Squirmy Wormy Shaming

[Jaybird]

You guys would have really loved Vince Marinaro , From everything I've heard about him he woulda loved the Squirmy Wormy's , then yucked it up . I'm sure ole Vince and Charlie Fox , the Deans of the Letort used garden hackle every once in a while . Its just fishing 🙄

 

[jrcll]

I just came back from New Mexico fishing the San Juan , which is known for very small midge larva, talking to a guide at where we were staying , he showed us what he was using , a bare red anodized red hook size 22-26, no dubbing , nothing ....and wow it worked

 

[JimKennedy]

You guys would have really loved Vince Marinaro , From everything I've heard about him he woulda loved the Squirmy Wormy's , then yucked it up . I'm sure ole Vince and Charlie Fox , the Deans of the Letort used garden hackle every once in a while . Its just fishing 🙄

Vince had a reputation as a cranky old man when I was a kid, so my dad admonished me not approach him one day when he showed up to fish the trico hatch on Falling Springs, back in the old days when the fly only sections were stocked to the point of fish practically flopping out on the banks. He spent the duration of the hatch casting tricos (which we called Caenis flies in those days) to what appeared to be a massive trout. After the hatch wrapped up in the early afternoon, Vince packed it in and other people started lining up to cast to the monster trout. After a while, though, it started to dawn on us that it was actually just a big trout shaped log. Sorry if I've told that story before, but every time someone mentions Vince Marinaro, that's where my mind goes.

Gotta say, I agree with Jaybird and I suspect he would have loved the squirmy wormy. I remember being snakebit as a kid by some of those weird patterns in his Modern Dry Fly Code, because I'd been raised on classic Catskills style dry flies. A lot of the innovations Vince and those guys from the Harrisburg Fly Fishers came up with really changed the modern look of dry flies. I feel like no one fishes those old Ray Bergman style bugs anymore.

 

[tramp]

I just came back from New Mexico fishing the San Juan , which is known for very small midge larva, talking to a guide at where we were staying , he showed us what he was using , a bare red anodized red hook size 22-26, no dubbing , nothing ....and wow it worked

I have some similar flies. The red hook wound with copper wire secured with a small lump red thread at the eye. Think I got them from a random guy fishing in Vermont. They do work on occasion so I carry a few regularly.

 

[lestrout]

Along time ago, I was in the Ilion plant of Remington Arms, and I met a hard core worm Purist. This angler eschewed the common nightcrawler. Instead, he home-raised a half dozen different strains of worms, and he had worked out the best time each subtype was to be used. A little like Matching the Hatch.