such as the one I fish means that upstream is the more desirable approach.

Learning to fish upstream wets/spiders SUCESSFULLY is about as daunting as it gets and I have yet to actually see anyone do it with results that are impressive. My results were less than impressive, sure I caught a few trout , even a few nice trout but on a scale of 1 to 10 , my confidence in the method was about a 2.
The big issue when learning to fish spiders etc is that as you cannot visually see whats happening you are never quite sure are you fishing incorrectly, are the patterns not right are your techniques simply poor.

Iron Blues had me bewildered, when they were around , which is rare enough when you only get out a few times a month. I could but catch a few trout yet the river surface was alive with rising trout. I tied up the standard Iron blue patterns and one of Websters and sure , I caught a few trout but as before the results were no better than the dries and the takes were not very confident.

Too much info in the head, too many flies in the boxes and too too too little time on the water is a recipie for disaster so about two years ago I set myself a near impossible challenge so that I would be able to fish wetflies upstream with the same confidence with which I fish other methods.

I set to more or less limiting my wetfly fishing to when Iron Blues were about I dug deep to get the info I required. Mike C revealed to me that one bit of info that nailed it for me, he had found that the trout really keyed into the IB's just subsurface - doh. Taking his recommended pattern Baillies purple and that new knowledge, I started fishing these patterns when iron blues could be expected to be around. Bingo I started to catch an occasional trout and in all instances the takes were very positive - I made sure the flys fished just subsurface - bear in mind my river is far from the type of those famous yorkshire rivers with tumbling waters and foamy frothing seams.

When I finally met a full blown IB hatch which only lasted fifteen minutes , on they went , I fished with confidence and surprise surprise they nailed several trout and nearly every drift a trout slashed at them. One small step..... but it required anothers intimate knowledge to get me there, told ya , im a slow learner.

Target this season is large dark olives on usual spders and flymphs.....

Otter, I miss out on the fishing perspective on this forum as well, mostly because I know the same individuals who put such care ito the flies and techniques as the finesse shown on the stream. I'd like to see more discussion here, and there is a great deal if you mine for it, but personally I find it vaguely difficult relating to so many individuals with such diverse water types. I want to hear all about it. From every region, but I can see how at times those discussions are more of a monologue. I believe there is a lot to offer here and privately I'm working on something relevant to this section. I'm presently not comfortable posting my clumsy thoughts, but I promise to as things improve.

Lately I've been many of the more marginal texts, appreciating both the innocence of the 50' and 60's, what I'm considering the more recent, but pre-Latin phase of the sport. Ray Ovington, "Polly" Rosborough, John Atherton andCharles Brooks. The approach suits my half hatch-matching, half presentation approach. It's interesting to me, many of you have read these books and are surprised to hear then referred to as "historic literature", but they are old enough to be fresh to me.

More to come. I'm glad you raised the question. I hope to seed more in this area as well.

w

Otter, you are so correct. This site ha lost something. There is no real discussion of a lot of subjects. It's seems it has just become a fly posting site and then everyone uses every adjective to tell the poster how wonderful the fly is.
I wonder sometimes that if all the rhetoric does not discourage some folks from, one posting, two commenting on a fly for fear being perceived as a novice.

I go to several sites and this site has the least discussion of any of them. I was talking, really talking, with someone a few months ago and he expressed the same concern as I.

I think you will find it a seasonal thing, kind of "the whole world is swings and round-abouts".
There will be times where posting flies will be the most popular postings, others when fishing stories will out post the flies and patterns.

I for one (novice tier) did feel a little hesitant for a start, my ties were pretty average and photos worse (some will say neither have improved much! ), but this forum is VERY supportive of the novice and VERY positive in encouragement and constructive criticism- offers of help and the like.

On stories of fishing here in our Summer to help negate the Winter blues over there, I try. Not always well, but I do add a bit now and then. I do have a lot of self doubt as to if any of it is that interesting as it is so very different and I am not the most litterate story teller. That and the fact I mostly fish alone and phots are often hard to get unless it is the obligatory fish in net kind of shot.

I have four American friends visiting and fishing at the moment, some are well known to the industry and prefer to remain private identities. Shame, as they would make very interesting subjects!
They fished the Waikaia yesterday independantly (unfortunatly the spot I suggested they try was occupied by three Australians) and they had an OK day, a few trout- but not many. They returned here to home for dinner and were a little miffed I fished another section of the same river with much better results, but still enjoyed a cold beer and BBQ dinner, Paua/ venison sausage, porterhouse steak, venison steak, chicken kebab, prawn kebab and various salads.
I then took them to my favourite night spot on the Mataura that has featured in a couple of recent postings of mine...... it was dead with no fish rising to a pattern and very little insect activity.
They still retired happy men.

They are away today to the upper Mataura chasing elusive "Willow grubbing" trout.

Fear of posting fear of been seen as a novice etc i believe to be largely to blame. Even u William say it in your post. If that is true it is a poor reflection on us all that such fear could
Exist within such a tight community.

Uk fly dressing was a very similar site this but it soon declined when 99 out of every 100 posts was a picture of another meaningless fly. This site has a bit more going as there is decent discussion at times on techniques materials and history but it is a slippery slope.

We really should actively encourage more content on fishing that breathes life and meaning to the flies we tie

It has become difficult for me to post about my outings. I say the same thing, catch the same fish, and hear from the same people. Dont get me wrong. The people I do hear from have become dear friends, but at times, I think they are just being nice. I only post about one in three or four outings anymore. I am certain I have become a bore.

Sometimes I believe it is all about sensationalism. Bigger, better more. If it isn't one of those three, it's not worth reading. My style of fishing Flymphs differs so greatly from anything I read on this forum. That some what leaves me on an island.

Wayne, you are way off the mark. I marvel at the pictures of the rivers you fish, the trout porn too, is nice occasionally. It may surprise you to know that one of the most enjoyable reads I have had on this forum was a small post you made regarding a successful day when u fished an orange muskrat. A simple fly brought to life, now that is worth reading about !!!!

The thing is, as wonderful as books are , its a one way conversation. Here we have an opportunity way beyond books. I have yet to meet an angler that is bereft of insights that are not worth sharing and worth listening to. I see pictures of the trout you have caught, I really would enjoy reading of how you fish and would be surprised if there are not more people on that island than u realise ....

Not everyone wants to talk about the way they fish, maybe a few do and god knows where a conversation on such things may lead us.

DUBBN, Howdy;

Your island has more than 1 occupant...

Otter, Howdy;

Thanks for bringing this topic to the front.
I've made no bones about being a novice to BOTH
the tying of and Fishing of flies of ANY variety.....
Until I went fishing with Wayne the end of last Sept.
I had not the faintest clue as to how to put all of my
readings into the complex act of Fly Fishing. Something
most everyone else here just does, because it what
you do.
It ain't that simple .....
To have folks share the knowledge is the best thing I can
think of for folks such as myself, and maybe some others
can learn 'a little something' too.

Anxious to hear more from others

hank

Speaking strictly for myself, I find it a bit awkward to discuss various fishing techniques amongst a group that by definition represents a relatively limited approach. Just as fear of criticism about one's tying skills may deter some individuals from posting photos of their flies, so does fear of making waves in a pond of short-line, upstream casters keep some of us from discussing the "hows" and "whys" of our personal fishing techniques. Are there any others in the group that hesitate for this reason?

I have promised myself to give upstream dead drift fishing of soft hackled flies a good try during the upcoming season. But to be perfectly honest, despite my efforts to find in the literature anything more than some very general information about just how to go about this, I guess I'll have to trust to trial and error. I have watched Davy Wotton's video several times, and although he explains the premise clearly, I'm pretty sure what he demonstrates is applicable to only certain types of streams under certain conditions. The same can be said for the Oliver Edwards videos dealing with soft hackled flies.

I would like to see some of the knowledgeable and experienced folks on this forum discuss how they approach a stream they have never fished before or even how they go about successfully catching fish using soft hackled flies when there is no hatch in progress.