I'm feeling my oats today, as well as remembering when the trout ignored a billion-strong BWO hatch but sucked down the occasional PMD cripple that drifted by. Trout have a strange love-hate relationship with the pissy-weather-loving BWO.
Sorry Murph, the only nymph worth mentioning is Sawyer's PT; but, from time to time one can enhance its charms with a small gold bead. I recall a day when the Henry's Fork was a torrent of muck (typical of my timing), a visit to the Buffalo yielded so many trout to the GH-PTN during a modest BWO hatch that the exercise became stupefyingly boring. For the ??? time I could see the trout taking the nymphs and ignoring the duns. Gee, it will come as no surprise that I like my own Foam Post Emerger for the emerger, duns, cripples, and stillborns. Of course that pattern only predates the "identical" thorax dun by ten years before someone "discovered" turkey flats. Regardless, always being open to improvements, I did modify my original pattern after witnessing others doing well with sparkle duns (I replaced the hackle "tails" with a three short pieces of Krystal Flash). Others from the UK to the Antipodes to ... have spoken well of it too. As for the spinner, either healthy or spent, who cares. The reason Hans recommends the downsized PMD spinner (other than the fact that it has the right body colour) is that if you actually find trout feeding on BWO spent spinners, just about anything in the right size will work. And there's a good question for the list: how many of you have encountered trout (not just one, but at least a pod) feeding selectively on BWO spinners? And if so, how many times? Of course if my floating stuff doesn't work, the appropriate CDC and Elk or Klinkhamer will. Cheers, Paul http://www.galesendpress.com -- Paul Marriner Outdoor Writing & Photography. Member OWAA & OWC. Author of Stillwater Fly Fishing - Tools & Tactics (Print [NEW] & CD), Modern Atlantic Salmon Flies, Miramichi River Journal, Ausable River Journal, and Atlantic Salmon.
