What size is your beetle?

Para_Adams

Para_Adams

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I’ve been fishing Central Oregon lakes for a few years now and am becoming a big fan of the beetle dry fly. I’d never fished a beetle in over 40 years of fly fishing and am on a learning curve. For those who fish beetles, what size do you prefer? And a follow up question, do you ties legs onto your pattern and what material do you like?
 
I prefer the beetle to float in the surface foam.
 
Terrestrial talk...
Have tied the under bodies with different materials besides the standard peacock herl using AZ dubbing added in green or blue. Have had sessions where those traces of added color have triggered strikes when the herl alone didn't.
On lakes I fish them two ways:
- my fave is to just 'idle' along the shoreline under electric power, casting against the shoreline sections that are lined with bushes and the drop offs to deeper water are closer to shore. The fish come up over the ledge, nudge in along the shoreline before heading back to deeper water. I aim for within a foot of the shore where if I intercept a cruiser the takes are explosive.
-If I've covered a fave section with no takes I'll anchor for a while where the ledge drops off, and float my bugs for minutes at a time over the drop off seam before moving on to the next section.
Been fishing terrestrials all summer if not on the Callibaetis hatch at East Lake, rotating through micro Chubbies, beetles and ant's. A go to when slow is tying an ant or small beetle 3' behind a #12 Chubby and just park it in likely spots, and often it's the small trailer finally gets the bite.
 
My son drove up and met me at Sunriver last week. We had a free hour and hit East Lake, but left the tubes in the car and walked along the shoreline up to the large rock cliff where we cast a couple beetles. No luck for me, but my son picked up a nice brown. Love those beetles!
 

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Several times fish have been rising around me in a river to something invisible. Each time it turned out that they were tiny black beatles, like size 20-22. But I don't fish anything that small.
 
I’d also have a few in your box as big as size 10. Sometimes throwing something bigger than the naturals can turn things on.
SF
 
if fishing sub-surface in shallower waters rarely use an indicator anymore, prefer a beetle or Chubby depending on size of fly I'm dangling beneath. Telegraphs takes well, and occasionally gets the take which is always a smash and grab.
 
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