[orangeradish]

I went to a local lake that is chock full of trouty goodness. It was slow for a bit, but after a while, the surface looked like a damn golf ball for all of the rises. It seemed that they were eating just below the surface most of the time, with a few big jumps thrown in adding insult to injury. I did everything short of tying my fly box to the end of my leader, but alas the wretched skunk jumped in my boat and ate my mojo. I would've given my pinkie toe to have 2 or 3 of whatever the hell they were eating. Feck.

 

[cabezon]

Jason, if you didn't see anything hatching, they may be eating clouds of Daphnia (water fleas). If this is the case, there may not be a thing that you can do. Google Daphnia flies for some feeble attempts at "matching the hatch". One possible option is to cast a nymph (Callibaetis is a good choice) in their general direction and strip it back. You might find a fish or two that is willing to go for a bigger meal.
Steve

P.S., yes, you do need help, but so don't the rest of us.

 

[Mumbles]

A few words my friend. You smell awful, more awful than me perhaps? Key word, emergers. How is your fly box set for emergers? How about soft hackles, weighted or not? What were they eating? Did you see the food source, was it too small? Daphnia is pretty common this time of the year in a few lakes that I fish from time to time. I hate that crap. For it I've found no solution other than something tiny, red and prayer.

 

[orangeradish]

Thanks for the good advice, gents. I threw soft hackles, san juans, woolly buggers, weighted and unweighted nymphs, chironos,a tiny white dry type dealamagiggy, and for comic relief, a black and purple conehead leech, and a chernobyl ant among the lilies near shore. I started with a 12 ft. leader, and by the end of the night, it was 6".

From Wikipedia-
Daphnia are really fucking small planktonic crustaceans, between 0.2 and 5 mm in length. Daphnia are members of the order Cladocera, and are one of the several small aquatic crustaceans commonly called tiny fucking water fleas because of their saltatory swimming style (although fleas are a different type of shitty little insects and thus only very distantly related). They live in various aquatic environments ranging from acidic swamps to freshwater lakes, ponds, streams and rivers, where they make anglers say fuck a lot.

:beathead::beathead::beathead::beathead::beathead:

I guess I could put a dot on a size 28 with a sharpie. :thumb:

I should bring a bug net next time. That may help.

 

[Ron Eagle Elk]

When everything else fails me, I go to a size 14 Bailies Black Spider. It's broken a bunch of skunks for me.

REE

 

[orangeradish]

When everything else fails me, I go to a size 14 Bailies Black Spider. It's broken a bunch of skunks for me.

REE

Hiya, Ron! Long time, no see. One of the SHs I was using was the one you showed me @ the first meeting I went to. I'll look up that spider. Will you be there on Wed?

 

[Out of Here]

Thanks for the laugh, Pepe. Perhaps ze trout are deeply religious and took offense to your curse words, no? LOL

 

[orangeradish]

Thanks for the laugh, Pepe. Perhaps ze trout are deeply religious and took offense to your curse words, no? LOL

Oui, oui. Perhaps I should try a more pious approach.

 

[orangeradish]

Nice video, Ron. I don't have starling, but I'll dig thru my box o' dead stuff for a substitute.

 

[Old Man]

When you swear at the fish you have to hold your mouth right. If it isn't screwed up at the corners it doesn't do any good to cuss at them.

I had the same thing happen to me on a put and take lake one time. so I stuck a large March Brown dry on and had a ball.

Sometimes something big will work better than something small. (Was gonna throw something nasty here but thought better of it).

 

[Tim Lockhart]

Only sometimes Jim?

 

[orangeradish]

(Was gonna throw something nasty here but thought better of it).

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
You should never think better of it.

 

[Kyle Smith]

One fly I learned to like in this situation at the foothill ponds east of Seattle (not sure what region you are in) was an unweighted prince nymph. Don't know why, but it almost guaranteed success when fish were rising.

 

[orangeradish]

One fly I learned to like in this situation at the foothill ponds east of Seattle (not sure what region you are in) was an unweighted prince nymph. Don't know why, but it almost guaranteed success when fish were rising.

Nice. Thanks for the tip. I didn't try one of those...

 

[Bob Jones]

Maybe a pitching coach would help.