Spoon full

[johnny boy]

I was out fishing last night and caught a couple of trout.  When I got home I spooned them and found that both of them were crammed with just the one food item.

I only just started spooning fish last year an am still trying to figure out what exactly everything is.  Previous fish I have spooned have shown quite a number of shrimps, buzzers, also the occasional crunchy caddis type thing.

I have taken a photo but my camera does not like to take close ups so quality is poor.

To my novice eyes these things seem to fall under the Buzzer category but they are far larger than any I have encountered before.  What I also find strange is that there was absolutely nothing else in the fish at all except for these things.

To give you an idea of size the tub they are in is a Philadelphia tub.  Some kind of peacock herl fly would be around size 8 to match size.

Coch Y Bonndu and Peacock spider spring to mind but I am sure there is a more learned fisherman out there who will not only tell me what this is but also what files to fish and how to fish them.  Slow on a floater is my guess.

Why didn?t I spoon at loch, cos I left the darn spoon behind in the garage.

Beautiful moonrise last night about 11ish

Over to you

[dseabass]

cant help johnny , i dont spoon trout, never have ,ive seen plenty others do it though , i just tend to hazard a stab at whats flying about and copy it as close as a can ,, but heres a thing that looking at all those bugs in the wee tub brought back to me ---yrs ago when i used to catch my trout on worms be it ledgered or bubble ---i would never eat them because i used to think " manky grubby worm eaters !! "  but when i caught them on a spinner or when i progressed to mainly fly only ---i loved eating them ,because they seemed to be cleaner fish ??   
cheers pal yv just reminded me they are manky again  :lol: :lol:
davey

[haresear]

Those are cased caddis by the look of them.

Alex

[johnny boy]

I google imaged Cased Caddis and your quite right thats what they are.  Now how do I go about trying to imitate them.  Are they the kinda bug that slouches along the bottom or do they rise up and down through the water layers.

[haresear]

Are they the kinda bug that slouches along the bottom or do they rise up and down through the water layers.

They are bottom crawlers and hatch into what we know as sedges, generally in the evening. The things you spooned are the larvae and they emerge from their cases as pupae and head for the surface at the speed of light (well maybe not quite), where they hatch into the adult.

Fish get fixated on them at both the larval and the pupal stages, but the pupa is easier to imitate effectively as they actively swim through the surface layers, rather than skulking about the bottom. There are lots of imitations of both the pupal and larval stage. Google away and you'll find these, now that you know what you are after.

Although I have tried some of the larvae imitations, I find a hare and copper nymph does as well as anything.

Alex

[johnny boy]

I caught my fish on a leggy Claret Bumble and a small Peach Muddler.  All through the evening I was getting loads of touches but for some reason the fish just didnt stick, in fact they didnt get a hold at all.   Exciting but frustrating.  Down I went in size then up again.

I notice that quite a lot of the patterns have beads at the head.  Do you think this is to speed up the decent (speed of light) or just to make the fly more buggy.

I had a previous posting not so long ago about GRHE.  I cant catch a cold with that darn fly but looks like I may be giving it yet another outing.

[haresear]

I notice that quite a lot of the patterns have beads at the head.  Do you think this is to speed up the decent (speed of light) or just to make the fly more buggy.

The beadheads are more usually used on rivers and the bead is used as an alternative (and sometimes an addition) to a leaded body. The primary function of the bead is get the fly down in the water, but some people swear by a flashy bead as an added attraction.

You can of course use beadheads on lochs too and I will often do this if the fish aren't playing ball at the surface. I prefer tungsten beads for all of my beadheads as I can use smaller beads for the same weight, meaning My hook's gape isn't impaired by a bulkier bead than is neccessary.

As for the GRHE, it is not a fly I use at all, preferring the muted copper rib of the Hare and Copper, but it is much the same. The trick is to have a selection in different weights and sizes. This lets you get down deep enough in different situations (you will need a heavier fly in a crosswind on a loch for example).


Alex

[Crawhin]

JB,

They'd be a pretty difficult thing to imitate accurately as you'd have to be inching a flee hard along the bottom - snag city. Perhaps seeing so many cased caddis in a spooning would just tell you that it had it's nose well down deep so that is where you'd be best off fishing.  The stickfly is supposed to be a caddis imitation and is usually well weighted:-

http://learnflytying.co.uk/2008/02/10/beginners-lesson-10/

Cheers,

Ian

[IrishFloatTube]

If they are hunting in shallow water, a leaded fly on a floating line  over gravel will do the job. The simple Black & peacock Spider, or Coch Y Bondhu (fished sunk) are fine.

In deeper water where a sinking line is used to get down, snagging will occur if you drag an exposed hook along the lakebed.
So in this case a hackled fly will walk along the bottom better. A woolly worm, or worm fly will do the job nicely.

[johnny boy]

The Ombudsman has a great reputation hereabouts.  I may just try a smallish one of them on the tail or the wormfly as thats one of my favs for slow and deep.  Will try all the other recommended files up and down the cast as well.  Thanks everyone for the info.