Beetlejuice

WindKnot

Steelhead
Had a day off on Friday and headed up to a lake with a robust cutthroat population. You gotta walk in to this one right now, so I brought my float tube and hoped the wind wouldn't be too bad.

I saw some fish rising near the shore and decided to look through the modest selection of dry flies I brought. Found a brown foam beetle that looked like it would do the trick.

Athletic and entertaining strikes started coming quick and often.
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I took a break on the shore and admired all the teeth marks in the fly. Little did I know this beetle was in for a lot more.
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I decided to stash my things on the shore and walk down a ways. Didn't think I would go far, so I just brought my rod.

Fish kept coming, but the floating properties of my fly wasn't so good anymore. By now all the peacock dubbing on the underside was gone, but the main body and legs of the fly were somehow still intact. It was beginning to look more like chewed hamburger. I resorted to stripping the fly in quickly to keep it on the surface leaving a huge wake. This technique worked even better!

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Fly looked like a mess of brown, legs, and poly yarn at this point, and it didn't matter. I felt I was bass fishing stripping in a popper.

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Finished the day with a long kick back throwing streamers hoping to run into the other large species in the lake. A bunch more cutts, but no monsters today. All in all a nice day out.
 
Excellent, that’s one chewed up fly! It’s funny how sometimes a bug will continue to work even though it looks nothing like it did originally. I’ve had that experience also. Beautiful fish, thanks for sharing.
 
Excellent, that’s one chewed up fly! It’s funny how sometimes a bug will continue to work even though it looks nothing like it did originally. I’ve had that experience also. Beautiful fish, thanks for sharing.
Not only the fact they'll continue to attack the raggedy chewed up fly....they may sometimes totally reject a new replacement that is identical to the original.
 
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