Daddies

[Traditionalist]

After some quite intense investigation into crane flies this year, I made some significant advances in patterns.  This should explain it;

http://www.mike-connor.homepage.t-online.de/Flies/Naturals/crane_fly/crane_fly.html

I have not got any of the patterns up yet, but most are based on vernille in various colours, and marked with the appropriate markers. I really was surprised what a difference the striped flies made, as opposed to the normally just ribbed variety. Also, the much lighter coloured patterns, ( bright yellow vernille body with dark brown stripes was most successful, followed by wihte vernille with brown marker) were a LOT!!! more successful than the dark ones.

TL
MC

[Wildfisher]

What I like about your posts Mike, especially regarding flies and patterns,  is that  observation and thought has gone into them. The bedrock of good design.

[Traditionalist]

The reason for my doing this was a bit silly really. I went to a still water with a friend, and when I got there I realised I had the wrong fly-boxes in my jacket.  The odd thing was, he had one of my dark daddy flies in his box. He was using this, and getting one or two swirls, and the occasional fish, while I could do nothing at all with the beetle I was using because I really had nothing much else suitable. All I had was a box of river mayflies, and a few nymphs and beetles.  There were quite a few various terrestrials on the water, but the fish were only taking the daddies. It was quite windy, and a steady stream of them was landing on the water where we were fishing, from the woods and fields behind us.

Finally, more or less in desperation, I tore the wings off a bright yellow extended body mayfly with a red game collar hackle,  because it was the only fly I had in the right size, trimmed the hackle below the hook,and not  holding out much hope, I gave it a try. I started getting a fish a chuck!

After having some fun for a while, I gave the fly to my mate, which proceeded to do the business for him as well, also at more or less a fish a chuck, and I wandered off with my bug net attached to the butt of my rod to catch a few flies, and try to discover why the fish were so mad for a yellow fly when all the daddies I could see looked dark brown!

I caught quite a few in various sizes, and proceeded to inspect them. Viewed from above they all looked a more or less uniform dark brown or dark greyish colour. But lo and behold, when I held them up to the light, they all without a single exception had light coloured bodies, mostly yellow, but some more of a cream colour. 

Now I must be honest here, and admit that I never knew this before!  I had simply committed the cardinal sin of  accepting what the various pattern books had to say. They all said the daddies had light to dark brown bodies!  Many patterns use pheasant tail and similar stuff for the bodies. 

Up to now, I have caught several hundred of them, in a range of sizes, ( I don?t know the exact species, there are loads of them) even the ones that were flying around my house ( No idea how the buggers get in! ), and I have not found a single one with a light or dark brown underbody. They are ALL light coloured, with a predominance of yellow, often a very bright yellow, and all have stripes!

That evening I dressed a few using the yellow vernille as an extended body with stripes from a dark brown marker, and a few using white vernille, also with stripes.  Both myself and a couple of others have now tried these on a fair number of occasions, and we could do no wrong!

I have viewed and photographed a huge number of these things in the meantime, and I still can?t believe I could be stupid enough to take something like the colour of a fly on faith!  Indeed, it was only after this incident that I realised I had never actually looked really closely at these insects before! The problem here is that these insects are "very well known", ask anybody what colour they are, and they will tell you they are light to dark brown. So it would also appear, unless you take the trouble to look at the sides and bottom!  But it is simply not the case!

Indeed, this has also taught me something else, which is related, but the reason only became apparent after I discovered all this.  One of my "tricks", which works very very often in summer and at the back end, when I can?t get a fish with some other tactics, I have used a large yellow mayfly, and got good fish.  I am now convinced that this is because the fish take it for a daddy!

Not only that, it also explains why a pattern a very old friend of mine used with very considerable success, even when the flies it purports to imitate were not in evidence, or had been for quite some time, or were hardly very plentiful either!  Indeed, I have caught fish on this pattern on streams where there are no mayflies!  This will explain that;

http://www.mike-connor.homepage.t-online.de/Flies/Patterns/Frank_s_Mayfly/frank_s_mayfly.html

They are very good imitations of daddies!  Even to the long trailing tails, which look like trailing daddy legs! These apparently unrelated items have suddenly gelled.

The yellow vernille daddies I have made up have been extremely successful on the local rivers as well. Now I am not saying this is a universal thing. There may well be some daddies with dark brown bodies, but of all the species I have examined there has not yet been a single one.  I would be most interested in hearing from people in other localities about this, because I suspect it is indeed universal, and people are dressing these flies the wrong colour!  All the pattern books I have checked specify light to dark brown, which is an absolutely lousy imitation!

Anyway, make of it what you will. It is too late for you to check it out this season, but bear it in mind for next!

It also actually confirms something that happened a long time ago now, but I never gave it much thought. A fly-dressing firm brought out some yellow plastic extended bodies, and quite a number of people used these for dressing daddies. The patterns were largely sniffed at by the cognoscenti as being far too light in colour, and the wrong colour as well. But the point is, the flies caught a lot of fish, and nobody could explain why! I am convinced that this explains it!

It would not surprise me at all to discover that quite a few of the Irish straddlebugs and similar stuff are also taken for daddies!

By the way, this is the first time I have mentioned this anywhere, and I don?t usually publish anything unless it has actually worked for quite a while and consistently, but these flies passed the hundred fish mark easily in the first week, and the other reasoning all fits with the available facts.

TL
MC

[haresear]

Mike,

Most well known patterns only have the correct colouration of the upper surface of the insect. The fish sees a totally different view.

As you correctly say, it is logical to imitate the underside of the fly, when fishing a true floating pattern.

Check out the difference in colouration between these two views of an olive upright...

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=15

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=16

Alex

[Traditionalist]

Indeed, I have been aware of this for a very long time, even much of the old literature goes to great lengths to point it out, and my own observations of various insects always confirmed it, but it simply never occurred to me that it could apply to daddies. Look in any pattern book, they are nearly all dark brown!

Very nice pics there by the way!

TL
MC

[lnelson20]

I have never had much success with Dick walkers green[olive]bodied daddy,although an olive hackled version served me well last season.

It was mentioned elsewhere that last season was a poor daddy year,something that i must say i never agreed with.

Chris.

[Traditionalist]

There were millions of them extant here, from early in the season to late. The previous year there were even more. I think this has to do with the mild winters which don?t kill off many of the larvae.

TL
MC

[lnelson20]

I will invest in some different coloured foam and tye up some of your suggestions Mike,a very interesting post,thanks for that.

Chris.

[Traditionalist]

I used the vernille myself, as described here;

http://www.wildfisher.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=4435.0

It is very tough. But I have no doubt it will also work with foam of the right colour.

As you will see, I posted the daddy here before I came to any of these conclusions. I think I was merely lucky that this pattern was so successful, because I used the white vernille as a base!  I only used it originally because it was easier to colour!

TL
MC