A Monday flyfishing trip to New Hampshire

Sustenance... The Poor Boys Diner

This is the first river we fished, along rt. 16 in the Pinkham notch area.

Me.  Taken by friend Steve P.

The Elk Hair Caddis - parachute style, pictured below, worked great for me.... once I found it in my fly box.

I usually fish a parachute with a simple tail of a few strands of feather fibers or a few strands of hair from a ground hog. This would be more of a mayfly parachute. And I started the day that way.  But it simply did not produce for me on Monday. 

However, the longer and fuller profile of this caddis tied by my friend Paul DiNolo worked wonders.  After finding it in a corner of my flybox, and after catching a few trout on it, I remembered earlier hearing Bill at North Country Angler in North Conway talking about this being the time to fish terrestrials and hoppers. To the extent that grasshoppers were working, this caddis perhaps imitated the profile of a struggling grasshopper.  I have always felt that the parachute hackle can connote action and motion.  And a downwing of elk or deer hair has long been used to imitate grasshoppers, the most famous pattern perhaps being the Latort Hopper.  Add a pink post parachute and now I can see it among white foam and bubbles!

My friend Paul will be the first to tell you that these flies were tied to be fished and not photographed.  I think he is right; I caught a mess of trout on this sample, and it held up well.  I find that if you can use your fingers to get the hook out of the fish, the fly will last longer than if you must use forceps to remove the hook.  One more reason to pinch down the barb!

Below are a few pictures.  It looks like the elk hair (or perhaps coastal deer hair, from the looks of it) is tied in about 2/3 from the eye and the poly post is tied in about 1/3 from the eye.

This is a lot of material tied onto a size 12 hook.  It takes a little practice to get this pattern clean and neat.