FFIM

........or will be in the next few days, for the emergence of the fall Tiny Olives. A true #22.

We always said, at least at Shawmut, that the weekend of Oct. 12th was the first really good weekend for them........with the primo weekend the 19th.........and still really good on the 26th.......petering out sometime before Nov. 10th. That’s almost a solid month of dry fly action to end the year.

I like to fish a #22 Parachute BWO trailed by 18” of 6.5X flouro and a #20 PT Soft Hackle........the 20 because the curved Nymph hook is a Tiemco 2487, and its one X short......so it’s, in effect, the size of a 22.

This morning I tied up a dozen tiny Soft Hackle Emergers for this hatch.

PT Soft Hackle

Hook: TMC 2487
Size:20
Thread: 8/0 Uni tan or brown
Gold Bead: Optional
Tail/Abdomen: PT fibers. (Sparse)
Rib: Smallest copper wire you have
Thorax: Peacock or PT fibers......your choice
Hackle: Whiting hen....I use dark dun...you can use partridge if you can find feathers small enough

You’ll probably catch more Landlocks on the Emerger than the Dun, but still great fun. Get out there, winters are long and dreary here in the northeast.

Dave M

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"Fish the West every year. Life is short; and you'll be dead a long time." Chris Hutchins--2009

For soft hackle that small, do you actually wrap it? Or use that reverse tie method that mike holt showed us many moons ago?

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"Fishermen...spending their lives in the fields and woods...are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation." - Thoreau

Tim.....

Yeah, I do use two wraps of the Hackle. I went to YouTube and watched that video that Mike put up three times to see how he does that. Tomorrow I’m going to go down to the vise and practice that. I don’t have any feathers on my partridge cape that are small enough. I do have a Starling cape that’s pretty good for tying Soft Hackles, but the stems are really fragile. I bet I break at least a third of the ones I try to wrap.

Dave M

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"Fish the West every year. Life is short; and you'll be dead a long time." Chris Hutchins--2009

I spied one heck of a boil below the 95 bridge tonight. Not sure what kind of fish it was, but it left a big ring behind.

In other news- a relative and I had a green drake about 2” long land on a life jacket while fishing a remote pond this weekend. Completely unexpected bug- but a local camp owner while we talked to laughed and said a few have been on the water with fish looking up. Very surprising for the end of September. Water temps were 58.3 on Saturday, 57.2 on Sunday.

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"You never miss the water until the well runs dry" - traditional blues

I should have thought of starling, I have a skin, but yes, super fragile. I don’t think my partridge or hen skins have anything remotely that small. The holt trick has helped but takes a little effort to not sweep the hackles too far back.

_________________
"Fishermen...spending their lives in the fields and woods...are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation." - Thoreau