The Magic Fly

J

joefromchicago

Steelhead
Was tying a Royal Trude the other day and reminiscing about the time fishing upstream on a Cascade range creek with a caddis pupa, which should have been a happening thing, and getting completely snubbed. For no particular reason, changed to that fly, went back downstream and the fish just couldn't seem to leave it alone.
I'm sure some of you have similar stories, so let's hear them.
 
Snake River, 2000, gorgeous stretch with a high bluff across the river, chatting with an elderly flyfisherman sitting on the opened tailgate of his cherry 50's pick-up, he and the other half dozen fly fishers lounging in the parking lot apparently in no hurry to fish...'wait until the sun drops behind the bluff, son, and then toss these out there', hands me a few beautifully tied Royal Coachmans from his flybox.
Sun dropped, the river began to light up with takes on multiple hatches and soon wherever you looked there were fish busting surface. Everyone deployed, hookups one after the other on the biggest Cutt's I'd ever seen or caught. Hour later the on switch was flipped to off, everyone reeled in and headed for the parking lot, what the locals called Magic Hour now over.
Fast forward a decade, multi day float on the Big D, Redsides not cooperating much on a warm, sunny day, few being taken are on nymphs...rummaged around the dry fly box, WTH, tied on a Royal that elderly gent had given me on the Snake, cast it into a seam, didn't travel more than 20' before it got engulfed...
 
Similar to a well known story I'll attribute to AJ McClane, but this in fact happened.

YNP, 30 years ago, first week in August. My wife and kids let me pull over now and then to fish while they mess around in the grass or something. Buffalo Ford. Maybe the most famous place in the Park, so I gotta wet a line. 2PM, and hot. I pull over, there's a meat line of guys all dressed in the uniform of the day...vest, floppy hat, neoprenes, wading shoes and net. They all look like they just stepped out of the Herters catalog. Nobody is catching shit.

I see an "opening" in line. Off I go in my baseball hat, shorts and carpet-soled tennis shoes, rod, net, and small fly box. To quote George Gobel, these guys are a tuxedo and I'm a pair of brown shoes, but I know enough to know neoprenes are not compatible with a Wyoming summer. I cast out a small soft hackle (that's been catching fish all week) across the current, drift a ways, nothing. A few more times. I still haven't managed to have a hit, but I haven't crossed anyones line, either. Then, whammo. I hook up, about an 8" cutty. Murmuring up and down the line as I release the fish. A few casts later, I'm on again. Release, more murmuring. A refusal rise, which I swear was depth-charged by at least 10 stonefly nymphs before the ring got bigger than 18" in diameter. A little while later, I hook up again. As I release this one, again like an 8" fish, the guy to my left says, "Hey buddy, what are you using?" I rememberd McClane's story, I say, conversational volume, " Coachman, number 12." You can hear fly boxes open up and down the line. Nippers click, boxes shut. The line resumes casting. I step out of line to go back to my family and continue our day.

The guy who was to my right steps out too, and on shore he says..."You were'nt fishing a Coachman.....why'd you tell him that?" I reply: "Everyone has faith in the Coachman."
 
Doesn't  have to be a coachman. One other time, fishing the Donner and Blitzen, fished a dry fly on the way up to no effect and when deciding to turn back, stopped to smoke a cigarette and noticed stonefly husks all around. Tied on a prince nymph and caught fish all the way back, including a nice 20"-er at the dam.
 
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There were a handful of cicada patterns that we came up with on the Green River in the 80s that lead to the development of numerous foam bodied, rubber legged dry stones, hoppers, crickets, beatles, ants, and even green and brown drakes. The cicadas and the incredible numbers of fish in the Green at the time, lead to truly magical times.
 
Fishing the Yak on a large, long, inside gravel bar. October Caddis with a HE dropper. Nothing. Changed dropper to a PT. 50+ trout to hand. Never left fishing the gravel bar all day.
 
I bought some flies online, and was given a "bonus" fly, whose name was unknown, but it was a dark claret red nymph. I fished the flies I usually fish, with middling luck, so switched to that fly and took 3 trout of good size from one small undercut, one after another. I would expected the other two to get lockjaw once the first was dragged out from under the cut, but I guess not. I went downstream to another nice undercut and took 5 12'+ browns out from an undercut about 15 feet long, in about 8 casts.

That fly has never worked since.
 
Paul gifted me a half dozen flies couple years ago, as he has done for many of us, in the collection was a black balanced leech with chartreuse bead. I typically fish 4 rods in the skiff - chrom, balanced, emerger and dry - for weeks I left that leech on the balanced rod, just periodically retied, reached for it every time hatches slowed down, as it had became my #1 catching fly when the bug activity was nil.
Last time in use, fishing a deep seam just outside the deadwood forest when it got grabbed and a hella big Cranbow went airborne right after the take and then promptly ripped line into the deadwood where it broke me off.
Some flies just got their mojo working...
 
Many years ago, on a popular NE WA flyfishing only lake that I (and a fairly sizable number of other flyfisherman), were having no luck at all despite trying all of my normal "goto" patterns.

Rummaging around in my flyboxes I noticed a row of raggedy old Renegades I hadn't fished in years.

Thought "what the hell" and tied one on, and proceeded to enjoy watching the Renegade getting hammered.

An old gent slowly paddled over and asked what I was fishing.

When I replied "a Renegade" he gave me a disgusted stinkeye and replied "those flies don't work anymore, and they sure as hell can't be fished wet", and left in a huff, no doubt thinking I was fibbing.
 
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