late winter/spring flies

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poopdeck

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Been honing my skills tying buggers, clouser minnows, beetles, ants, green weenies, eggs, Griffiths gnats, prince nymphs, PT nymphs, flashback PT nymphs, antron yarn bugs and zebra midges.

Time to tie something else. What would be some good flies to tie to add to my late winter early spring arsenal. I plan on doing some trout fishing in the State College area as well as looking for some browns on the upper Delaware river. I may even try a few stocked streams in SE PA if I get desperate. For years I have been going down to the local creek just to watch opening day maybe I'll jump into the fray on about day three.
 
Poopdeck, seems like you have a good start. I would add gold ribbed Hairs ear nymphs. Several colors and sizes. And definetly BWO dry and emergers. I like the RS2 pattern for emergers. You can get some awesome BWO hatches in March. Of course some early stones fly nymphs black and brown.

GenCon
 
Don't forget caddis dries. I've often run into early caddis hatches in that time frame.

My favorite fly, the cdc and elk is a great fly to have when the fish start looking up.

In sz 12 and 14, it also makes a dandy early brown stonefly immitation.

These two bugs often skitter across the surface, so having a perfect drag free drift isn't always necessary, or even preferred.
 
Sounds like you have a good start. Fish blue quills with zebra midges dropped off of them. DEADLY on SPRING CREEK EARLY. Small blue quills 22-18 is what I had the best luck with. My science teacher put me on these flies in highschool, and hooked me up with them.

I had a ton of luck last year on some big ugly stoneflies. Similar to the ones on the other stonefly thread but tied with squirrel and rabbit dubbing. Not sure if these big bugs were matching the stones in the stream, as I imagine they would not yet be that big, but some have longer life cycles, but they were hammering size 10-6. I was tossing these as anchor flies to get my favorite nymphs down. I wasn't complaining.

I have decent luck with caddis larva as well in the early season. A simple olive, chartreuse, or brown vinyl ribbed body with peacock legs, and either a bead or thread head always does the trick.

copper johns work well for me as well.

I like using crystal meth type sucker spawn as on ocasion. I just picked up some while colors like blue, and some crazy pinks and orange pearl braids for this very reason.

I didn't see any walts worm listed on your list either. Some swear by green or orange weenies but I have yet to catch a fish on one of those things. Others I have tied for have had luck, just not me.

 
Soft hackle emergers are great in the spring time and all through May. Fairly simple to tie and fun to fish on the swing, dead drift, etc...
 
Sucker spawn and some generic imitations of the early little black and brown stoneflies (lots of discussion in other threads about early stones).
 
I would start by doing some dries. caddis and BWO. both easy and can be done in many ways. my personal favorite caddis is a CDC. just dubbing and CDC very easy and a fish catcher. I also think it floats better then a Elk Hair caddis.

you can also do a BWO with just CDC. its tied as a comparadun. also very effective but if you add hackle just a little nicer of a fly.

if you are really serious about the upper Delaware I cant tell by experience but a book that I have that was written by Henry Ramsay is something you should pick up. its called matching major eastern hatches. its my basic guide on how I tie most of my specific hatch flies. its a great book that is basically all about fishing in Pa and Md and the hatches that go on in the area. really good step by step photos. does a good section about spinner falls on the Delaware.
 
Honey Bugs !!!
 
That's a good list to start working from, Thanks for the suggestions. Ill have to look for that book as well. I was going to tie BWO's but I don't have many hackle tips is there anything that can be used instead. Im not a fan of CDC because I am cheap and at this point in my tying career I don't want to spend the money on it knowing that I may butcher some of it.
 
pending on size of fly, I will sometimes not even put wings on my smaller dries. Have not seen any difference in the success of the pattern.
 
Between hackle and CDC they both are going to take a chunk of change out of you pocket. If you buy in bulk its not that bad. I was going to pick up a pack today at TCO but I needed other materials and gas money to get to school. Only 18 bucks and it probably would be able to go further then a whitting 10 pack.

Caddis you can use the whole piece of CDC BWO I omly use tips. Then I usebtge rest in emergers snd nymphs.

Regardless drys are going to be more expensive because the stuff the makes a fly float is not cheap.
 
poopdeck wrote:
Im not a fan of CDC because I am cheap and at this point in my tying career I don't want to spend the money on it knowing that I may butcher some of it.
Only one way to figure out how to use it. Buy a bag and use it... I hate to waste materials too but there comes a point. A caddis dry with a body of cdc and a wing of elk or deer hair makes a really nice fly.
 
Actually, cdc is fairly cheap.

This stuff is about the best there is....

http://www.trouthunt.com/estore/details/2192/0/242
 
Yes, Rene' has very high quality cdc I've got some and it works well.
He also has a couple of really good books as well.
 
I almost exclusively fish the surface, not always but almost. I have found CDC to be a cheaper alternative than hackle, almost a bargain. Aside from getting slimed which is a pain I think it lands softer in the water and does a better job with selective fish.
When I do use conventional hackle I hardly ever tie in wings. I have never found a difference. I do fish a bunch of different styles from CDC Petijean to comparadun to bubble mergers to catskills and parachutes.
 
Baetis and stoneflies.
 
So I can tie bwo's without wings and they will work? No wings it is then.
 
One word of caution when tying dries without wing tips. The fly must be balanced properly and have the correct size of hackle. If this isn't done properly the fly will not land on the water hook down.
After tying my hackled flies I flip them up in the air and make sure they land hook down on the tying desk. If not a few longer hackles cut out from the bottom usually fixes this.
This is yet another reason to tie with CDC, This is almost never a problem with them.
 
Additionally a comparadun would be a quick dry fly tie with no problems. Pick up a nice patch of hair and tie away, no muss and no fuss. They lie flat in the water and catch fish for sure.
 
I was reading the section on Stoneflies in Mike Heck's book "Spring Creek Strategies" last evening and it got me thinking about tying some Little Black Stonefly patterns. If the weather ever decides to warm up just a bit we will probably see some of them showing up on some of the spring creeks. Mike described them as a very solid late winter/early spring fly. Here are a couple of pictures of a nymph (size 16) and a dry (size 18) that I tied. The dry is nothing more than a size 18 black deer hair caddis and the nymph is just me free lancing it a bit at the vise. I never really tied many patterns for the Little Black Stone or fished them much for that matter but I think I might give them a try this year. Over the years I remember seeing numerous hatches of Little Black Stoneflies during late February and through the month of March but never had anything with me to fish those hatches.
 

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