favorite dries for small streams

[evw659]

I have only been fishing small streams for about a year or so, and now realize that a brookie will pretty much take any dry they can fit in their mouth, no matter what color it is. just curious to see what your favorite dries for brookies are. Here are my top 5 in no particular order.
1. Stimulator
2. Royal Wulff
3. Parachute Adams with a pink post
4. Foam Ant
5. Catskill White Fly for skittering.

 

[PatrickC]

Royal Wulff

 

[quillfly]

Any type of Catskill in most small streams especally if the're quill bodies parachutes with a close to natural wing post work well to . i have the general thought that on small streams you will probably be able to see the fly so i stay away from the floro post just so that if the fly lands upside down its not an adams with a pink dot on it to the eye of the fish.

 

[pcray1231]

Parachute adams, though mine usually have white posts. I use royal wulffs and humpies a lot too. I use some stimmies, but frankly, even with the smaller sizes I seem to miss too many fish with long shanks.

Be careful. In my experience, it is true that the brookies will hit about anything. However, that isn't to say fly choice is meaningless. It's just that your choosing a fly based on the considerations of the fisherman, not the fish!

1. It must float high and easy. Often in tight places, you aren't backcasting and drying it out. Plus, you're fishing fast little riffles and such, the flies get dunked repeatedly. You want them to float high, and once waterlogged, to be good as new again with a quick blow. Regardless of pattern, a well tied, heavily dressed fly is important. There are good size 14 parachute adams', and bad ones.

2. It must be visible to YOU. That's why I hate midges and ants and so forth. I lose sight of em when I fish heavier water. Also, I don't always think pink shows up so well, you'd think it would, but not for me. White shows up best, hence my affinity for parachutes and royal wulffs.

3. Durablity. In addition to getting 50 hits and landing 30+ fish on a single fly, you're gonna get it caught in branches, on rocks, etc. These flies take a beating. With poorly tied flies, it's easy to go through 10 in a day, and that gets expensive. With well tied flies (and a willingness to climb trees and such for flies), I sometimes quit with the same fly I started with.

The rest is about size, which you choose. Tryin to avoid the dinks? Go bigger. Missing everything and ok with dinks? Go smaller.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Elk Hair Caddis
Royal Wulff
Cream Midge

 

[evw659]

if im fishing a low gradient stream, i often use something more natural, (since the fish have more time to inspect it) and try to avoid flourescent posts, but a parachute adams with a white post tends to blend in with the bubbles in a riffle(usually in mid to high gradient streams) and i lose track of it. stimi's work best for me in heavy riffles and fast current because of their buoyancy. and yes, pcray, with stimi's my ratio of hooked fish to missed fish is much less than with a catskill or parachute.

 

[evw659]

if im fishing a low gradient stream, i often use something more natural, (since the fish have more time to inspect it) and try to avoid flourescent posts, but a parachute adams with a white post tends to blend in with the bubbles in a riffle(usually in mid to high gradient streams) and i lose track of it. stimi's work best for me in heavy riffles and fast current because of their buoyancy. and yes, pcray, with stimi's my ratio of hooked fish to missed fish is much less than with a catskill or parachute.

 

[salmonoid]

Stimulators and Royal Wulffs. And I usually fish a dropper. Although its not statistically significant, with a sample size of two streams, and 7 fish, the past two outings had the dinks taking the stimulator, and the legal fish taking the San Juan worm. pcray1231 hit the nail on the head - the most important taker of the fly is YOU. Pick something you can see; brookies are opportunistic feeders. I like the dropper because it gives them more opportunities

 

[gfen]

I'm no expert on small streams, but I've been fishing a 4' wide drainage ditch for the last two weeks while waiting for the usual stream to drop to a fun level.

I've tried a bunch of flies, but by the end of every trip its a size 14 Royal Wulff. I'm more confident it in that something normal looking because I figure the big white wings and profile bring 'em up from anywhere to eat it, littler, whispier flies don't seem as important.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear evw,

One of my favorite flies in the HL Variant. It's a Western fly that is very similar to a Wulff fly with the white wings. I like it because it is easy for me to see.

http://shop.kenscustomflies.com/product.sc?productId=62&categoryId=8

Regards,

Tim Murphy

 

[k-bob]

#14 adams, oversize cardinal red post: visible at distance, floats well. I dont like brown stimulators in tannic water, they disappear. Cardinal red shows up well in tan or clear water, even with white bubbles.

 

[evw659]

thanks for the insight guys. i have another question. yesterday i was fishing a very nice brookie stream that imo should be a class a. (this stream flows into a resorvoir and below the reservoir it is class a, but above the dam it is not. i was fishing above the dam.) there is a very small trib that flows into the stream above the dam that has the highest density of brookies that i personally have ever seen. it was about 11:30 am and it was 70 degrees out with not a cloud in the sky. my brother and i parked at a bridge of the small trib and planned to walk the trib down to where it meets the stream that flows into the reservoir. along the walk down i fished about 4 holes and had at least 1 bite at each pool. But, when me made it to the bigger stream that is full of brookies as well, the action stopped completely. i figured because it was noon, the fish might have shut off completely. so when we got to the backwaters of the resorvoir, we decided to head back to the dinky trib by the car. we started to get into some fish at the dinky trib. why would the larger stream with just as many fish be completely dead when the dinky trib had willing biters? anyone else had similar experiences?

 

[k-bob]

Just a guess, but could the difference be sun in larger stream and shade in trib? Even brookies will sometimes lay low in sun on open water. Might be safer due to herons, etc.

 

[pcray1231]

Sun, or water temps, would be my first guess. Also, the larger the stream, the richer it usually is. The richer a stream is, the less opportunistic, and the more schedule oriented the fish become. Timing becomes much more important, and you were at high noon on a sunny day. I realize the stream may not have been "rich", but it's not a black white thing, it's a sliding scale with many shades of gray.

But as an alternative possibility, did you have flooding this summer/fall? Those fish may be gone for now, upstream or down, or even into tribs.

You said it was above a reservoir, is it possible the reservoir backed up to that point? As the water slows into a reservoir during floods, you will deposit a load of silt, well above what is typical. The fish will leave, either to the depths of the main lake, or upstream to find more current/less silt. It might take years of no flooding to rescour that silt out and deposit it down into the lake. Brookie streams are not constant things, they always change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Anyway, regarding post colors, for me, white seems to show up a LOT better than pink/red. I dunno why, it doesn't make sense (as was said, the bubbles are white too). I think that's a personal thing, everyone's eyes work a little different.

 

[stevehalupka]

pcray1231 wrote:
Parachute adams, though mine usually have white posts. I use royal wulffs and humpies a lot too. I use some stimmies, but frankly, even with the smaller sizes I seem to miss too many fish with long shanks.


The rest is about size, which you choose. Tryin to avoid the dinks? Go bigger. Missing everything and ok with dinks? Go smaller.

couldn't have said it better..

i used to fish stimmy's exclusively but was missing a lot of fish.

this is a funny pic... the stim is bigger than the fishes head

with that said, when fishing wild freestoners, i have started using 18 and smaller flies just to make it a bit more challenging and surprisingly, if i gink enough, i catch more fish. they see a lot of stimulators/adams... throw out a white midge and it's game on for finnicky fish. A lot of times, in turbulent water, I can't see the fly when it's this small and just set the hook when i see the rise.

 

[jabink84]

#14 and #16 patriots also love a irresistable adams in the same sizes.

 

[MKern]

On another website, devoted to small brookie fishing, there is an article about how the author fished midges all day and didn't catch anything. He then switch over to a foam hopper and nailed fish all day long.
It's not that they fish didn't see his fly, he just didn't see the fish sipping his fly.

I like parachute adams and foam hoppers. If I am missing strikes with them, I often switch to a klinkhamer style emerging pattern. I find that if the hook is in the water I increase my hook-up rate.

 

[zerodrag]

Brookies are suckers for the Ausable bomber

 

[csoult]

I use two flies exclusively for brookies. Royal Wulff and a Tan Caddis, If you do not spook them first they will hit one of these. Browns to me are completely different, I find them to be much more selective.

 

[WildTigerTrout]

Royal Wulff and Elk Hair Caddis.