Spring lies so near, and yet so very far away! I have done my best to take the reins, dealt with my present situation, and worked toward a future upon bright water as soon as possible. Time will tell…
So, while I keep my mind focused, I have been reading through an old book on terrestrials, one I had never heard before. I found myself thinking about a class of bugs I honestly never paid much attention to. The more common flies don’t get attention when trout fishing is the subject, and it is easy to ignore several species: houseflies, deer flies and horse flies and their relatives. I decided to do something about that empty compartment in my terrestrial box.
What made me decide to come up with a new general bug to prospect with, whenever I notice any of those naturals? I recalled an unusual day just a couple of seasons ago. I slipped gently into the river one afternoon and found some unexpected hard rises. There were no aquatic insects hatching causing this serious feeding, so I immediately moved to offer some terrestrials. I went through several ace in the hole patterns with none of them interesting even an inspection rise.
Eventually, I succeeded to capture something from the drift. It looked that it might be a bee or Yellow Jacket, but it seemed to stuck together in some other material. I thought looked to be part of a nest. Some pretty strong gusty winds were blowing periodically, so it seemed to me that a nest in a tree may have been disturbed and coming apart. I was stumped to come up a dry fly to look and act enough like what I was seeing floating down to those trout. The event stopped after half an hour and all feeding ceased. That was my first bees in nest hatch, my first in 35 years and likely my last, but it did get me thinking.
Reading that old book made up my mind to design a general-purpose fly. The concept was a fly that could be used as a horsefly, deer fly or a housefly by tying it in a couple of sizes. I wanted something so that a change of color and the addition of a rib would imitate a bee or Yellow Jacket. I decided it to call the Trout Bug.
This pattern will be added to a small, early terrestrial box that will be tucked into my vest when I first fill it up for the beginning of the season. I want these always there. The first half-dozen of Trout Bugs were tied on classic dry fly size 12 hooks, a nice middle of the road size bug. I don’t want to carry of several sizes of these – I want a decent size two-winged some kind of a terrestrial fly that suggests a nice impromptu meal. The Trout Bug fits that bill.
Come summer, and I hope to spend a lot of long wonderful summers along the rivers of my heart, when I find some fine old brownie who isn’t impressed with my usual dry du jour, I will take a shot with one of those Trout Bugs. I think that might just turn the tide my way!
Bright Waters Catskill 