Bead head glue gun midge.

If you are on the lookout for easy to tie flies that work, here's  half an answer.

Size 20, Dai-Riki #125 emerger hook reverse bend 2x short. Bead to match.

Wrap on some olive 6/0 thread and paint it with a permanent red sharpie.

Wind the thread to above the hook, drop a tiny bit of hot clue on the hook and spread it thin with the glue gun tip toward the hanging thread.

Quickly and carefully put down the glue gun and wind the thread over the hot glue to create body segments. Don't drop the hot glue gun on the carpet, your fly tying table, or your lap.

Tie in a little peacock herl.

Whip finish and you're done.

Gorgeous.

Can you tell which was the first one I tied. 

I'm taking these to the Arkansas on Thursday with Mike and probably drop them behind a pegged egg. I'll post the other half of the answer to the question here, if they work.

Can two skilled flyfisher catch fish in 27F water?

A lesson in temperature.

John and Brad - Before Picture

It seem like a good plan. Rather than 2 hours risking life and traffic jams on I-70, we'd drive 1 hour to Waterton Canyon and walk in an hour on a dirt road to fish the South Platte near Littleton rather than the Blue River near Silverthorne. Air temperature was predicted to go from 45F to 67F so we could leave the fleece in the car on the walk in. Flow was 120 cfs.

About a mile in some Rocky Mountain big horn sheep joined us. The shelf ice had disappeared but the water temperature was only 27F and there was no sign of trout activity or hatches.  We walked past the Marston Diversion where Denver Water sucks from the South Platte. Above the dam water temperature rose to 32F but still no sign of any fish. This area above the dam according to fishing reports held many more fish. Not for us. By 1:30PM we'd had it and started the trek out. Once below the dam the whole flock joined us, the air temp was now 67F and the water temperature a surprising 42F. 

We could now see fish all over the place. Other fly anglers were having a great time and soon both Brad and I had landed half a dozen on an egg pattern. 

We both knew not to expect anything at water temperatures below 42F but you have fish the water you're wading. We never expected the water temperature to rise 15 degrees in 4 hours as the air temperature rose 22 degrees, but of course we're happy it did. 

Fishing in Indian Waters

Fishing in Indian Waters

    Where are these Indian Waters? Not in Montana, Colorado, Utah, or New Mexico. Those are Native American Waters. These are in India of course. Why has it taken 522 years to correct Christopher's screw-up. If he'd be even marginally aware he'd have noticed that the natives he encountered did not have spices for sale, spice factories, advanced information technology degrees, silk saris, or curry. This just scratches the surface of the misunderstandings North Americanos have about India and Indians. As Fred Miller and I found out we don't know much about fishing there either.

     We were totally prepared. 

 We had Kingfisher Beer, Scotch, Bourbon, and local white wine. 

We had a luxury sleep in boat with air conditioning and a live in chef.

We had a captain that knew the local waters.

We had fine bamboo rods. Well maybe not that fine but it was what the Kerala's were fishing. 

We knew there were fish because the water snakes showed us a catch.

And the market displayed obviously recently caught fish. 

We had fine demonstrations of technique including landing but the size of the fish were not up to Fred's standards. We were unfamiliar with the  "ball of bread" fly but we tried some streamers, nymphs, midges, and dries. 

Nada.

Aah. They are using nets. Little ones and

big ones counter balance by a string of rocks.

So Fred tried getting the swing of fishing with a big net. Nada. 

Oh well. We came back enlightened on the culture but in the dark on catching.