Not yet publishedYellowstone River 1997It was scary. After weeks of dangerous flooding that nearly destroyed the famous Paradise Valley spring creeks--the Yellowstone River was finally starting to recede. The Yellowstone's churning western-most bank was still only 10' away from DePuy's Spring Creek. The old spawning channel and about 20 acres of willow thickets were completely gone. The culverts at the PHD pool and the Blue Gate were gone too, and so were the old swan ponds. The roaring, chocolate brown river was so loud it was hard to hear yourself think. Huge cottonwood logs would rise up vertically in the center of the rivers's swiftest currents, shudder for a few 
moments, and then splash down loudly like a sounding whale. Clanging
boulders at the bottom of the river sounded like the faint sounds of
dynamite explosions in a distant mine. And amidst all this, Pale
Morning Duns were hatching on the spring creek at noon, as if on cue.
I chatted with John Greene, an old friend and one of the best spring
creek guides in Montana. "You'll have to adjust," John said. "The weeds
are all washed out, and there are a lot of river fish in the creek now
too. We've been catching fish on Hare's Ears and Bitch Creeks: flies
that haven't worked here for years." The hatches are sparse too. It
will take another month or two for the weeds to grow back--before gets
back to normal."
But the mid-day fishing turned out to be as good as ever. The PMD hatch lasted until almost 3:00. Fishing to rising trout with tiny yellow dry flies is something no fly fisherman's life should be without. To catch these fish, you have to get it right. You need a thin supple leader, a good-looking fly and a graceful presentation. When you do get it right, the fishing is never better. This is the classic spring creek fishing that makes these waters what they are. But later in the afternoon, when the hatch was done, I found fishing a lot more difficult--at least at first try. The wafting, choking-thick spring creek weeds hadn't yet grown back, since scouring out with the previous week's flood; so good, safe holding spots were hard to come by. Once the hatch was done, the fish seemed suddenly to have disappeared. I tried midges, copper nymphs, caddis larvae and small olive woolly buggers with limited success. It was time for a little imagination, it seemed. I had some experimental, 1/2" long minnow-like wigglers I was curious to try. So I started working downstream, dead drifting my wigglers at the start of each cast, until they caught the current and wiggled down into ever deeper water at the heads of the riffles and drop-offs. A threatening cloud cover moved in about 4:00 in the afternoon. I started bumping a fish on almost every cast. I caught so many fish I lost track. Before long all but one last wiggler was gone, snagged and lost or chewed to oblivion by too many feisty spring creek teeth. I stopped for a late afternoon snooze on a soft mud bank near the remains of one of the old swan ponds. I drove down to the main ranch house to finish off the day on the lower mile or so of the creek. Below the old foot bridge, just downstream of the main ranch house and across the creek from the lambing sheds, there was a submerged, half rotten cottonwood log that created a narrow tongue of fast white water. I cast across stream and down, over the log an past the white water, to drift my last remaining wiggler into some overhanging willow branches along the bank. Tis spot would be virtually impossible to fish to from anywhere other than directly upstream. I hooked a good brown on the first cast. He thrashed his head twice and then came off the hook. I quickly stripped in my line, preparing for another cast. But the diving bull caught the current a unexpectedly and planed quickly upstream, right into the white water. The wiggler darted frantically back and forth, vibrating wildly from side to side in the fast water. A big, rainbow rose up vertically from below, right into the frothy, bubbly millrace and clobbered the wiggler. It didn't make sense. I didn't think a fish could live in such fast water. I released the big rainbow and then repeated these moves again and again, bumping, catching, releasing and losing perhaps a dozen or more fish in a half an hour, all from a small triangular pocket of white water nor more than 4 feet long. Gradually I realized that white water on top doesn't necessarily mean fast water below. There must have been a deep still water pocket directly underneath the faster stuff that held and incredible number of fish. This is why I find wiggler fishing so exciting: to my staple repetoire of dry flies, emergers, nymphs and streamers--a repetoire that hasn't changed much in quite a few years--I suddenly have a new tool that magically creates new places to fish. When I tie on a new wiggler, it's like donning a special pair of glasses that instantly highlight heretofore off limits places. There is a more to it though, than just the ability to fish downstream. There is something very special about a fly that wiggles and moves. We fisherman aren't scientists. The fishing knowledge we have doesn't come from a rigorous collection of experimental data and its logical analysis. We don't gain our fisherman's certainty with the instantaneous flash of a mathematical proof. But still we know things. I know, for instance, that a #20 Sparkle Dun works better than a Royal Coachman during a Pale Morning Dun hatch. I know that a streamer works better when it's overcast than when it's sunny. And I know too that Wigglers can cause a fish to come such a tremendous distance to mount an attack, I don't think vision alone can fully explain it. The answer, I think, can be found in any introductory biology text, like the following paragraph form *Life: "Fishes have a special sensory system lacking in terrestrial vertebrates. This consists of a series of grooves or canals with clusters of sensory cells on head and body, the lateral line organs. They are sensitive to changes in pressure or currents in the surrounding water." In other words, fish don't necessarily have to see a wiggler to know it's there, because they can sese it and feel it with their lateral line, even in muddy, off-color water conditions. Do fish really attack a wiggling, vibrating fly in response to pressure sensitive cues from their lateral line organs? I certainly think so. How else can you explain vicious, determined strikes in chocolate brown water? How else can you explain a brown trout who swims 20' across a current to lunge at a 2" wiggler? Of this I am certain: lightweight fly rod wigglers elicit a strange magnetic response from large predatory fish that's seldom triggered by any statically drifting wet fly or streamer. Wiggler fishing, like gently rising trout during a midday hatch, is an experience no adventurous fly fisherman should never miss. TuningIn order to fish with homemade wigglers, I've found I have to carry a pair of toenail clippers in my vest, so I can tune my flies before using them. Tuning doesn't take much, but it is a one-time-only step that is usually necessary. Most new wigglers don't track in a straight line; instead they wiggle off to one side, with increasing persistence directly proportional to the force of the water that drags against the bill. The solution is simple: for a fly that wiggles off to the left, trim a small slice off the right side of the bill. And visa versa. Why they work, what's going onWhat makes these wigglers work are the opposing forces of weight and buoyancy. When the current pushes against the diving lip, the entire fly becomes unstable. The bill tries to spin around sideways and upward. Indeed an improperly balanced wiggler will do just that: turn upside down and plane directly up to the surface. But a buoyant foam body at the rear, combined with a slightly weighted diving lip at the front can provide just enough torque on the fly to keep it oriented downward, so the diving lip continually shakes and vibrates back and forth, without ever spinning completely upside down. In general, the best side-to-side, slow motion wobblers are not the best divers. Conversely the best divers usually have a narrow, high-speed flutter rather than a wide action wobble. The greater the angle between the body and the lip, the wider the wobble. The deepest, fast-action divers have just enough angle between the lip and the fly body to catch the current. How to fish with wigglersFishing with wigglers isn't hard to master. Most of what you need to know I've already explained. You can fish a neutrally buoyant wiggler like any conventional streamer. Cast it out, let it drift, strip it in. Even when a wiggler is drifting it will still have more motion than any conventional streamer. Then, when you strip it back in, you'll feel the rod tip throb as the wiggler darts and wobbles through the currents. Take a look downstream. Try to identify the spots that are hardest to fish to with any conventional technique. Swim a wiggler downstream with a straight line, right into the bulge of slack water immediately upstream of a mid river boulder. Hold it there for a moment or two, and then swim it left and right. Fish downstream into a tangle of branches or driftwood along the bank. If you see a fish swim up behind a wobbling fly to casual sniff and see what's up: pull the fly away at just the last moment, so it darts and wiggle away in a last minute panic. You can troll a wiggler behind a float tube, or splash the slack water pockets along the bank while drifting by in a boat. On the Big Horn or Missouri rivers in Montana, where the river is wide and shallow and where the biggest fish ore often found along deep, undercut banks below a long diagonal riffle, I like to pard a driftboat upstream with a heavy anchor and wade slowly downstream. I cas directly across , as close to the bank as possible, drifting the wiggler downstream as it will, slipping line out through my fingers as needed, swimming the fly as close to the bank as possible. Cutthroats from Yellowstone Park, brown trout along the banks of the Missouri, rainbows on the spring creeks, brook trout form high mountain lakes, channel catfish from the lower Yellowstone, Sauger and Walleye from prairie rivers in central Montana: it's an impressive list. Lightweight soft-bodied wigglers are the most versatile, most universally attractive flies I know. This is big medicine. Life, Lawcourt Brace and Company, 1957, GA. Simpson, Cas. , L.H. Tiffany |
Lure Flies/
Scallawaggler/
Halfords Ghost/
Ponzi Fish/
Watusi Worms/
Spinner Blades/