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A big Royal Coachman wet fly is a perfect choice for early season panfish!
I continued to wade out until the water threatened to come over the top of my waders. Once in position, I stripped off some fly line to make my first cast. Tied to the end of my tippet was a size 8 Royal Coachman Wet Fly. Winged wet flies were once popular amongst trout fishers but have seemed to fall from grace, replaced by more modern offerings.
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The Devil Bug is an old school pattern that works as good today as it did back then.
I was first introduced to this pattern through a musty old pamphlet entitled How to Catch a Fish with O. C. Tuttle's Devil Bugs. I found the molding 22-page booklet in a box of donated fly tying materials that I was sorting for my local Trout Unlimited chapter. I took the yellowing pages home with me and read them cover to cover. Inside were drawings and descriptions of scores of devil bugs tied to catch everything from bluegills to tarpon.
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Will the real Cooper Bug please stand up!
Since the Cooper Bug turned out to be such an effective fly in both cold and warm water I decided to learn a little more about it. When I researched the pattern, I discovered a fly of the same name and a very different design. As it turns out, there was a fly called the Cooper Bug that predates the version I was tying. Interestingly enough it had its roots planted in warmwater, not a trout stream.
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Dick Talleur’s Pea-Ca-Bou Nymph is an ideal nymph pattern for panfish!
I love fishing classic fly patterns for trout. As is often the case, many of these patterns find their way into my panfish fly boxes. It is no secret that you can catch panfish on just about every trout fly pattern there is, but some seem to perform better than others, especially if you are fishing in a still water environment.
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The Killer Bee is an easy to tie hi-viz bee pattern that is a panfish killer!
Bee patterns and panfish go together. There are scores of panfish patterns that wear the classic black and yellow color scheme. From the classic McGinty, which happens to be my favorite winged wet fly for panfish, to the Jitterbee nymph, as well as scores of topwater patterns, they all resemble the classic black and yellow bee.
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