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Would a brown Carey pass for a March brown?

1K views 23 replies 10 participants last post by  Olive bugger 
#1 ·
Waiting for the Seahawk game to start, and got to thinking. Never a good thing for me.

Well, I wondering if a brown Carey Special would pass for a March Brown Nymph?

Say in a #12 2x long?
 
#4 ·
Well, the proof is in the pudding. I think I will tie up a few and try them. Maybe a pair in size 12 thru 18 standard length hooks

See what the trout think of them. Besides, their opinion is more important than mine.

Be a good rainy day project.
 
#6 ·
My sources give a soft hackle.

I have never tied a soft hackle woolie. Hell, I have never even seen a soft hackle woolie. I am thinking a sparse Carey with a sink tip tied in brown.
Be worth a cast of five.

Do bugs read the calendar?
 
#7 ·
It would probably work under some conditions but, if you tie your own flies, why not tie something that more closely resembles a nymph? March browns are clingers and most are probably eaten when they are emerging. The nymphs cling very securely to the rocks and can scuttle with surprising speed into the cracks between the rocks when disturbed. March browns may emerge from the nymphal shuck at the bottom and rise/swim to a point near the surface buoyed by gasses trapped in the folds of their wings to emerge, in some cases the nymph will actually rise to the surface before emerging from the nymphal shuck in the surface film.
 
#12 ·
March Brown nymphs are indeed clingers... which is good for them but not so much the trout.

It's odd. I don't think I've ever caught a trout with a MB nymph or emerger pattern.... never.... ever.

I've tried all the patterns I've heard of that are supposed to work subsurface to represent a not-so dun MB and they have not worked for me.

Dry flies do. Emergers and nymphs don't.

This is very strange because I normally catch the majority of fish I target by using subsurface flies. But when it comes to March Browns, I'm a dry fly or die kind'a guy. If the pattern sinks.... I got nut'n.

So sure. Why not? A Carey Special will work fine to represent a MB nymph... for someone, somewhere but not me :)

(seriously, as the MB is a clinger so the suckers are not available to the trout as are the swimmer and crawler nymphs... (the clinger body shape works quite well to keep them secure) the MBs are much more available to the trout when the bugs emerge ... which means a soft hackle style pattern may be a better way to go than a CS. Stan does quite well using a John's Green during a MB hatch)
 
#13 ·
As naive as I am, I would probably fool the trout into thinking it was something else, and I would swear that they were taking the Carey as a March Brown. Then both the trout and myself would be wrong. But the irony of the situation is that the trout would learn that he was wrong, but I never would. Maybe I had best rethunk this idea.

Besides I am too much of a whoose to fish in March.
 
#14 ·
As naive as I am, I would probably fool the trout into thinking it was something else, and I would swear that they were taking the Carey as a March Brown. Then both the trout and myself would be wrong. But the irony of the situation is that the trout would learn that he was wrong, but I never would. Maybe I had best rethunk this idea.

Besides I am too much of a whoose to fish in March.
Water's low in March and easier for the geezers to wade.
 
#17 ·
In the Willamette Valley, some claim the best MB hatches come off during the worst weather. I call B.S. on that one!

I've tried fishing during cold, torrential rains and thunderstorms and didn't catch a damned thing.

I do the best during the MB hatches when it is a rare, warm, no rain day with a mix of sun and clouds.

in this part of Oregon, the MB hatch runs from late Feb through early May so the window of opportunity is large enough that you really don't need to suffer to fish during a MB hatch... unless you really, really think the weather needs to suck for a hatch to come off.... which is a bald-faced lie!!!

(sorry, I can't abide by the crummy weather = MB hatch philosophy that many flyfishers around here live and die by)
 
#18 ·
Tell us how you really feel about bad weather, Gene.

Around here, if it wasn't for bad weather in late February and early March, we would have no weather at all. But the vision of warm spring sits seductively on the horizon.
 
#19 ·
The few times I've observed good March Brown hatches on the Yakima River (few because I normally fish well down in the canyon which is apparently not the kind of water most favored by the of the March Brown), I've been mostly impressed with the sped with which the emergers rise through the water column. In moderately deep water (say 5-6 feet) the trip from the bottom seems to take only a matter of seconds (less than 10). Sometimes it takes longer than that for the dun do be ready to leave the surface and fly away (this seems to depend primarily on temperature and humidity, taking longest when the weather is cold and/or wet).
 
#21 ·
Waiting for the Seahawk game to start, and got to thinking. Never a good thing for me.

Well, I wondering if a brown Carey Special would pass for a March Brown Nymph?

Say in a #12 2x long?
If you were sitting with me at my tying bench and asked that question I would give it some serious thought. My answer would be " yeah, maybe, but why not just tie a friggin march brown?"
:)
jack
 
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