feather wing streamers

[Black-Don]

Disappointed to see that a such an august presence in the WFF is not "on message" Donald, as of yesterday that will be Madame be Merkister. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16503341

Nice looking fly, I had a great day on a hill loch with a similar muddler - just as it started to sink the fish would take it.

Eh ! what, totally lost ? should it be " le madame de la Merkister "

Sadly, my Francais is lacking. I hope the trout won't notice  :lol:

Not picking Col but the "wing" looks a bit high !

[Traditionalist]

Tried quite a few "standard" feather winged streamers over the years. Some look very attractive to the angler at least. Never had much success with them, and they are also subject to one regular annoyance when fishing, namely that the wing tends to foul in the hook bend. I still use a few flatwings, but I don't bother with any of the others much any more. Indeed, I can't actually remember the last time I tried. I had a look in one of my boxes and there are still a few in there.

Obviously it is manifestly impossible to try everything, and one is influenced considerably by any number of things, but personally, after giving something a reasonable trial without much success I tend to abandon it altogether.  There are plenty of things which do succeed quite well under various circumstances so I see little point in persevering with something that doesn't. I have heard one or two people waxing lyrical about the grey ghost but I have never caught a fish on one.

There are certainly a huge number of such lures to choose from, and possibly if one found a good match for a bait fish that the fish were actually taking then it might well be successful.  But, and it's a big but, circumstances where fish are feeding regularly on specific bait fish are comparatively rare in my experience. Even those that do don't do it for long, after taking a few fish they stop, so the chances of taking a good fish on such a lure are limited in any case. Most of these lures are also flights of fancy rather than serious attempts at imitating anything specific so one is basically relying on serendipity tempting a fish into taking one.  That is just a bit too haphazard for me.

TL
MC