Match the Hatch... Fact or Fiction?

[NJFred]

Some times matching the hatch is all about the right size, color, stage of emergence (silhouette) and movement!

There is absolutely no question that at times, movement is a key signal conveying to the trout the the thing he sees is food.

Of course the maddening aspect of this is it is very hard for us to properly imitate movement in a fly on the dead drift!

[Adam]

very hard for us to properly imitate movement in a fly on the dead drift!

and the minute you tie a fly to tippet it is impossible to have a true dead drift.

[NJFred]

Good point Adam... Drag is the necessary curse of the fly fisherman

[AaronJasper]

"Matching the Hatch" has many merits. When trout are feeding selectively (keying in on one insect), it is a must. I will not say that it is not the right way to go about dry fly fishing 100 percent of the time. As we know there are so many variables that no technique works 100 percent of the time. However, a "match the hatch" angler is going to out fish the person who is fishing more impressionistic flies more often than not. There are times when it pays to think impressionistic or non hatch matching. One time that comes to mind is on the Delaware, when the trout are keying in on the tiny bwos. Usually with this hatch there are isonychia hatching. Fishing an isonychia pattern, which can be presented with less drag over conflicting currents than the smaller size 22-24 olive dries, will yield more fish even though the trout are keying in on the smaller flies. I have seen many a selective feeder take the opportunity to consume the larger isonychia.

So the answer in my opinion is that "match the hatch" is indeed fact the majority of time when presenting surface fly patterns to surface feeding fish. Now dry/dropper and dries that are used as "searching patterns" are a totally different topic due to the fact that they are designed to elicit a certain response from a fish and that is to bring them to the surface to feed on your offerings, and these qualities are no often found in the flies that are used to match the hatch.

[Soft-hackle]

Aaron,
I can not argue that "matching the hatch" is a dogma that is very important in fly fishing, however here's my point. Unless you are fishing with flies that are SO realistic they look like they could get up and walk, fly or swim away then to me, ALL flies are impressionistic.

I'm sure you know through experience that flies that are totally realistic usually do not do well when fishing. There's too much information there and not enough not there for the trout to fill in themselves.

You may rightly argue that more natural looking patterns versus more "attractor" flies may be more valuable at times. To me, though, matching the has come to mean matching the shape, size and color of a natural fly. While this is sound practice for sure, I feel fly behavior trumps them all.

No matter what type of fly one uses, if it doesn't behave like the real thing, it isn't, and more often than not it'll go by untaken.

Mark

[AaronJasper]

Mark,

Isn't matching size shape and color "matching the hatch?"

[Soft-hackle]

Hi Aaron,
Absolutely! I said so above. What I'm getting at, here, is:

We all fish, mostly, impressionistic flies. Our imitations are simple representations of natural insects. If they were too realistic, they would not work.

Attractor flies, or flies that catch the fish's attention through color, flash or whatever can be just as effective. You could argue matching the hatch is more effective that fishing with eye-catching attractor flies.

I believe that fly behavior is left out of the equation up above. To truly match the a fly must, in action, mimic the natural and that this is more important than shape, size and color.



With all that said, I think trout are opportunistic more than they are selective. I'm not saying they are NOT selective, they are, but believe we fishermen want to believe the opposite is true.

Would I fish with an orange fly if an olive was hatching--NO, probably not. But why not? Maybe it is because we've been programmed into the match the hatch dogma, as we were programmed at one point never to cast to a trout from an upstream position with dries. It was always, "Fish upstream with dries". Just some thoughts of mine, and they probably don't mean a lot. It may be because I've been around and fishing long enough to know the only real answers to our fishing dilemmas come from the trout.

Mark

[Davyfly]

No question of doubt in my mind that there are times when close copy flies are just about the only way you will catch fish. And that will apply at any depth you fish those flies.
In fact l would add that when waters are heavily fished with nymph methods, they can be real fussy.

So far a dry fly/emerger fishing here again this can be a real issue, however l would go so far as to say that the overall main reasons why anglers have problems are these, assuming they have the right fly.

Contiuous casting to the same fish will wise them up.
Secondly bad drifts
Third, all else that makes teh fish aware of your presence.

My experience is this dealing with difficult surface feeders is this.
Long leaders to as fine a tippet as you can deal with.
Make presentations down stream way above the sight line of the

[Davyfly]

feeding fish, and drift the fly down to the fish in its line of sight.
You must do this in such a way as the fly line is way out of line to the trouts eye, when the fly has passed the fish way below you should be able to retrieve the line and fly without any disturbance to the fish.
Any of you guys fished Henrys Fork, you will know what l am talking about.

DW

[AaronJasper]

The Henry's Fork is the toughest dry fly fishery hands down. You can also put Poindexter Slough on that list.