How I learned to stop worrying and love the mop
Dec 31, 2018 13:07:51 GMT -6
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Aaron, slim, and 3 more like this
Post by Smallfry on Dec 31, 2018 13:07:51 GMT -6
I'm sure we've all read the articles, seen the videos and made our opinions on this particular little fly. I kinda viewed it as the get rich quick pattern and had only used it once, it sure did good that one time too. However, I still held some disdain for it (even though I had jumped on the tying bandwagon, the material is found just about everywhere, in fun colors to boot.) What changed my opinion was a crazy little 3 year old that likes "baby" fish. Generally when we fish together it's at the lake. Short drive coupled with very cooperative sunnies and little bass make for an entertaining day. For some reason this doesn't translate well to a river setting. In steps the mop. On one trip after a nice rain I used this pattern alone in cloudy water and was able to land enough trout for her attention span to last almost an hour. The next event was Christmas Eve and this is when I really saw the mop shine. Granted it may have recently been stocked, dunno what the schedule is. I was just swinging it with a small green midge dropper and the midge was winning till a rainbow took it. Keeping an eye on the three year old with her new Christmas waders was already a hand full so I opted to keep going with the lone mop.
Just swinging it wasn't enough. Then somehow it clicked in my brain and the dirty moppy magic turned on. I would get it in my targeted current and sometimes make an upstream mend, give it a little slow-mo action, let the trout have a nice long look at it, then immediately give it a couple twitches. I have to say the movement of that thing twitching in the water was hilarious. It looked like a helpless fat garden grub, the kind we used to find turning soil and my dad would gather them up to throw at us... bleh. I'd watch those once passive little rainbow jerks race up from the bottom of the river and grab. The net girl was very happy, I was very happy. This quirky fly might be a black sheep to some but I wouldn't be ashamed if somebody saw me using one.
p.s.
The tip part is the mending and twitching, it seems like I coulda just said that but I wrote what I wrote.
Just swinging it wasn't enough. Then somehow it clicked in my brain and the dirty moppy magic turned on. I would get it in my targeted current and sometimes make an upstream mend, give it a little slow-mo action, let the trout have a nice long look at it, then immediately give it a couple twitches. I have to say the movement of that thing twitching in the water was hilarious. It looked like a helpless fat garden grub, the kind we used to find turning soil and my dad would gather them up to throw at us... bleh. I'd watch those once passive little rainbow jerks race up from the bottom of the river and grab. The net girl was very happy, I was very happy. This quirky fly might be a black sheep to some but I wouldn't be ashamed if somebody saw me using one.
p.s.
The tip part is the mending and twitching, it seems like I coulda just said that but I wrote what I wrote.