Barry Dunnegan

Bob, this is the result of thoughtless anglers tossing their cigarette butts in the stream. Some trout have eaten these discards and have a nicotine habit. I suggest the Lucky Strike fly.  Get some 1/4″ white cylindrical foam, lightly singe one end and cut to butt length. Insert a hook coated with glue and anticipated some lucky strikes!

Catching big trout is such a drag!  I mean like Kenny says, put your fish on the reel and let the drag work it’s magic. I learned my lesson years ago when I hooked a big trout on a 22-sizes midge. When he ran downstream I palmed the reel. Big mistake!  Broke off of course. I always check my drag setting before each day’s fishing. Usually my preferred setting is halfway. Experience will dictate where to set the drag on your reel.

Bill has given good advice. However, are trout feeding on adult caddis top water? Caddis flying may be mating swarm. Females may be laying eggs by diving under water. If Bill’ suggestion doesn’t work try a caddis emerger by clipping away hackle and trimming the elk hair shorter to look like a bug just under the surface, or add split shot and fish it as a wet fly.

Oops. Meant to write surface or subsurface midges or emerges.

I also use a silicone powder for most dry flies and a paste or a gel (Gink). The Gink is good on hair wings such elk hair caddis. I use lip balm to grease my tippet to leader knots and when I want my tippet to float. Powder on a soft hackle is good to float it as a dead sedge or spent spinner.

I floated the Eleven Point 20 years ago with some Boy Scouts on a 5-day, 50-mile trip. Saw trout below Greer Spring. Canoes can put in there. You should be an experienced canoeist, though, as below Greer Spring there is some white water where loggers a century ago rolled huge boulders into the river to collect logs for transport. It is a remote area, too, so plan on possibly camping overnight. I’d pack a pistol with me if I were going again. Also, be bear aware if cping.

Hey Bill, can’t speak from experience but was told (or read) that a light gray or cream colored woolly bugger is a good imitation of a molting crayfish, which has shed its exoskeleton and is a soft and tasty morsel. I have seen these crawdads and they are practically translucent!