Last March my friend Steve Supple and I enjoyed our second annual spring fishing trip to the North Platte River below Grey Reef just west of Casper, WY. Our guide, Greg, rigged us up with the standard rock worm and egg configuration, and we certainly landed a lot of fish on these flies. The North Platte at Grey Reef is an amazing fishery, and given its proximity to Denver, I need to schedule more trips to this excellent river.
Best View
Unlike my rig, Steve began with a pine squirrel leech, and as the morning progressed, he began to land a disproportionate number of hefty rainbow trout on the leech. This circumstance caused Greg to tie one to my 2X tippet, and with this strategic shift, I began to land hard fighting rainbows as well. Needless to say, the pine squirrel leech left a favorable impression on my fishing brain. I am always looking for new productive flies, and the leech certainly jumped to the top of my list.
My Best Cone Head Leech
On Memorial Day weekend Jane and I visited our friends the Gabourys in Eagle, CO, and my friend Dave G. insisted that we could catch fish in the muddy and bloated Brush Creek. Despite his confidence I was not experiencing much success until I tied a pine squirrel leech to my line on the second day. Wham! I landed several fish in very difficult conditions as the dark color and undulating movement proved to be irresistible to hungry trout trying to find refuge from the heavy run-off flows.
A Lineup of Leeches
With these experiences in my mind, I purchased some pine squirrel strips and watched a video on YouTube last weekend. I sat down at my vise and churned out five size eight leeches with red thread heads. The tier on the video insisted that the red head was critical for success on the North Platte, although I do not recall using red head leeches during our March float trip. Once I completed five, I threaded a gold cone head bead on to the hooks and tied five more. For these I wrapped a section of lead around the hook shank behind the bead and then pushed it forward to fill in the vacant space at the back of the cone.
Ten Leeches in the Boat Box
I’m pretty excited to have this new tool in my fly box as I anticipate my assault on the Rocky Mountain trout in 2015.
Hi Dave, How did your new ties go? I’m looking to tie up some of these as well. I bought my first set of this fly from Charlie at his store, and they worked great on Delaney Lakes this past summer. I am curious on the reasoning behind the red head? I could see that a slight amount behind the cone might resemble a Cut’s gill? What’s your take?
Verna
Verna – I made a batch of pine squirrel leeches last winter. I tied five with a conehead and five with a red thread head. Some red thread was visible behind the conehead where I tied off the fly. The coneheads worked better than the ones without, but perhaps that can be explained by the extra weight and the jigging action that it creates. My best day with the pine squirrel leech was on the Tuckasegee River in North Carolina. The YouTube video I watched to learn how to tie pine squirrel leeches insisted that red thread was key on the North Platte River, so that is why I used it. Your theory on cuts may be correct. This winter I decided to make slumpbusters instead of pine squirrel leeches. It is a bit of a gamble to abandon the pine squirrel leech since I experienced decent success, but the slumpbuster also uses pine squirrel leech zonkers with the addition of a gold braid body. I think these look a bit more finished, and I can use them as a streamer as well as dead drifting. You can read about all this if you check out my slumpbuster post.
I just checked my flies… I was fishing the Slumpbuster… not the Pine Squirrel Leech… and it was literally a “hit!’ at Delaney Lakes. Mine came from Charlie’s Fly Box, but no red behind the cone… I like that and will try that on the Mile and the Reef in March.
Verna – were you using a slumpbuster with dyed olive pine squirrel strips on Delaney Lakes? What size and time of year? I can envision a size ten slumpbuster in olive imitating a damsel fly nymph if you were having success in June – August time period.