Jack wrote: “….It's all food, or not food, depending upon their present level of stupidity.”
Jack’s right about that. No one knows why trout (or any fish) chooses to hit a certain fly or a certain presentation at any given time. It’s really a mystery why the same hares ear fly I fished the other day with great success can’t buy a fish, and yet the prince nymph I tie on slays them today. Only the fish know, well they’re so stupid according to Jack, that I guess they don’t know why either.
I believe that fish sometimes get locked into feeding on certain things at certain times, like during a hatch, and shun other things. On other days they will hit anything that looks or acts like food, we all have had those days too. That’s one of the mysteries of FF for trout, and that’s what keeps me coming back to the stream to try again.
Pete wrote: “Change to a dun near bottom but with wings tight against the body so they can streamline to surface.lol”
Pete,
While I can’t say I have witnessed it, since I don’t scuba dive in trout streams, I find it very plausible that certain mayflies transform into duns below the surface as entomologists suggest. Haven’t you ever seen mayfly nymph shucks stuck to rocks at the bottom of the stream? I’ve seen thousands of them in my rock turning forays. As to what the trout think your fly represents, no one can answer that except with the general answer of something good to eat. I can tell you with certainty that caddis swim to the surface to hatch. Put a soft hackle on during a caddis hatch, let it swing in the current, and hang on!
I started fly fishing as a teen in the early to mid seventies. At the time, nymph fishing was just getting popular, yet wet fly fishing was still a common tactic. Of course there was no Internet, so to learn about FF, I read books that I got from the library. Most of the books were written in the 50’s & 60’s. The flies and methods described were mostly wet fly tactics, so that’s what I used – and I caught fish! I graduated to nymph fishing a little later on, but a few years ago I remembered how I used to catch fish with wet flies. I tried them again, and low and behold – I caught fish! I now include wet fly fishing in my repertoire of tactics. On certain days, in certain conditions, wet fly fishing is THE way to catch fish. Also, I find it a very easy and relaxing way to fish when I burn myself out trying to nymph.
One thing to add: Recently I made a trip to the Delaware during the Hendrickson hatch. The hatch was heavy but fish were rising only here and there because the water was being pounded by anglers with nymphs, dries, cripples, and emergers everywhere around me. I didn’t see many fish caught. I grew tired of alternating between nymphing and trying to cover rising fish 80’ out in the current, so I found a little riff, tied on a gang of wets, including a Hendrickson wet that has been in my box for more years than I can remember – guess what happened?!?