Looked through my Skykomish spring steelhead records (any of you old-timers remember when we used to have a Skykomish spring season) and was surprised to see that shrimp flies accounted for more hookups than any other pattern. Hooked my first sky winter fish on a Black GP. More followed on orange GP's, sauk river grubs, and the IQ Shrimp.
I expect most of you have seen a GP but you may not have seen a European style shrimp or grub. A long hackle, usually Golden pheasant is wound at the back of the fly. The body is often two different colors and sometimes two different hackles. Jungle cock eyes are tented over the body in place of a wing. Here are some black shrimps (left column), usk grubs center and right column with a claret shrimp and a cascade shrimp tucked in along the top. Dec Hogan talks about the Usk Grub in his old book.
Here are some bright irish and norwegian shrimp patterns. The wilkinson shrimps in the upper left have blue and magenta hackles. Along the bottom is a norwegian pattern called the IQ shrimp which has a long GP style tail, an orange or rusty brown body, orange polar bear or bucktail above and below the hook, a golden pheasant hackle and a golden pheasant tippet wing.
