Early Season Favorites?

[MCWolfe6]

Sort of an inpromptu survey but I was wondering what some of you feel are your favorite early season flies.

 

[Maurice]

For Stockers

Muddler Minnow
Mickey Finn
Grey Ghost
BH Olive WB
BH Peacock Bugger

All fished on a quarter downstream cast, allowed to sink and stripped until the swing

For wildtrout, I try to match the hatch.

Maurice

 

[Padraic]

For stockers:
Chamois Woims
Egg patterns


After they've been in a few days I would switch to more realistic patterns. Zug bugs are good for Black Stone fly nymphs and pheasant tails are good for anything else. Dry fly fishing isn't great until it gets a bit warmer, but there are a couple.

My favorite early hatch is "the speckled olive". You can sometimes find hatches on Clarks and other streams in late April evenings. I fish these with a Mr. Rapidan.

The hendrickson hatch is not good for dry fly fishing. You can do faily well with an emerger fished a couple inches below the surface.

BWO's can save your day. It's hard to anticipate a hatch, they come out on overcast days... but not EVERY overcast day and not all up and down the stream.

More important than patterns is to cover water. IMHO. Hatches tend to be spotty early in the season. So walking a good stretch of water and checking it out can really help.

 

[MKern]

I have tons of flies in many different patterns. However, I probably fish the same few throughout the year -- pheasant tails, prince nymphs, caddis pupa, sulphur emergers, BWO, realistic stonefly nymphs, and light cahills

 

[RangerKeen]

size 2 hinged bunny flies , with tungtens barbell eyes and .035 lead wrapped !!!! stripped fast !!!!! like a race car ...

 

[Padraic]

RangerKeen wrote:
size 2 hinged bunny flies , with tungtens barbell eyes and .035 lead wrapped !!!! stripped fast !!!!! like a race car ...

I try to fish that way, but I am not a strong enough caster. The method I learned was to throw the fly directly upstream and rip it back down as fast as possible. It can be viciously effective, but you need to hurl the fly pretty far and then strip like heck. I did this on the Shenandoah for smallmouths one year and nearly fell over from dehydration working up a sweat. The weather was brutual. It felt like a sauna, and only the dinks were hitting that day. I've used the trick since, but I can only do it in spurts.

I would not pull the streamer upstream. For one thing, I don't believe it is as effective (I could be wrong). More importantly, I'm told you can tear the trout's jaw, either pulling it off or just out of the socket. It's one thing to kill a fish for dinner, another to kill one accidentally. :-?

 

[JackM]

Some may recall Jonas' speech at the Jamboree discussing the fact that baitfish escaping predation will typically run downstream as they can do so faster than fighting the current. I sometime strip upstream, but it is more like jigging the fly in the current, with short quick pulls or long slow ones-- but never long quick pulls or short slow ones.

 

[PaulG]

In the colder months I've been doing mostly streamer fishing.

Been doing pretty good with Black and olive buggers with flash. Last year I tried a while krystal bugger for the first time and did well with them. Mickey Finns, muddlers will do the job!

 

[MCWolfe6]

Thanks for your responses. I'm still pretty green when it come to fly fishing and I just wanted to get an idea if what I am using in the early season is correct.

What size flies/nymphs/streamers are you using or do you just try to "match the hatch"?

 

[jayL]

I tie a bit of a ruffian hare's ear for stockers. I've yet to try it yet, but i don't see why it wouldn't work.

Bushy hare's ear dubbing over entire shank, ribbed. Add a black thread head. Looks damn like a wax worm to me.... and in my bait fishing days they were my favorite bait.

Another good stocker fly is:

Take a small bit of foam/padding from the couch. cut it into a strip and tie it onto the hook like you're tying up a roast. again, looks damn like a wax worm.

i'm thinkin about makin couch foam corn kernels too. :-D

 

[Coughlin]

Padraic mentioned the Mr. Rapidian which is my go to fly ( along with a woolybugger) in the early season. I tie it on 12 and 14 1x long hooks with brown thread, a brass bead, brown hackle tail, hare's ear abdoman
(slightly larger thorax), gold ribbing, single mallard flank wing extending back a little short of the tie in point for the tail and a hen hackle or partridge beard.

Padraic, what does yours look like?
Coughlin

 

[Fishidiot]

I fish a lot on stocked streams early in the season. I get a lot of fish on a combo using a small orange egg fly (bigger in stained water) with a muskrat nymph dropper. Of course Wooly Buggers work well, esp once the water exceeds about 42 degrees. For stockies I like bright buggers with a lot of flash. For limestoners with wild fish I have the most success with scuds and sculpins throughout the year. I also fish terrestrials year round. In 2006 on opening day I got eight browns on a foam beetle.