Which trout fly

Any fly that sits in the surface film or rides on top of it plays against the odds. Even when sitting directly on top of feeding fish, as I have often done when shooting photos of risers from a blind, it is almost impossible to observe what a trout is eating.

So most of my clues to the swirling rise have actually been when fishing nymphs close to the surface or swinging wet flies. For instance, once I was fishing over a pod of trout on a small tailwater in Colorado and I was having problems catching trout with my dries and emergers, even though I thought I had a pretty good match to the small olive mayflies they were eating.

I had tried different patterns, a lighter tippet, changing positions — all with no luck. I had a small Pheasant Tail nymph on my fly patch so I decided to try that out of desperation.

Sure enough, in a couple casts I had a couple fish. No big surprise there, except that when those trout ate my nymph six inches below the surface, they made exactly the same kind of rise form I had observed. And when I finally came to my senses and stopped seeing what I wanted to see trout eating dry flies , I took a close look at those rises and realized they produced few bubbles and all of them were about the size you'd find in a bottle of carbonated water — not bubble-blowing-sized bubbles.

Thus, when you see this kind of rise, you can try throwing your dries and floating emergers and you might interest a fish. But if all of the rises look like this, you'll be much better off with an unweighted or lightly weighted nymph, or swinging a wet fly or soft hackle over them. Some hatching insects will drift in midwater or close to the surface for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour before most of them attempt to pierce the surface film.

So typically after an hour or less the insects start to actually break the surface and fish rise in a more surface-oriented manner. Sipping rises and head pokes are often found together, with one fish making a sipping rise and the one next to it doing a head poke, or the same fish actually rising with both types in a given feeding period. A sipping rise is a concentric, unhurried rise with no splash and often no bubbles.

Even in flat water a sipping rise can be hard to spot, and in poor light conditions or in riffled water you often need to be within 30 feet of the fish to even know it is there. This kind of rise typically indicates insects size 18 and smaller and happens when a trout barely pokes the tip of its snout into the surface film, just enough to induce a tiny bit of cavitation to draw a small insect into its mouth. The head poke is merely a variation of this behavior where you actually see the snout break the surface.

I think trout can make a sipping rise to an insect on the surface, pinned in the surface film, or just below the surface. I don't think you can tell what kind of an insect it is or even its position in relation to the surface film. These insects are so small in comparison to a trout's snout that a trout could take a midge adult on the surface, a tiny caddis pupa in the surface film, and an emerging mayfly just below the surface in the same gulp. It seems that even if a trout takes an insect on the surface with this type of rise, so little air goes into a trout's mouth cavity that bubbles are nonexistent or hard to discern.

In my experience, it's not possible to figure out if a sipping rise is to an emerging mayfly, a fully emerged mayfly dun, a mayfly spinner, a spent caddis, an ant or beetle, or a midge pupa.

They all look the same. What you can determine from this kind of rise is:. Finding a bunch of trout rising in a sipping manner is one of the greatest discoveries on a trout stream.

Fish eating small insects must eat a lot of them to be satisfied, so rises are often steady and frequent. A casual stroll along the bank often misses this kind of rise without the aid of binoculars or extremely careful observation. Drift boats often twirl right down the bank without giving a second glance, as the occupants are too busy watching strike indicators or pounding streamers to the bank. Because these rises don't move much water and very little disturbance happens above the surface, seeing sipping rises on the far bank of a foot-wide pool is difficult.

You really have to get into the water and get close to the fish to see them. The most common place to find sipping rises is slower water at the edge of fast current, or in back eddies where fast water swirls back around and slows.

Fish will also sip in riffled water, though, where spotting them is even more difficult. But it is well worth the effort; fish in riffled water feed more often because the faster current brings them insects with increased velocity, and fish are less spooky when the surface of the water is broken.

Here are some tips for spotting sipping trout:. When a trout rises in what we envision as the classic manner — where it tips up and inhales an insect, eating only those that drift directly above its head — the rise form takes on an elliptical shape that is relatively symmetrical. With smaller insects like midges or tiny mayflies, if the current is uniform that rise form becomes more circular.

Unlike the classic rise — where the trout's head, dorsal fin, and sometimes tail break the surface — when only the trout's snout breaks the surface the rise is more circular, especially in slower water. Sometimes you'll see a rise form — it can be any of the above types — where there is a strong push to one side. This indicates a trout that has moved to one side or the other to take an insect, one not directly in its feeding lane.

You often see it when a trout is steadily feeding on one type of insect, perhaps a small mayfly, but suddenly spots something that induces it to move out of its lane to feed. It might be a mayfly that flutters more than others and catches the trout's attention, or it could be bigger prey that it recognizes, like a larger mayfly, grasshopper, large stonefly, or beetle.

You may also see a rise with a dominant downstream push. I find that rainbows in fast water often don't have time to intercept a fly and only spot it when it is directly overhead, thus they turn around and take the fly by rising in a downstream direction.

Observing trout for hours in the stream in my backyard, I've come to realize that turning around and rising downstream is more common than we suspect. There is not much strategy to glean from observing this type of rise because it's often combined with traditional upstream rises, but if you do see a fish rising like this, you should be cautious if approaching it from downstream.

The other day I found a large brown trout rising in slow water at the tail of a pool. It was the largest trout I had seen rising in this small stream all year. I carefully approached the tail of the pool from below, really the only option in this narrow stream, and had just prepared to cast when the fish decided to chase an insect downstream.

I found myself busted, eye to eye with the fish, which of course bolted for deep water because it had me right in its sights. The clue you get from this kind of rise is that this fish may be inclined to take something other than the dominant food form, which comes in handy when you can't seem to imitate whatever the trout is eating. A renowned attractor on par with the Prince and the Copper John, this classic subsurface pattern is an excellent searching pattern for trout.

Tied with weight, it gets deep. Tied without, it drifts well, with the fibers of the pheasant tail giving a subtle but sometimes irresistible action. Voting resumes Wednesday, April 1.

Be sure cast your vote to be eligible to win fly-tying gear from Loon ranging from superior-quality scissors, vice pawns, bobbins and the like. Those voting in the final matchup will be eligible to win a Loon Complete Fly-tying Kit. Vote here! In contrast to dry fly fishing, we can also use larger flies here, on which the fish simply hold better. A hit to the fine rod from a large fish during wet fly fishing often an unforgettable experience. Unlike the original Royal Coachman I slightly modified the pattern to make it even more effective.

The base of the fly is made of golden pheasant tails, which are indispensable for this pattern. The body is made of peacock, so I recommend to strengthen it somehow, due to the sharp trout teeth the body can be strengthened, for example, by underlining or tying with a thin thread. I create the heart of the fly compared to the original red thread from red holographic tinsel, which I find more interesting.

You can replace the original wing with white tips marabou feathers. Finally, I will share with you another controversial fly, which, like the Squirmy Worms, comes from the US. I had the opportunity to see US junior team using it at last year's World Championships on the Vltava River, when targeting stocked rainbow trout. But they also celebrated success on natural fish. Their technique was really successful and they were catching one fish after another.

They had two of these flies tied to the French leader in very bright colors chartreuse, orange. They casted the whole set as far as possible, let the flies float in the stream and kept the flies in the stream or revived them with the tip of the rod. Contrary to our habits, they used heavier flies, which I justify by saying that these mop bodies do not fall through the column so quickly. FlyFishingPoint s. Kralovicka , Brandys nad Labem Czech Republic. Remember me Forgot password?

Samuel Piekar. Related links. Tungsten Beads Metallic Pink. Worm Body Veniard. Body Quills Hends. Fulling Mill Jig Force Hook.

Trout Streamer Fly Selection. Author with decent rainbow trout.