Pat's Rubber Legs - nymphing for bass.

Today was a tough one.  At first.  It took me a while to figure out what the bass would hit.  This is a stonefly imitation but I guess you could make it work as a hellgrammite or nymph of some sort for smallmouth bass.

I spent almost 2 hours cursing at the water.  I lost 2 nice bass on a foam hopper and streamer.  The fish were short striking and being "Looky Lou's".  I tried streamers, hoppers, buggers and crawdads.  Nothing worked.  I pulled flies out of their mouths when setting the hooks.  They would come up and slowly close their mouths on the flies.  I've been in this situation before.  But never been successful at tying on a fly and turning the key to and opening the floodgate like today.

I tied on Pat's Rubber Legs and went to town.  I've drifted nymphs before such as the Colorado Or Bitch Creek Nymph but they never had been as effective as this pattern.  I would say that today has been the most productive day in the water since April 2013.

While I didn't land any monsters, there were very many bass caught today.  I would drift the nymph into a pool, snag a fish and then release it.  Then, drift again and have another smallmouth bass tag the fly hard.  Over and over.  I caught 8 juvenile bass out of one pool and about that many or more out of another.  That's not counting the riffles and runs.  And, I caught some huge rock bass too.

I lost count of bass (not including rock bass) after 20.  All were caught on Pat's Rubber Legs.  That fly blew my mind.  This is the first time I tied that fly on.  I found some Rubber Legs or Pickles as they are also called.   Cheap too.  I would tie them up but for .89 each, I'm gonna buy some black and some brown ones.  The high for tomorrow is only 70.  That has to be a record low for July.  And rain too.  Or else, I would head back out on the water.