Just a quick few thoughts on a series of mostly barbless jigged nymphs currently available at the Caddis fly shop.
Many of you blog readers know that I am fond of fishing a small coastal lake near our family cabin in Pacific city, and I have mentioned on numerous occasions that hatchery trout will often respond well to bead head nymphs under the smallest possible strike Indicator.
I was in the Shop a week ago and noticed a new variety (to me) of very nice looking bead head nymphs tied on mostly barbless jig hooks. These looked really good to me and I purchased several flies in several forms and took them to the water.
This is a sample of the flies I tested on two days this past week. All produced, but the smaller darker flies produced the best for me.
Bottom line: these flies work well and are easy on the trout too.
I fished these on RIO Fluorocarbon 5x and 6x tippets of about 4-6 ft below my smallest size thingmabobber. Larger indicators work too but these trout are not large yet (8-10″) and are capable of taking and spitting a fly so quickly that it is difficult to detect the strike,, so the smaller and more sensitive the indicator is the more effective it will be. 6 ft is for the sunny hours of the day, 3-4 ft is for when the shade is on the water.
The patterns I found most useful were as follows:
As far as size goes, I would emphasize # 12s and #14s but also carry larger sizes just in case.
Will these jigged nymphs work well in the Mckenzie and other rivers? I bet they will. Many of the fish are hooked in the upper portion of the jaw and were easy to release, the hooks are sharp and the trout loved to chew my offerings.
Final thoughts. fine leaders do increase the number of takes you will get on any fly. These hatchery fish tend to be fairly forgiving for the first few days after they are stocked, but become increasingly more selective and quirk as the days roll on.
Is this a gimmick? I think not. These are well tied effective flies that fish very well under a strike indicator. Give ’em a try and see what you think.
Jay Nicholas March 21, 2015
I’ve used prince, possiebugger and egg style jigs, mostly #10-12 on the Mckenzie. They work best in the spring. I’ve had days where the wild cutthroats hit them hard like a streamer. They are also great with ultra-light spinning tackle under a clear fly bobber in locals where you have no room for back casting a fly rod or for someone who doesn’t normally fly fish, but understands jig & bobber fishing.
Lower Mac update; fished Armitage tues. for about an hour from 10:30 to 11:30 am. Very little surface activity, no action on possie buggers or march brown soft hackles. Switched to a #12 renegade fished wet and BAM, BAM, BAM three nice wild cutthroats in a row. The trout were long, but not fat, you can tell the locals have not begun to aggressively feed for the spring yet. Switched back to march brown and caddis imitations and nothing again. Just one of those days funny days on the Mac.