The
adult dragonfly represents a steak meal to a trout.
This fly is an insect hunter and eats a lot of little bugs.
The trout would have to eat allot of those same insects
as the adult dragonfly in order to match what the dragonfly
represents as food.
Jumping
Trout
So
why spend all that energy in eating little bugs when all
you have to do is be an expert jumper and on target. Well,
 that
is what the brown and rainbow trout has mastered in Chile
and Argentina. It took me a while to figure out why the
trout at Lago Yelcho in Chile liked to jump four feet into
the air. When I first fished Lion's Bay (a quiet and grassy
bay), and saw all the trout sailing through the air I thought
this was going to be easy fishing. We were going to be catching
some real big rainbow's. Well, two years later we finally
got the right fly.
These
fish had developed the precise technique of stalking and
jumping for the adult dragon and they did not want to take
anything else. Their were so many dragons flying around
that the trout could not pass up the opportunity to stalk
a hovering dragon and shoot him down with that missile effect
of his whole body coming out of the water. We actually saw
a large fish following a slow moving dragon and when the
fly stopped and hovered, out shot a large rainbow trout
and the dragonfly was gone. We knew that we would have to
make up a good imitation of a full size dragon and that
is what we did.
Casting
and Presentation
Over
the years there has been a lot of different ties for the
adult dragonfly. Some had posed some problems with the casting,
as the wings tend to twirl your leader when the fly is in
the air and so you are constantly straightening out the
line.
The
presentation is very important with this fly. It is best
if the water is still or even better with a bit of a ripple
so that the trout cannot get a good look at the fly. In
any case the fly must not be moved so as to give it the
hovering effect. In order for trout to take a hovering dragon
3-4 feet above the water he must be coming from down deep
and when he is looking up he sees the dragon as if above
the water. If you move the fly this will break the water
surface causing the trout to know that the dragon is not
where it should be and thus he will not make his run, but
instead he might come up slowly to investigate and that
is what you do not want.
You can get very precise with presenting this fly to a hunting
trout and waiting for the take is longer than you would
expect, but it will happen and you better not be looking
at the beautiful scenery.
|
