Attractor patterns didn't get that name for nothing. The whole idea is to cast large, fanciful, look-like-anything fly patterns upon trouty waters and have the fish move up and over to take them. Gung-ho fish of an innocent and rambunctious nature (as in hungry) are the targets here. This can be a regional or seasonal occurrence, and an experience that's diminishing in many quarters with the increase in fishing pressure. I still love this kind of fishing—when I can get it.When fishing small flies, you have to put the fly in the fish's face. The trout are unlikely to go out of their way to get it, but are more likely on the whole to inhale it if it passes within a nose's reach. It is your job to put it there.
Finding the Fish
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Although the real thrills of small-fly work come with sighted and rising fish, there are certainly many times and places where few or no risers will be seen. This is when your basic stream and trout knowledge come to play, when how you fish the water dictates success.The trout has few concerns. Among them are eating, staying out of the full force of the current, and evading predators. When focusing on small flies, staying out of the current is of even greater concern. The fish can't feed on tiny flies, fight much current, and still win at the nutrition game. The trout are apt to slide off to the sides of the current—to the edge waters, eddies, riffle dropoffs, and tailouts—where they can dine at leisure for long hours. They also hug the bottom of deeper, swifter freestone runs, especially in the heat of midsummer. The angler who is fishing the water blind must concentrate on these most likely places in order to increase his catch rate.
On swifter freestone streams, holding water is more familiar and easily defined (see diagram). There will be more medium-to-large natural nymphs about, and thus smaller imitations might be unnecessary much of the time, especially in the May-to-early-July runoff period. As midsummer progresses, though, the average size of the prevalent nymphs goes down. The largest species include salmon flies and golden stones, green and brown drakes, and hatch by mid-July. There are big stonefly nymphs remaining, because they take several years to mature, but these big guys tend to bury themselves in the streambed come midsummer. They're not just under rocks, they're beneath the streambed, buried in the gravel. By midsummer on a freestone river the remaining available nymphs tend to be in the medium-to-small size range. If there has been a lot of fishing pressure, the trout can start avoiding the most commonly used and larger fly patterns. They will have their gung-ho moments, but these can be offset by longer periods of seeming inactivity and selectiveness.
Some small freestone rivers I'm familiar with not only heat up in the summer but change temperature daily as much as ten or more degrees. Consequently, the trout show well-defined on-off feeding periods that correspond with the most comfortable water temperatures and hatches. The trout don't feed all the time here (as they seem to do on some dam and temperature-controlled tailwaters), and vary in response to your fly from"dead" to "hot."
Among the most likely general-nymphs patterns on swifter streams are Hare's Ear and peacock herl variations, and cased caddis. Swift-water mayfly nymphs tend to be wider and squatter than slow-water nymphs, with more pronounced gill structures. The scruffy Hare's Ear is the classic imitation—both in color and configuration—for many swift-stream summer nymphs. A big exception here are the multitudinous midge larvae and cased caddis. Sunken ants and beetles add to the flotsam. A productive technique is to use two nymphs, one medium-size and one small. A Beadhead Hare's Ear or Prince Nymph is a good generic choice for the medium nymph. Below this can be fished a smaller mayfly nymph such as a Pheasant Tail, a cased caddis, midge larva, or wet ant. The trout can take either one, and some days they'll show a decided preference for the smaller offering.
It is not the first half of a freestone season that necessitates small flies, but the second. (Although the prerunoff early-spring period can have low and clear water conditions, midging trout, Baetis, and little winter stoneflies.) In late summer, waters become ultralow and warm. The big-fly hatches are largely over. Tricos swarm on beautiful summer mornings. Insects hum and crackle in streamside meadows. Terrestrials and even snails begin to make up a fair percentage of the trouts' diet. Morning and evening rises become the rule, with additional fish tricked during the day by blind casting and stalking.
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