Exaggerating the hatch
I started experimenting with blue colored flies almost ten years ago--after a friend gave me a few
on an April trip to the Grey Reef dam stretch of the North Platte in Wyoming.
Since then I've gradually became a real believer in blue-colored flies. I've never seen a blue nymph.
And yet they work so well I can't in any way deny the results. I won't even speculate about
why. There is a lot of conflicting color information out there on the net, and in some recently published books too
(green travels the deepest in water....no no no, blue penetrates deepest and no no, what really matters is UV reflectance, etc).
Sorting out and nailing down the real story on light transmission in water is a high priority long-term goal for me.
But in the meantime, one blue fly has led to another and then, somehow, I've become interested in
all sorts of super-naturally-bright fly tying colors. Willie Self's hot orange chironomid patterns (posted a week or so ago) are an example.
The Green Rock Worm is a traditional Montana fly going all the way back to Franz Pott. Bob Jacklin caught a 10lb brown
on a Green Rock Worm just a few years ago (while tracked by a live video camera, no less).
And the Green Rock Worm (net spinning Caddis) has been a favorite fly of mine for a long time too.
Franz Pott tied his Green Rock Worms with woven hair bodies. Bob Jacklin uses bright green dubbing while
I used to tie these flies with green floss. But this year I started tying them with green Lazer Wrap (thank you Willie Self)
which blows the doors off any previous brightness standards. And the fish sure do seem
to be responding. We're into a late summer pattern on the Yellowstone now--where the nymph
and streamer fishing is good early. And then not so good. The fishing tapers off between 10:00am and noon.
And then it's off like a light switch all afternoon long. In the mornings, when the nymph fishing is still
good, I've been having extra-good luck with these unnaturally-bright (almost bizarrely bright) plastic-bodied Green Rock Worms.
This is a fly I fish with confidence now:
bead: as big or as small as you want
hook: any scud hook
hackle: a few deer hair strands, wound and mounted in front of the bead (that's the first step).
body: green lazer wrap
ribbing: fine-diameter oval tinsel
collar: ostrich herl, wound behind the bead, after building the body. This is the last step.
Whip finish behind the bead.
