Matching Nymph Patterns to Hatches on the Yough

silfeid

silfeid

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I'm fairly new to fly fishing - I've been gradually transitioning away from spin fishing to fly fishing for the past few years, acquiring more gear and knowledge each season. I'm at a stage currently where I will prospect new waters with an UL spinning set-up and if I find fish in decent numbers, I'll return with the fly rod later in the season and see what I can make happen. I imagine in a few years the spinning gear will mostly gather dust, but for now I'm something of a hybrid fisherman, as I imagine many here are. For what it's worth, I'm pretty nearly a C&R puritan - I will keep maybe two fish a year maximum, if they are large enough and caught in waters that are heavily stocked and heavily fished; I will never keep a brook trout regardless of its size or origins.

Anyway, over the past few years, I've acquired a decent assortment of flies, probably forty or fifty patterns of all sorts - dries, nymphs, emergers, streamers, etc. The Yough above and especially below Ohiopyle are my favorite larger waters to fish in SWPA (where I live), so I've been sure to consult some hatch charts etc. and buy dry flies that imitate the typical Yough hatches. What I haven't done, at least not yet, is purchase nymphs or emergers that also match those species of aquatic insects. I'm not really sure why I haven't, to be honest - there just seems to be much less emphasis on this aspect of the "match," and I get the sense that a lot of nymph patterns are general stand-ins for many species.

So my question is, how important is this, in yinz's opinion(s)? Will a Copper John or a Prince Nymph work roughly equally well to imitate a Black Caddis nymph in April and a Green Drake nymph in May? Or would it be worthwhile to acquire nymphs that imitate each individual species (some seem hard to find)? What nymphs have you had success with on the Yough, be it Upper, Middle, or Lower, and how do these necessarily relate to the endemic hatches of the river?
 
I never fished the Yough, but you can't go wrong with a Pheasant tail, Hares ear, or Caddis pupa nymph.
 
A good many years ago there was a trend to accurately imitating each individual bug. I think that has pretty much passed.
You can be just as effective with generic/impressionistic flies. Copper John's, Prince, Pheasant Tail, Hares ear pretty much cover 75% or so of the mayfly and stonefly flies you'll need, provided you vary the size.

Add some soft hackle in green, orange, and tan and you pretty much got your underwater game licked.

I like to have some "bling" flies ir Frenchie, Rainbow warrior, lightning bug, sexy walts, pink caddillac, squirmy wormy or green weenies to seduce lethargic and stocked fish.

Keep your flies in the 14-16 range for most of your ties.
 
I'm fairly new to fly fishing - I've been gradually transitioning away from spin fishing to fly fishing for the past few years, acquiring more gear and knowledge each season. I'm at a stage currently where I will prospect new waters with an UL spinning set-up and if I find fish in decent numbers, I'll return with the fly rod later in the season and see what I can make happen. I imagine in a few years the spinning gear will mostly gather dust, but for now I'm something of a hybrid fisherman, as I imagine many here are. For what it's worth, I'm pretty nearly a C&R puritan - I will keep maybe two fish a year maximum, if they are large enough and caught in waters that are heavily stocked and heavily fished; I will never keep a brook trout regardless of its size or origins.

Anyway, over the past few years, I've acquired a decent assortment of flies, probably forty or fifty patterns of all sorts - dries, nymphs, emergers, streamers, etc. The Yough above and especially below Ohiopyle are my favorite larger waters to fish in SWPA (where I live), so I've been sure to consult some hatch charts etc. and buy dry flies that imitate the typical Yough hatches. What I haven't done, at least not yet, is purchase nymphs or emergers that also match those species of aquatic insects. I'm not really sure why I haven't, to be honest - there just seems to be much less emphasis on this aspect of the "match," and I get the sense that a lot of nymph patterns are general stand-ins for many species.

So my question is, how important is this, in yinz's opinion(s)? Will a Copper John or a Prince Nymph work roughly equally well to imitate a Black Caddis nymph in April and a Green Drake nymph in May? Or would it be worthwhile to acquire nymphs that imitate each individual species (some seem hard to find)? What nymphs have you had success with on the Yough, be it Upper, Middle, or Lower, and how do these necessarily relate to the endemic hatches of the river?
I have put some hours in on the Yough in the summers when I am back from college but patterns I have done well on are stone flies , caddis pupa emergers, (((((((((drowning midges)))))))- i swing these almost on the top and run a zebra midge underneath it and slam fish on it too depending on the area..It is unconventional but I have gotten into numbers of fish when I swing that fly.. I get most of those patterns from BigY but I also fish confluence and ramcat. I mainly nymph though but I would say the outlier out of all those are is that drowning midge pattern for whatever reason.
 
There are certainly many people here much more qualified to address this, so I am hesitant to answer, but:

-the life cycle of most of the bugs is such that nymphs of many varieties are more or less present in the water at any given time; this doesn't necessarily correspond to hatches or even really seasonal appropriateness of adult bugs. You could go the route of seining the streams and fishing nymphs to match what you find, but, as mentioned above, the general consensus of history seems to be that impressionistic subsurface flies do just as well

-the exception to this could be emergers, as in that case you are more directly fishing a hatch. Certainly there is a culture of tying some pretty specific emerging bugs, so you might go this route. You could, though, also do pretty well to use technique - forcing your nymphs to rise downstream, swinging your dries low in the film without floatant like a wet fly - to approximate emerging bugs rather than using specific patterns.
 
Thanks for the advice, all - will let you know how I do once the water levels work themselves down a bit!
 
Pheasant tail, hare's ear, prince, golden stone, black stone and bright green caddis larva. If you fish those 6 patterns (various sizes) for 6 months in Pa, you should catch fish on just about every stream. Make it as simple as possible 👍

Once it becomes too easy, the you can add additional patterns to confuse you more often 😂
 
Big ISO nymphs work well later in summer.
 
In the keep it simple mode, one mentor of mine said to pick up a rock and get a general impression of the bugs.

Then there were two questions to ask: are they big or small and are they light or dark. Pick a nymph that fits the general impression of the bugs you see and you will do just fine. Pheasant tails are fine dark nymphs and hare's ears can be good light nymphs. Of course, we are fly fishermen and need to complicate matters.

BTW, Kray's response is an excellent one and I try to go the simple, I really do. (large Prince nymphs are my late summer "iso" nymphs, PT's and hare's ears cover most mayflies, stoneflies never hurt and one needs one caddis). However, after hearing about a dozen new killer nymphs my nymph boxes get to be a mess pretty quickly. Simple works well, I'm just a sucker for the latest new pattern hoping to do just a little better. At the end of the season I know better and cut back to the old tried and true nymphs, but soon enough it is a mess once again.
 
On limestone streams with wild brown trout, the best flyfishermen I've seen are good at matching the nymph.

Whether it's as important on Yough or not, I don't know.

But suppose you fish that river a lot and know of 3 major hatches. Why NOT have the nymphs to match those hatches?

It takes about the same amount of money to buy a nymph that imitates a particular mayfly as a generic nymph.
 
This was July just below Ramcat. Maybe tie one up. I have fished from the falls upstream to Ramcat with the bike all last summer. Caught rainbows and browns and even 1 large brook trout. Walt's worm, black PTs, worked. Caught one on Thanksgiving on a yellow stonefly. No luck with the dry fly ever Maybe any nymph will work.
 

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Take a scrap of paper and make 2 columns. On the left, write down mayfly nymphs that a PT could pass for. On the right, jot down the mayflies that absolutely couldn't be imitated with a PT. Just sayin. If you swam or swung a larger one, could pass it off as an ISO.

Pretty much comes down to light patterns and dark patterns. If you're close in size and have it in the correct part of the water column, it's going to get eaten. It's not rocket surgery
 
I also feel that just a few general nymphs with varying color and size are all you need. Color and size I feel can definitely make a huge difference if fish are keyed in on something. I have a tremendous amount of faith in a good old prince nymph, though, and if nothing is apparent then I will often fish it first.

I have never fished the Yough, but still.....

Fish can definitely be very picky on characteristics of dries though. If they are keyed in on something you better have something similar.
 
This maybe taboo here, but I am not proud. I took a few fish last week for the grill. Upon cleaning I checked stomach contents. Along with alot of brown mayfly nymphs and green caddis, there were also a hellgramite, 2 yellow stones, 1 brown stonefly, midge larvae, hemlock needles, small sticks and stems, leaf bits, and some small pebbles ( a bit bigger than grains of sand).

It seems at least those fish were just opportunistic and feeding on any thing that looked like the nymphs ( sticks, brown leaf etc) or green hemlock needles which were probably mistaken for caddis. Size shape and color were very close.

I'll agree 100% that surface feeding fish can drive you crazy. Underwater, the fish aren't usually that picky. Anything close in size and color is a pretty good bet. Most important is a good drift at proper depth. Why else do some of the most educated fish in the state fall for bead heads nymphs, or some of the bling type euro and perdigon nymphs so popular today?

If you really think about it, look at the difficulty alot of folk have in ID'ing nymphs. The fish are not counting tails, legs, etc. Basically they judge nymphs and other underwater food Pass/Fail.

I think this is why alot of generic patterns work so well (PT, HE, Prince. Walts Worm etc)
 
As to selectivity, I think trout are mostly opportunistic whether on top or on bottom except for the "super hatches" on fertile waters. I am mostly not a match-the-hatch guy, except for sulphurs, tricos, and olives. Then, having the right nymph can help as much as having the right dry. The super hatches are those hatches that provide a lot of food every day for months and trout can key into each phase of the hatch. ie, when olives or sulphurs are hatching heavily trout key onto the nymphs as they get active before the hatch and having the right nymph is important. Then the emerger is important followed by the duns/cripples and finally the spinner fall. On the Delaware tailwaters sulphurs and olives hatch from late spring into October some years and the trout really get used to the daily cycle and you may need to follow it for success, with pattern and how to present each phase. This is more important as the season progresses and the fish have seen every fly.

That said, I don't worry about matching the hatch for PA freestones very often, and then a PT of the right size is usually OK. I generally start with the biggest nymph/dry I expect but start going smaller if nothing hits. But I still take my sulphur box out any night from mid-May to Late June anywhere. After being fished over a lot somedays the successful tactic is a sulphur nymph suspended under a sulphur dry - for this I use a sulphur nymph pattern and not a PT.
 
One other thing to remember. You must get down to where the fish are holding.
Fished the Yough for years and found that if fishing droppers add a 12" piece of leader
to the end of your droppers and tie a knot. Start adding split shot until hitting bottom.
This will keep your pattens right where the fish are holding. Fished the Yough from Confluence
to Ramcat and found that this increased my fish strikes. Also ALWAYS carry a wading staff when fishing the Yough.
 
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