Viking Lars | Saturday, 7 March 2015
There's always a chance of encountering picky, selective fish, even during spring fishing, where most fish are more concerned about eating than what they eat. Generally, sea trout are less than picky in March and April, but once in a while, especially on calm, suny days, you will see fish that aren't easily caught.
The solution is often relative simple - fish a small fly on a thin(ner) leader. Most of the time, I really don't think that patterns matters much, but sometimes, even a small fly is too big.
I've had success with small Red Tag and Black Zulu on size 10-14 hooks, a small mysis-patterns of my own, less than a centimeter in size, and then this gammarus-pattern.
Gammarus are immensely important as trout food, they're active year round and the they start re-producing already in late winter.
So a gammarus pattern is a good bet year round, and when I fish a two-fly leader (which I do more and more), a gammarus is very often one them.
There's a very famous, Danish fly called Kobberbassen, which is nothing more than some copper dubbing on a small(ish) hook, and there's little doubt that this fly is taken for a gammarus. And of course, a lump of dubbing is so much easier than my gammrarus, and probably just as effective, but none the less, I perfer my own version.
This time of year, there are also the rag-worm hatches, which can priduce some magnificent fishing, and a rag-worm and a gammarus on the leader is a perfect pair this coming month.
If you're interested, I did a tying video of the gammarus (in Danish, I'm afraid) for a Danish magazine. Check it out here.
I tie this pattern from #6 to #10 to use in the salt, and I tie almost the exact same fly (different kind of dubbing) for nymphing for trout and grayling, from #8 to #14.
Have a great weekend!
Lars