There has been a good discussion lately about "nymph" fishing for salmon and what kind of nymphs work best. I saw Donny Donovan catch a salmon on a bare hook with just a silver bead head on it - no dressing at all. He said that with certain fish at certain times of the year it makes very little difference as to pattern of fly/nymph. Put it in their eyeline and induce the take and you'll catch them on anything. Does this not smack in the face of all the thousands of beautifully tied salmon flies currently available for about three quid each?

There is of course a big difference between trout flies tied as accurate immitations and of weighted nymphs tied to annoy salmon and it is the salmon flies/nymphs that I am talking about.

Is it really necessary to have thousands of different patterns or should we just concentrate on getting a bare hook with a bead head in the right place/depth? I.e. In front of a salmon?

Probably should add that I too have hundreds of salmon flies!

Reg Wyatt

Reg
only the salmon can answer ,I try very hard to be a one fly only man at least on hooks,however a tiny doubt always creeps in .
Big tubes and waddys now there lies personal madness

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Andy Wren
Winter grayling taking a year off !
Claret not just a great dubbing colour!

See below

Nymphing for Salmon in Low Water | Blood Knot Magazine

Reg, your probably quite right, but how many anglers would have the confidence to try something as bland as a bare hook with just a bead? Most prefer the safety blanket of a box full of angler catching creations!
As a relative novice to salmon fishing, but someone who fishes for almost everything, I have a very open mind with regards to methods and tactics.From my limited, but revealing observations, the key to inducing a follow/take is not pattern ,but how the nymph catches the fishes attention, dropped onto its nose and then drawn away upwards works, but far better to bring alongside from behind its head then up or outwards from the fish(long rod),Obviously not touching the fish with the line/fly is vital. As for size of "fly", having had takes with things as diverse as 6inch redgill sandeels(try them!) and size 14 nymphs with a pink, metallic tungsten bead head(deadly) , whatever floats your boat.
peter

I think you may be overstating the difference between nymphs for salmon and trout. What about trout taken on bare hook nymphs, or merely a few twists of copper wire? Sometimes the secret lies not so much in what a fly looks like, but what it does, and trout and salmon can be quite similar in this regard.

That said, I'm inclined to agree with your general point. I am fairly minimalist in my selection of fly patterns, and tend to use a pretty restricted selection over the course of a season, in spite of carrying many others, in a wide range of patterns, with me.

On the other hand, there are some hugely experienced fishers who take the opposite view. Look, for example, at the huge range of Irish shrimp flies, some of which differ from others in only quite small degrees, yet they are all given their own name and classified separately, and some people will tell you with great conviction that this or that shade of hackle will be more effective in particular circumstances.

In a sense trout fishing is quite straightforward; the fish are feeding, and the majority of flies set out to imitate or represent whatever they are feeding on at that particular time. Put a fly that looks and behaves like the real thing in front of a trout and you've a pretty good chance of catching it. On the other hand, salmon aren't feeding and we don't know why they take a fly at all, or what is the trigger for them to do so. I think this mysterious aspect is one of the attractions of the salmon fishing, and endless debate about this or that pattern is all part of it. As is sometimes said, if we knew all the answers it wouldn't be half as much fun!

All I can say is I get far more Salmon (Although Smaller fish) when I’m not trying for Salmon then when I go specifically for Salmon. Maybe they know if you are trying . As for types of nymph well had 11 Salmon on nymph over the years and I don’t think any two have taken the same nymph, as I said earlier its always when I least expect it happily wondering along the river plucking the occasional Lady out of the current and then BANG just as the nymph rises at the end of the cast your reel begins to scream off and for a moment that 4lb Grayling Dream is looking promising
The River tends to be Down when I do get one on nymph so maybe the Big Salmon flies are needed when River is in Spate but anything dangling on there nose when they are Holding waiting for some more flow will do

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Allan
Trout always recognise a bad leader.

When you consider various fishing methods, such as induced take discussd elsewhere, or large fly in Autumn to obtain a territorial response, even a plastic tube fly that is taken and swallowed like a shrimp or worm. Do you not think that evidence that we know tha salmon can be specifically fished for and caught under various circumstances and that we do know some of the reasons why they take?

Do you not think that triggers, or "releases" as the scientists are so fond of referring to them, can be used by anglers to catch salmon?

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Avoid any spey casting instructor who can't spey cast 35 yards of sinking fly line with a 15ft rod.

We can hypothesise about feeding instinct, curiosity, aggression etc, but I really don't think we can ever claim to know.

If your fly looks like a mayfly, and behaves like a mayfly, and a trout is feeding on mayflies, and it takes your fly, I think we can say with confidence that it has mistaken the fly for a natural mayfly. But since I don't know what a Willie Gunn or a Blue Charm imitates, and the salmon isn't feeding on anything at all, I don't see how anyone can really claim to make a connection in the same way.

Also you may have experienced, as I have, fish taking the same fly in very different ways. For example, I remember two fish on a little Irish river one day; one came several yards across the surface to take the fly with a violent slash; the other took in a classic, gentle fashion. It might be tempting to call the first one a territorial response and the second a feeding instinct, but since they both took the same fly fished in the same way I really can't put my hand on heart and say that I was deliberately looking to provoke these very different responses.

There may sometimes be an element of what you describe - it's tempting to attribute the success of a big red fly at the back end of the season to aggression, for example. On the whole, though, I doubt we can really claim to know why a fish takes a fly.

I prefer to take it step by step, taking note of any lessons proved along the way.

If I had a worm on a hook, a salmon swam toward it, took it in its mouth and then swallowed it, landing the fish and finding the hook down the gullet, I would take that as evidence of feeding. That same process happens time and again with various baits and fish. All the evidence points to a fish feeding. Scientists have taken salmon from the wild, even kelts, and got them to feed and produce eggs again, we humans know and can control many factors of the salmon's life, get them to do things by controlling their enviroment with factors such as oxygen/temperature/light. Even control the way they react. Scientists have trained fish to feed themselves, perform tasks to obtain feed, even to choose what kind of food they want.

When exactly the same tackle and tactics (bait or fly), used for trout and sea trout feeding in a river, is then used to catch salmon then I treat that as evidence that the way that the salmon took is not mysterious.

When scientists have conducted tests on various fish, containing very similar brains and body functions, and the results follow very similar patterns, I prefer to take note of them. We do know, from scientific research, that salmon and other fish that have stopped normal feeding, take in freshwater because of feeding habits derived from instincts passed down through generations of fish. We do know that salmon also “take” out of aggression.

We can’t always identify why a fish took in a particular way, but when fish in a certain lie only take certain flies fished in certain ways, then we can learn/identity something on a practical basis.

Triggers, or “releases” as the scientists call them, are known to anglers and have been known for centuries. One may be a flash of silver, a piece of red fibre or paint, even a shape or smell. Sometimes they work, other times they have no effect, but they are proved to work in the scientific laboratory and real world of angling across the world.

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Avoid any spey casting instructor who can't spey cast 35 yards of sinking fly line with a 15ft rod.