Has anyone had success imitating green flies? At the Loughs Agency fair in Derry last weekend Malcolm Greenhalgh reckoned they were worth imitating and someone nearby said that he had seen fish rising to knock them off leaves of overhanging vegetation.

__________________
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Wouldnt they be too small to accurately imitate? imagine trying to tie one.

I'd say about size 20, although Malcolm done a demonstration on a size 24 hook for an ant pattern last week. Loads and loads of practice.

__________________
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Along the banks of the Wharfe here in North Yorkshire, we have two "falls" (can't call them hatches!) of Greenfly generally each year - Spring and again in the Autumn.

In the Spring time, the flies fall off the trees and fish will take them off the surface with a vengence - in the Autumn, you can see fish taking the greenfly off the leaves that fall into the river.

I have had good success with a size 22 and 24 pattern:

http://www.spidersplus.co.uk/shop/de...ern%20(04)%20-

Certainly worth trying when fish are rising to something you can't see under trees ...

Kind regards

Phil.
www.spidersplus.co.uk

Aye....use them quite often on my local stream which is quite heavilly tree'd on some stretches ...water of leith....throughout the summer months.The trout in that wee river are more dependent on falls of terrestrials than they are of aquatic hatches.I no longer see the numbers of dark olives,uprights,b.w.o that used to be quite prolific in the past.

I have them tied on the old Geoff Bucknall round bends size 20.Just a few turns of apple or primrose silk with pale blue dun hackles.I do quite well with them.A tiny wee F/Fly can be usefull as well.

Thanks both of you, so small spider like patterns seem to be the order of the day.

__________________
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Try my "Chatsworth Aphid":

Hook: Gilt, size 20, straight eyed, forged hook
"Thread": Split Danvilles Signal Green Floss
Body: Two thin layers of the floss
Hackle: White cock of the very smallest possible on a Metz cape, two turns.

Method:

Hook in vice, wind a short bed (/16th of an inch) of the "thread" up near the eye, tie in the hackle, wind it and leave the pliers hanging. Wind the "thread" through the hackle and carry on down to the end of the body. Twitch off the unused hackle. Wind the "thread" back about three turns then start a whip finish ending up behind the hackle. Cut off the spare thread with a blade.

No varnish is needed.

richard

__________________
Who resides on the right bank of the Derbyshire Wye and is lulled to sleep each night by the mutterings of a weir, dreaming that "When the rivers and their inhabitants come first, we ALL win..."

I suppose that if people use blobs of orange to represent daphnia (even smaller), then amorphous green blobs could represent a fall of greenfly - rather than a single insect.

__________________
www.focalpoint-photo.co.uk


A gun, a rod, a flask of wine.
These have I sought, and have not sought in vain.

Unknown - remembered from an edition of Shooting Times, seen a lifetime ago.

I suppose so ...

Not sure why but Greenfly / Aphids are usually associated with rivers and I know that I would be thrown off the river Wharfe if I tied a blob to my leader!

But, you certainly might find some greenfly in the trees around some of your Cumbrian tarns ... there again, they do not swarm together as Daphnia swim together so the idea of a blob to represent a mass of greenfly would not happen.

Kind regards

Phil.
www.spidersplus.co.uk