Fly Selection System Anyone?

[Loren]

We all have our favorite flies and season and hatches can influence this, but would anyone like to share their process of trying different flies to determine what Atlanta area Hootch fish are hitting?
It often takes hours for me to find their favorite food.

[Owl]

'Ole Man minus the " up o no good" grin,

..sinc I have just recently caught my first Hooch trout( stocker) I'm not really qualified to answer this,.......but that has never stopped me before! http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif I usually try to use dries first 'cause I like them... The morning of the Fling, however, I put on a bead head stonefly w/rubber legs and after 15 min.I swtched to a streamer( NOS) ....bingo - fish on! Then no more action on that , so I went to the Caddis (#14 Tan) and got 4 or 5 more attempts( by the stockers). Their aim leaves something to be desired. Maybe we should invent swimming pellets to feed them so they can practice hitting a moving target! http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif
Howvever, I digress( me? http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif ) So anywway, I give ech fly 10-15 min. if it doesn't work(trying different retrieves or casting angles) and switch more than any other living soul ! Ask Icthus abot my technique to check the San Juan worm bite ! http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif


Owl

[Loren]

Worm bite? Might you mean "snake bite"?

[Rod]

I too like to start out dry....Dan's trying to turn me into a snob...fishing coachman's and wulf's at water and not fish or at places that should hold fish rather....If dries are slow I next try a bhsh (new initialism--bead head soft hackle)it, like the dries mentioned above don't really imitate a single bug but is more like a searcher/attractor pattern with general "buggy" action/appearence.

By the time I've tried two or three flies and settle in to the water and begin watching and waiting....eventually I figure out what they are keying on (if anything) and then fish that until I wear blisthers or soggy indentations into my forefinger and thumb...then I usually say, "what the hell" and switch to a dry out of boredom or Promethian ire/pride and laugh maniacally when some "dumb" stocker falls prey to my wit/skill...not really, I'm just one lucky S.O.B.

Rod
1 part finding the fish
1 Part keeping the hook wet
3 parts luck

My goto is moving towards a bhwb---I can always seem to dredge something up with a black or olive...

After writing this I think I'm ready to take a page from A.K. Best----instead of running into the water and flailing attractors at non-existant fish, I think I may sit on the bank and enjoy a smoke (since I started back) and wait for the fish to come to me

here fishy fishy fishy.

[floater]

When on the hooch I'm usually sinking nymphs at first, sticking to attractors like prince and grhe. Then I fish them until the period between day and evening when I figure those caddis cases and pupas must be starting to move around, so I try them. Then when the fish start feeding near the surface, I switch to a ehc and then maybe an emerger or a greased pupa and other things until they start biting. That would be a typical day when the hatch comes in the evening and the fish feed on the different stages, but often it doesn't happen that way. So, as a gen rule of thumb if the fish are feeding near the surface I try surface flies and emergers/pupas, I don't like to dry fly fish blind on the hooch, so I'll sink nymphs If I can't see them feeding near the surface, but many times I have casted to rising fish with bh's and caught 'em. This is my system, very simple, I am not the most technical fisherman, nor do I feel the need to be, so I don't have a real technical system to catch fish, I just relax and fish, and I like it like that.

[WDN FLY]

I'm in a little different situation but here is how I do it. I usually have rising fish so I sciene(sp) the water to see what's in the top 3". I also carry a monocular to check out the duns that are on the water and to see what type of rise the fish is making. If there are no rising fish I work a cricket or ant along the bank, most big smart trout are bank feeders. I hope this has been of some help.

[Loren]

Thanks guys - lots of help. WDN, what kind of sceine do you use?

[WDN FLY]

As you probably guessed I made mine. Get 2 dowels around 12" long and 1/4" in diameter. Between these I put a piece of no-see-um netteing about 8" by 18". Measurements don't need to be exact by any means. That's pretty much it.

[floater]

Or, you could just get them in the basspro's whiteriver flyshop, where I got mine. It was like $0.75 or something. You can just keep it in your vest, and then put it on your net when you want to use it.

[Loren]

All in all, a very seine way to select flies.

[floater]

Seems like somebody else would chime in here and give us there method.

(floater picks up a rock, lifts his eyebrow, and puts forth his hand) Bugs anyone?

[Tom]

Almost always I begin with a dry fly that has worked on the particular stream I'm fishing at that time of day and season. If regulations allow it I most often tie on a dropper about 18" - 24" tied to the bend of the dry fly. The dropper would most likely be a Prince, GRHH, Pheasant Tail or even a wet pattern. If it is strange water and I am not privy to the company of someone who knows the stream, I'll generally start with the above system and my dry will be either a deer (or elk) hair caddis or an adams parachute. Scientific? Not very. Effective? Most of the time.