one to try-leech

pete41

pete41

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Jul 2, 2007
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Don't know how good it would be in Pa. but was a great fly in Montana For night or dusk and dawn fishing on clear streams with gravel bottoms-fished as streamer,right on bottom.
Size 10 or 12 hook 2x heavy.
lead wire underbody
no tail
silver tinsel body.
3 inch piece of leech yarn[Barlows] either brown,black.tied in at head as wing.
No simpler fly but give it a try-fished so that it drifts along bottom with current giving the action.Cast across and slightly down stream,how far depending on depth-roll slack into line so fly sinks to bottom layer and just as it starts to swing around it will be in strike zone.
The leech yarn has a beautiful pulsating action in the water.
 
Sounds like you had some great experiences with this, very cool! By chance do you have a photo to go along with it? Sounds like a simple tie, but photos go a long way :cool:
 
Sorry-I never took pictures and gave everything away.
I was going to comeback and say
Actually you use a 2 inch piece being careful to pull the hair back so that only the thread is cut.The hairs will flow back in water making it about 3 inches.
Its as simple as it sounds-can't go wrong.
Fished at the right time,right way and fish around its as reliable as any fly.
 
Pete:
I'm even going to admit, that; "I'm probably dead wrong, in saying this, even before I say it"!(mainly, because I haven't seen a picture of the actual fly you're describing), But, I've run across this fly, or one very similar to it; several times while fishing Montana.
My fishing partner and I, have seen mostly locals using it and not only on the type water you describe, but also on the Bitterroot, a few times, during high water and twice on the St.Regis, under the same conditions.
It was almost always tied, however, with GOLD tinsel and a single,brown or black, rabbit strip!?!(about 3" long). We did run across, one, tied with silver and another, tied "barber pole style" with gold/silver tinsel!
When we asked about the fly, (being SO simple a tie, we couldn't help, but be curious about it!),Bishop and I were given various names........... "Montana Nightcrawler", "Strip Leech ", and one name given to us by a guide we'd met, which was the weirdest of all........... "Smith's Dancing Leech"!??!
Don't have a CLUE who "Smith" is, and neither did this guide!?! And, as for "dancing"..................well, tumbling along the bottom of a stream/river, in a dead drift.........I wouldn't really refer to as "dancing" anything!?!
 
Its a deadly fly but I don't think body matters.
My knock against rabbit fur is it will wrap around hook bend-bad news,especially at nite.
the leech yarn doesn't.
I am sure we all came up with our own version but something that simple has no creator although some would claim it.lol
 
I should have noted,again-this is a fabulous clear water nite fly-probably the best non-spawning time one you can find.
 
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