Gary,
Your experience is much like mine. Just 7-10 days after a heavy stocking on Pine Creek south of Slate Run (Camal), we were all fishing a very heavy series of hatches with a mixture of Grey Fox, March Brown, Olive Caddis, Sulfurs (Rotundas), and a couple I can't remember. We caught a few but finally relented the drys for the wets and slowly narrowed it down to the March Brown Wet as the one pattern that worked...somewhat.
The next day found us down at the shop in Waterville and we asked about the funny vase of ORANGE ostrich herl. Guy said "that's what they're takin". "Huh?" I said. "If you're going to tie up some March Brown wets, you need to put a bit of orange behind the head like this" he said showing me a fly (not quite as good as ours that we had tied meticulously the night before) with a tinge of orange.
Well, stocked German Browns by the local TU or stocked bows and browns by the PA Fish & Boat, it didn't matter. Especially the holdovers weren't fooled so we figured we'd better try this and went back to tie a mess of March Browns with orange ostrich herl we bought from him (yeah, a BIT expensive at that).
That evening had another mixed hatch on so we started with tandems of 3 different flys and you can guess the rest. Every trout we caught that evening was on that orange eared March Brown and I have 2 left in my box to prove it exists. We absolutely slayed em that night and had a few folks asking us what we were using so I handed out a few here and there to the polite ones and had more than a few "thank you"s as they walked back by me at dark.
...Ha! Just checked my box and sure enough, there are 3 left. They look to be a size 12 wet with light tan (I'll match the shade later) dubbing, tan head, partridge collar followed by a prominent orange ostrich collar right behind it, body has a wire rib and the tail is dark brown wavy hair that I can't remember what for the life of me.
Murf
From: "Garry V. Wiles" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Right after stocking they are voracious and will strike at most anything that moves and they'll hit anything that runs from them. It's almost game like for them. Once they're in the water for a week or so and have to find food for themselves and not rely on the white coated gentlemen and women that toss the nice brown pellets of food, they learn quickly whats food and what's not, so matching some sort of natural will be required. The longer the fish have been in their new home, the wilder they'll become. I've seen the rising to minutia in Buffalo Creek in mid February. They learn and don't remain 'stupid' fish for long.
->Garry
Find e-mail, documents and more on your PC instantly with Windows Desktop Search–FREE!
