# Clearfork this evening



## bman (Apr 20, 2009)

Fished the gr area for 2 hours and worked hard on two risers that were picky as heck but did finally catch them. 10-11 inchers on tiny dry flies....practically a piece of lint on a #20 hook! Headed over to the state park and caught nothing in 25 minutes of fishing.

Not sure where I'll be starting in the am but will likely fish around gr again for a few hours.


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## deaner1971 (Dec 31, 2008)

Sorry for my Clearfork ignorance but "gr" is short for what?


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## RonT (May 4, 2008)

gr = Gatton Rock. The Red zone on the ODNR "fish here" publication. A few fish in that area, but beat to death, literally. bman, what time of day? 
Where in the park? Most likely better off between the campgrounds. Big fuzzies under the wood have produced lately. 
R


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## bman (Apr 20, 2009)

Fished at the pleasant hill dam this morning....much better! Caught 10 brownies between 8-11" on a #14 adams. Tons of small flies coming off the water. Small mayflies of some sort. Lots of fun! Also caught a bunch of bluegills, a small largemouth and a nice sucker (beadhead for the sucker!)


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## RonT (May 4, 2008)

cloudy, would expect a hatch. you say #14 adams, yet small mayflies coming off, mixed signals. did you get downstream to the midstream rock. suprised no Wipers (hybrids).
R


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## Wild One (Jul 3, 2008)

RonT said:


> cloudy, would expect a hatch. you say #14 adams, yet small mayflies coming off, mixed signals. did you get downstream to the midstream rock. suprised no Wipers (hybrids).
> R


While a new-school Adams (dry fly) was not necessarily intended to imitate mayflies, I've have some amazing days fishing an adams during mayfly hatches out west. A para-Adams and an EHC were my absolute go-to dries back home. They covered most hatches pretty well.


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## bman (Apr 20, 2009)

RonT said:


> cloudy, would expect a hatch. you say #14 adams, yet small mayflies coming off, mixed signals. did you get downstream to the midstream rock. suprised no Wipers (hybrids).
> R


It was a little strange to me too . . .lots of very small #20-#22 bugs coming off the water yet I caught them on the #14 adams. The day before at GR, only the small stuff worked!

The only thing I can tell you is fish act funny sometimes . . . I am not a hardcore "know every bug" fly fisherman (actually much more of a bass guy.) That being said, I stick to some basic rules/approaches when fly fishing for trout that people have taught me over the years:

1.) fly size is more important than color or even type of immitator. My first day at GR was a classic example of this. Small mayflies coming off the water but I caught them on a #20 or #22 midge pattern (the piece of lint fly I referred to above.)

2.) When things aren't clicking, try a generic pattern that's especially "buggy" (Adams would be a classic example.) Also try something that just gets their attention (like something bigger.) Like yesterday below the PH dam.

3.) Most beadhead nymphs catch trout anywhere! I like the Hare's Ear and pheasant tail BHs personally in # 16-#18.

4.) Make sure fish the BHs right near the bottom!

5.) Terrestrials from mid-summer until first freeze can work well (kinda fit into the general "buggy" category. You don't have to see rising fish to fish them either.

6.) Winter trout fishing is awesome!

These basic things have generally served me well over the years. I'm a pretty decent caster/fly presenter as well, which is also a key ingredient.

I don't think I fished all the way to downstream to any midstream rock. I only fished about 1/4 mi down if that from the dam. Of course, there were a fair # of rocks/riffles in the stretch I fished from the dam down a little but don't recall any big noticeable midstream rock.

Wipers? Didn't even know the CF had wipers. What upstream lake was stocked with wipers? Pretty sure Clearfork Res and Pleasant Hill don't have wipers . ..maybe Charles Mill? Do you catch them on tiny trout flies like nymphs and dries? I would never expect to catch them on that stuff, although certainly would expect to catch them on a woolly bugger or streamer.


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## RonT (May 4, 2008)

Yes, unless there was a stocking in Pleasant Hill that went unannounced or I missed. The Wipers that are there most likely made the trip down the Black Fork and back up the Clear Fork to the dam which is the only place that I've caught them, and then on a BH Black Stone. If trying to single them out I would fish a White Bunny with a touch of chrystal flash.
I usually fish dries to rising fish on the hatch, whatever is on at the time. 
Nice to hear that you are a proficient caster/presenter, maybe catch up sometime on stream and get some more tips. 
Cheers,
R


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

bman said:


> It was a little strange to me too . . .lots of very small #20-#22 bugs coming off the water yet I caught them on the #14 adams. The day before at GR, only the small stuff worked!
> 
> The only thing I can tell you is fish act funny sometimes . . . I am not a hardcore "know every bug" fly fisherman (actually much more of a bass guy.) That being said, I stick to some basic rules/approaches when fly fishing for trout that people have taught me over the years:
> 
> ...


I'm in the same boat as you are, from what I can tell. I'm no expert fly caster, but I can put the fly where I need it most of the time without issues. Same on the bugs, I may not know what I am looking at all the time, but I can look at what I see and match that pretty well with something in my box and catch fish. The few bugs I see down in WV that I usually know pretty well are caddis' and green drakes. The green drakes are huge and stick out like hookers in church down there, and most caddis' are pretty obvious, too, but I have confused some of the tiny black caddis flies with little black stoneflies on occasion.  

Speaking of strange flies working, my first trip to WV for wild trout maybe 6 weeks back, I saw a lot of tiny mayflies, maybe size 20-22 coming off in huge numbers. Fish were clearly hitting them in the morning. I showed them some small midges close to the right size, and some other tiny dries, and they wouldn't touch them. Out of frustration, I tied on a #14 elk hair caddis, NOTHING like what I was seeing, and the fish hammered that fly all day long. 

My motto on those small streams recently has been: buggy and visible. When I say visible, I mean to the fish _and_ me! In some of the glare, even with ploarized specs, I couldn't see my midges and smaller flies...but a #16 stimulator or caddis is pretty easy for me to track, and the fish seem to find them pretty well, too. Like you, I'm also a big fan of the pheasant tail nymph. I have them in my box from #12-#18, and they are my go-to nymph for trout in WV.


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## deaner1971 (Dec 31, 2008)

I am a little more of a believer in the color mattering but more so depending on light and really more "tone" than "color". During mid-day when the fly is lit from behind, I would absolutely agree that size trumps color.

I have been out in the morning and evening and there were lighter colored flies coming off and you have to show the trout a light fly. Tan, white, gray...all were fine but that tone was crucial.

So, I guess what I am saying is that color may not matter but tone (lightness or darkness) does, at least in my experience.

Curious how much color does start to matter when fishing a gin clear, slow moving piece of water. I always assumed that the great the clarity and slower the conveyor belt, the more the details matter. Haven't enjoyed those situations much in my time however.


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

Deaner, that's the thing about the streams I fish, the flow is pretty fast. That means the trouthave to decide in an instant, food or not. I have fished slower moving streams and watched trout "punk" flies, and there's nothing in fly fishing more frustrating, to me. I've watched trout drift right under my fly for several feet, then drop back to the bottom. In the faster water, trout don't have that much time to decide, and a lot of times (especially with the smaller fish) I will get strikes from fish 2 or 3 times before finally hooking them, and strikes are not subtle at all, they're usually violent!


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## bman (Apr 20, 2009)

Very interesting/useful thread guys! You guys got me thinking about color/tone - especially on clearer and slower moving water. Of note, the CF under the Pleasant Hill dam was faster water + dirtier than the GR area I fished the day before. Those two GR fish I caught would come right up to my midge emerger fly and look but not take it. Both locations had tiny tan mayflies hatching all over the place. Maybe they hit the #14 adams at the dam since it was dirtier and I was fishing faster runs = more of a reaction/opportunity strike for the fish?

And if I had to do it over again, I'd have fished a small mayfly pattern at the GR location. Maybe it would have taken a much shorter time to catch the two I caught in 2.5 hours!

Thecream - totally hear ya' regarding being able to actually see the fly! Also a factor! It doesn't matter much if you get 4 takes but see none of them. I'd trade 2 takes where I have a chance vs. barely being able to see anything!


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## riverKing (Jan 26, 2007)

I like this thread, so I will add my thoughts
I agree with what is being said, in most trout fishing I go with big vs small, dark vs light, floats vs sink. mix those up and you eventually find somthing fish will eat. though there are times when fish get super picky, cream, do you think they were tricos, I know thats one hatch where fish key in on spinners and timing and often incorrect imitations get flat ignored.
but here is the *biggest truth in fly fishing *guys
....(suspense right)...trout are friken stupid! lol, they have little bitty brains. Personally, I dont think fish every think mayfly vs caddis, or that my streamer looks like a sculpin, or that they take my ant fly for an ant. they look up and see somthing that looks like food that is acting in a natural fashion and they eat it. they only get picky if there is a bunch of somthing around so they can see that your immitation is somthing just a bit different, so it doesnt look natural, so you either nail the hatch, or unmatch it(the caddis incedent)
this is why now, even though I carry some specific hatch matching cripples for certain streams, I usually through adams, elk hairs and humpy's for dries, and I go one big one small, one dark one light when I nymph. the kiss method applies for these things bigtime.

...there are exceptions, but even technical trout are still stupid, they are just good at picking out unnatural things, that often has to do with water type over the fish in the river or the hatches. I have yet to see fish in pocket water that will ignore an adams but take a light cahill.


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## deaner1971 (Dec 31, 2008)

On clarification, when I made the comment about light flies, that was because the hatch was a really small white fly that evening. Not saying light flies at dusk always work. Wheh it does work it is really nice because the lighter flies are about all your eye can pick up in a mountain valley at dusk...

When you get those fish that stare intently at the fly but decide not to take, I like to try presenting the same fly on the same drift again and just giving it the slightest of twitches. Not sure if it is the movement making it seem alive or the fish being forced to make a quick decision on a fly it thinks might be about to escape but it seems to work.

I do hate it when they give the fly the old stink eye time after time. I annoyed a guy I was fishing with once by snapping and proceeding to unlease a stream of obscenities at a 14" brown who, I felt, was just screwing with me. Apparently the guy was a lay minister which, in all fairness, he really should have mentioned earlier in the day.


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