I prowl fly shops and peruse fly-fishing catalogs obsessively. My wife seems to accept the economics of the pursuit, because as I’ve told her many times, it is less costly than sessions with a psychiatrist. I’ll see many flies that are more adept at catching anglers than fish. Whether a fly is bought, was a gift, or was tied by me, it must have lifelike characteristics in the water if it is to find a permanent place in one of my fly boxes or wallets. And I’m almost as obsessive about fishing my flies in a way that exploits their lifelike qualities.
In the September/October 2107 issue of California Fly Fisher, I wrote about the fish catching-abilities, or lack thereof, of fly-tying materials that reflect ultraviolet light. Many factors and variables are involved in pondering this issue, but we do know that lifelike qualities, including animation in the materials and as imparted by the angler, are probably more important than UV reflectance. Perhaps this is why many advanced stillwater anglers tie their own flies, using carefully selected materials, and use the knowledge and the experience they have gained on the water when buying commercially tied patterns. They also know that they need to use presentations and retrieves of those artificial creations to make them appear lifelike.
Natural fish foods, whether an aquatic nymph or a baitfish, though small from our perspective, are very complex morphologically when carefully examined. Close inspection shows body segmentation, color mixing, translucency, variations in surface texture, perhaps ultraviolet reflectance and dominant eyes, as well as a wide range of shapes and proportions, not to mention body hair and appendages on nymphs that trap sparkling air bubbles. An effective fly imitates at least some of these characteristics.
A number of us who fish the lower Yuba River on a regular basis have evolved our own Skwala stonefly patterns. Though created by different individuals by copying natural insects that we have collected at streamside, they are all quite similar — smaller than commercial patterns, with different abdomen colors, dark egg sacks that reflect gender, and flat, veined wings, and they sit much lower in the water than commercial replicas tied by someone in Asia or for that matter in Montana, which has larger bugs with different seasons. They are not exact imitations, but they are lifelike. And that’s how we fish them: a lifelike replica of an insect must be artfully presented and drifted, drag free, down to a working fish to have a decent chance for a take.
Imitation versus presentation is a hotly debated topic, but we have learned over many seasons that you need both. In clear still waters, not unlike on slow-moving spring creeks, an insect imitation has to sink and rise like a natural and sit or struggle naturally in the meniscus if emerging. For years, I’ve been a believer in the use of a Loop Knot to add action to a fly, but it has to be tied and clinched carefully, and is weaker in lighter tippet material. One of my fishing partners is a master of hanging a Balance Leech under an indicator. Its action comes from a ripple on the water and pulls imparted by the angler. A favorite indicator for me is a foam cicada pattern which will induce takes in its own right. Bass anglers are moving into new territory and hanging much bigger bait imitations tied in the “balance” style on jig and dropshotting hooks hung under large indicators.
In lifelike imitations, size matters. In my Sierra foothill region, we have two major forage fish in our reservoirs, the hatchet-bellied threadfin shad, Dorosoma petenense, and the elongated and narrow-bodied pond smelt, Hypomesus olidus. Many anglers feel that length is one of the key triggers in getting trout, bass, or other fish to take flies that imitate these species. As winter approaches, I watch for conditions that will bring the threadfin shad or pond smelt to the surface at Lakes Berryessa, Folsom, Shasta, Almanor, Orville and other impoundments. In some years, the baitfish will be very short . . . three-quarters of an inch to an inch long.
Other years, better nutrition and growth produce larger baitfish. From year to year, length seems to be a determining factor that keys fish on to the fly. Patterns that feature lifelike animation in the tail also are a must.
Trout, salmon, and bass get locked in on baitfish dimensions after they have been feeding for a while. This same phenomenon happens with insect hatches. If trout have been gorging with abandon on size 18 Blue-Winged Olives for hours or days, they zero in on that size and the way natural insects drift in the current or flutter in the stillwater meniscus when emerging and drying their wings. In still water, fish get longer looks and will respond only to creations very similar to the natural.
But while size matters, so does color. The color and dimensions of the same insect may vary from lake to lake. Our most common freshwater lake mayfly, the Callibaetis, is a classic example. One of my early published articles was on private still waters. I discussed different venues and had photos of Callibaetis fly patterns that worked for each lake. Not long after, I was speaking at the Golden West Women Flyfishers and a new member came up. She was dismayed about the complexity of the stillwater game. I put a different spin on it — that the complexity is what makes this type of angling so interesting, challenging, and of infinite interest.
But movement and shape may be the most important factors in imitating living organisms. A number of years ago, I had the honor and pleasure of fishing with the late f ly-fishing legend Jay Fair and his son Glenn on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation lakes that lie just east of Glacier National Park, near the Canadian border. In the evenings, Jay helped me fine tune the tying of several of his favorite, highly successful patterns. The marabou tails of his Wiggle Nymphs, Woolly Bugger bodies and tails, and the marabou tails and proportions of Denny Rickard’s Stillwater Nymph received much attention. Jay knew from a lifetime of keen observation that animation supplied by the breathing marabou is a key trigger in eliciting takes. The patterns of another respected angler and fly tyer, Kelly Galloup, use lots of the same breathing marabou.
And my fly-tying mentor in the early seventies, the venerable, meerschaum-pipe-smoking André Puyans, always emphasized both animation and proper proportions. Andy grew up on a plantation in Bautista-controlled, pre– Fidel Castro Cuba, where he contracted polio. Ironically, outdoor activity limitations led him to take up fly tying as a hobby, and that led to a profession. Andy, who guided and tied custom flies for Bing Crosby and comedian Phil Harris, as well as many other notables, stressed animation and proper shape and dimensions as ways to produce a lifelike impression,
That involved knowing a material’s appropriateness for imitating the natural’s appearance and behavior via surface textures, water absorption, floatability, light reflectance, and breathability. Andy demanded that we carefully examine the unique characteristics and variations in our materials, whether it was urine-stained fox fur, beaver, muskrat, seal fur, bucktail, deer body hair, elk, moose mane, moose guard hair, or even road kill such as squirrel, skunk, antelope, or raccoon.
We didn’t have genetically engineered hackle back then, and an important part of our training was learning how to evaluate and grade gamecock and rooster capes. We had to know which feathers had what properties, whether they were appropriate for a perfectly proportioned Pale Morning Dun dry fly, a breathable Woolly Bugger, a classic streamer, or an Atlantic salmon attractor pattern. Today, we rarely have the option of high-grading materials for specific properties — pulling the best out of a bin smelling of formaldehyde — because almost all natural materials come prepackaged, but back then, we high-graded bags of capes from African gamecocks, searched for bucktail that wouldn’t mat down when wet and for buoyant deer hair for Humpy patterns and Sparkle Dun wings, and looked for hair best adapted to spinning Muddler Minnow heads, hair-bodied bass bugs, and lifelike floating dragonfly and damselfly imitations.
Since then, I’ve also learned that many materials can contribute lifelike movement or flash when used in applications that differ from those with which they usually are associated. Spey hackle, Arctic fox, yak hair, and Finnish raccoon are used mostly in steelhead and salmon flies, but I find that they make highly effective bass flies because they breathe in the water and add bulk.
For creating the impression of lifelike flash, translucency and breathability, tinsels and colored wires have been around for some time, but the arrival of synthetics, beginning in the 1990s, has given us Krystal Flash, Flashabou, holographic flash, and the ability to build morphologically correct body shapes. A recent favorite of mine is UV Polar Chenille. I’m also playing with Orvis Mirror Wrap and Senyo’s Barred Predator Wrap, which show promise. Jay Fair brought out Short Shuck long ago, and now we have longer-fibered synthetic hackle and body materials that can be tightly wound, trimmed vertically or horizontally, and colored with marker pens. Tom Page of Grass Valley’s Reel Anglers Fly Shop and guide/musician Chuck Regan have been creating innovative bass flies mixing these newer materials and old-fashioned webby schlappen chicken feathers. Then there is Craft Hair and its sister, Pseudo Hair, synthetics that breathe beautifully and can be incorporated in many Clouser-type flies. They work best if layered into overwings along with other materials.
The design of flies themselves of course, often seek to emphasize some quality, whether it is size, color, shape, or behavior, that convey the impression of life. The Pole Dancer and the Dahlberg Diver patterns emphasize behavior. When fished with a Loop Knot, the Pole Dancer darts back and forth in a very enticing way similar to the “walking the dog” action seen with Zara Spook baits fished with cranking sticks. Thin plastic, knock-off heads that impart the action can be found on the Internet, making these expensive commercial patterns much more affordable for those with tying skills. You need practice time to get the action down right and that Loop Knot opening should be an inch or longer. The Pole Dancer has side-to-side horizontal movement, while the Dahlberg Diver’s dive-and-rise, up-and-down gurgling action, complements the breathability of its components.
Remember that we’re talking about lifelike appearance in the water here, not how a fly looks in the vise or fly-shop bin. It’s always wise to test new fly ideas. Certainly, testing them in the water at a lake is a good way, but before you tie a dozen or more, you should also drag a test fly through a home aquarium or, better yet, rig your new fly up in a commercial or handmade test tank. You will find that materials look and behave entirely differently in moving water. I’ve always been a proponent of trailers behind Woolly Buggers and any number of patterns, and I still am, but in the test tank, you will see that a trailer will dampen the action of your primary fly and may make it ride katty-whompus, not vertically, and thus fail to achieve the proper profile. Weighting can be critical. Tying Clousers and similar patterns on jig hooks with weighted eyes will increase the undulating action of your flies, as well as make them semi weedless.
Today, in the search for lifelike impressionism, we are seeing more and more articulated flies. Originally found in steelhead patterns, their use has been expanded into bass flies and saltwater patterns. The Game Changer, with its multiple undulating body joints, is just one example.
But traditional flies emphasized lifelike impressionism, as well. Spider flies with longer, stiffer hackles have gone out of fashion, but the enticing, skittering movement can be deadly. In an overlooked classic, Fishing the Dry Fly as a Living Insect, Leonard Wright describes how to get a “sudden inch” into the last movement of a caddis pattern’s drift. And in the lagos of Patagonia, our guides constantly reminded us to twitch our flies. Anglers who fish the Motor Boat Caddis hatch at Manzanita Lake know that animation of that caddis dry fly is essential.
Dapping takes this lifelike presentation one step further. The late Gary La Fontaine borrowed from English, Scottish, and Irish dapping techniques, where two or three wet fly droppers are fished in a dancing fashion off a long rod, most often in the wind. Gary used dental floss for his fly line choice when he hiked into breezy alpine lakes. Wind would kite the flat floss, and his flies would bounce like a Scottish ghillie’s.
Retrieves, of course, can be essential to a lifelike presentation. I’ve seen many anglers repeat the same retrieve, in the same location, at the same depth, using the same size tippet, hour after hour. Heavier leaders dampen fly action. A change to a lighter tippet may result in success. Leader suppleness may be more significant than the leader’s visibility.
Different retrieves and speeds will alter how your fly behaves. Retrieving slowly is a good rule, but now and then speed up. With a Callibaetis nymph, you want the fly to imitate the irregular rise and fall of the nymph as it works its way to the surface. Damselflies exhibit sinusoidal side-to-side action when swimming toward shore. It is hard to duplicate. A trick when trolling from a float tube or pram is to stop your forward progress for a while and then slowly resume it. Your line and fly will sink, then rise in the water column in an enticing way. Try casting 90 degrees to your intended path and let the fly sink, rise, and then swim in undisturbed water. Fish may take when a lure or fly is falling or on a pause. When I was crankbait fishing, I found that often a hit would come immediately after my lure had hit a branch that caused the bait to bump, deflect, and change speed.
Fly design and the action imparted by materials and by the angler correlate directly with success. Whether tying or buying flies for a trip to a lake, river, or the ocean, you will often find that only one or two flies, out of dozens, have the mojo that brings fish to your creations. It most likely was a combination of imitation and presentation that did the trick the trick of imitating life.
