Finding the magic fly.

 I'm sure you've all heard (or been) the angler with a fish on his line who hollered  downstream to his buddy "He took a size 18 olive cripple".  And, almost everyone within hearing distance begins looking through their fly boxes for an olive cripple of the same size.

Come on, what did the trout really take?  He took a fly in his feeding lane that looked good and wasn't dragging.  Back in the day when everyone kept their ten fish a day, I cleaned many a trout and I looked to see what they  were eating. There ate every kind of mayfly that was hatching, their respective nymphs, a half digested black nosed dace, a flower blossom, a small strike indicator, a Japanese beetle and even a filter from a cigarette (more people smoked then). Fish don't live in a supermarket, they eat what is available. However, in todays catch and release fishing they have learned to be very, very careful about what they eat, that said, they almost never refuse a properly prepared and presented meal.

So what about the olive cripple. It was simply a well presented meal. Will today's catch and release fish eat anything that is well presented?  Absolutely not. Believe it or not I'm on the river so much that I actually find time to experiment. For fish in a heavily fished river system to eat your fly, it not only has to be floated drag free down the fish's feeding lane, IT HAS TO LOOK LIKE THE REAL THING.

Two years ago during a very good evening sulfur hatch I was literally getting a refusal on almost every cast.  They were coming up to my fly time and time again only to turn away at the last second without eating it. So I began to experiment by changing flies. Started with one I had recently picked up at the Troutfitter. Why? Because it looked good to me. Did it look good to the trout? Apparently not because not one fish even gave it a sniff. Went through my sulfur box, tried comparaduns,  split wings, and in line wings, hackles, no hackles, emergers with trailing shucks, encased nymphs with a yellow thorax, spinners with spent wings, broken wings and one wing, yellow bodies, orange bodies, small, medium and large flies, in short everything  that was in the box. What did I learn? Which flies to throw away and which flies to keep in my box. Also learned that I needed to keep working on small subtle changes in hopes of finding flies that fish will take more readily.  

Assuming you are working on your casting and are making good casts at least part of the time and you are still not getting refusals or takes, change flies, often. Sort out the ones fish eat or at least refuse and leave home the ones they ignore.  Finding the "right fly" with which to catch heavily fished Delaware River trout during the sulfur hatch is a challenge that will endlessly test the creative ability of you and every other Delaware River angler.

Note to Keith - As a tone deaf word smith wanna be, I was a long time Chapin fan, and have been known to slip in many a reference to Harry over the years (for sure several since you joined our ranks). With due respect to all the other sharp eyes who have ferreted out other musical references your "Do what you do", back in May was my first hookup on Chapin lyrics. Sad to think so few of his fans are left, he truly could paint a picture with words.