Fishing with Strike Indicators.

There are a few qualitites a fishing fly pattern has to have before it can be considered a classic. The origins of this pattern are misleading, even though it had existed as a wet fly, and the sprite, was possibly merely a logical evolution of that. Similarly are the dry fly patterns, and the color variations, that now bear the name Hare's Ear. The efficacy of this pattern are unquestionned, it has caught nearly each game fish under the sun, in all types of condtions. Beginning fly tiers will do themselves well to beat this fly. Used incorrectly they can essentially hamper the fly fisher's capability to catch fish. How can one tell whether their strike indicator is helping them or wounding them? Well that is the question we're going to try to answer here. Of course not desiring to be on the exterior of the most recent edge in fly fishing, I had to try them. They meddled with my casting, they did kept my sprite off the bottomw, and everytime I needed to switch over to dry flies, I had to take off the strike indicator. It wasn't till many months later, whilst fishing a deep swift riffle, the indicator truly paid off. Doubtful I'd set the hook, after some big trout, my doubts vanished and I loved that small orange float on my leader. These strike were just about undetecteable without it, the water so fast, and deep, by the point I felt the tug the fish would most likely be gone.

From then on whenever I nymphed, I used an indicator. I dropped the indicator, and voila, I began catching fish on the bottom. I am sure I was missing some strikes as well, but missing some strikes was better than none whatsoever.

There are more times when I like not to use an indicator whilst using sub-surface flies.

One is in extraordinarily crystal clear water, when stealth is of utmost significance. I do not use one when fishing emergers either, their strikes are nearly as simple to see as dry fly fishing. Beginning fly tiers will do themselves well to defeat this fly. As discussed above, another great quality of the Hare's Ear is all its varations.

Cameron Larsen is a retired commericial fly tier and fly fishing guide.