# The Pellet Fly



## wyogoob

I spend some time up and down the Mirror Lake Highway teaching youngsters how to fly fish. After breaking off a gross of #14 Renegades in the willows a child is ready to "match the hatch", get serious. Listen, the "hatch" part of "match the hatch" means hatchery fish not some larva shucking a case and going airborne out of the water.

So years of drought and over-fishing has created a fishery along the Mirror Lake Highway supported mostly by hatchery fish. And hatchery fish want commercial fish food, not bugs. Man, have you ever eaten bugs? grasshoppers? worms?; caddis fly larva has sand stuck to it for crying out loud. All those things are just awlful. Anyway, these fish got fat a hurry gorging themselves on pelletized fish food at the hatchery and when released into the wild they don't have a clue what's going on with all the nymphs, worms, and terrestial thingies swimming around everywhere. You can throw all the $4.95 Orvis flies at 'em ya want and nothing, they want cat food man. (uh, do not ask me how I know that)

Fly tiers identified the challange years ago and have come up with dozens, perhaps billions, of imitation fish food patterns. Most are spun hair clipped to simulate a fish food pellet. Hatchery fish will attack them with reckless abandon. Sometimes two or three hatchery trout will violently bump heads when going after a fish food pellet fly and if you're quick enough you can net one of the dazed fish before it comes to its senses (like it had any senses in the first place). But the spun hair fish food pellet flies are not very durable. There is a relatively new fish food pellet fly out there called, ingeniously, "The Pellet Fly". It's a piece of brown foam slipped over a hook shank with a thread body slobbered with some glue. Sometimes a brightly-colored dot is painted on the fly for those, like me, that have cataracts, or you for guys and girls that don't have $125 polarized sunglasses made to wear on the back side of a baseball hat.

Here's The Pellet Fly from The Fly Shop:



see: https://catalog.theflyshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=7703

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## swbuckmaster

I recognized this problem arround 1995 when I fished paradise ponds in american fork. I was new to fly fishing and didnt have my own stuff yet. I could see the fish go nuts when you threw the pellets in the water. I could see them go nuts when you tossed small rocks in the water but the fish would just look at the flies the guy put on the rental poles and that made me feel ripped off. So I bought myself a fly rod and and junk fly tying kit and experimented building all sorts of stuff like painted small rocks tied to hooks ect. My best pellet imitation ended up being pea**** hackle balled up on a small hook with a little glue. One fly didnt work though so I found out how to tie a dropper and would then place a tiny split shot on the end. Now everytime those three hit the water it was fish on. I would even catch two at a time. 

Pea**** hackle would eventually end up on all my flies. Its not durable but it is the best fish catching stuff out imho.


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## Catherder

Can the purist get away with fishing one of those if it is presented as a dry? ;-)


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## polarbear

I tied some up one time to go fish a friend's private pond. It was definitely some fast fishing.


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## wyogoob

Catherder said:


> Can the purist get away with fishing one of those if it is presented as a dry? ;-)


If your waders cost more than $550, then "yes".

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## wyogoob

These flies work so well I have been marketing them on the side.

I was working contract for a Canadian engineering company last year so I thought it only fitting to run a special for all the guys at work. Here's an ad I ran last year around Canada Day, July 1st:


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## wyogoob

Anyone know where I could get some 1/4" diameter brown foam rope? or 1/2" thick brown foam sheets? We tried black and chocolate brown with little luck. And for whatever reason the spun deer hair pellet flies aren't appealing.

Man these flies are killers, but they're $3.00 each plus shipping and I can only find them from one outlet.

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## sinergy

What about using those foam ear plugs the kind you squeeze and stuff in your ear. Maybe you could shave them down a little and paint them ...


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## GaryFish

Just get some light brown craft foam from Walmart. Cut it in thin strips and wrap it around the hook as you would most other fly tying materials. Get a fine point sharpy marker and even dot it all over, so it looks more like the food pellets.


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## wyogoob

GaryFish said:


> Just get some light brown craft foam from Walmart. Cut it in thin strips and wrap it around the hook as you would most other fly tying materials. Get a fine point sharpy marker and even dot it all over, so it looks more like the food pellets.


Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary,

Thanks. These are highly-intelligent, super-sophisticated, triploid-hypoid, Wyoming planter trout; pretty fussy, but I'll give it a try.

I'm thinking of using pieces of cooked SPAM. Surely, you wouldn't call it "bait" or "edible". I'm sure it's artificial.

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## Jedidiah

Hey, don't forget to bring an empty bag of Purina kibble to set next to the stream so the planter fish know to come running to where you're set up.

Anyone NOT notice that Goob's flier lists the price for 10 flies as $7.75 higher than 10 individual flies? Might possibly be a trolling attempt?


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## Kwalk3

Jedidiah said:


> Hey, don't forget to bring an empty bag of Purina kibble to set next to the stream so the planter fish know to come running to where you're set up.
> 
> Anyone NOT notice that Goob's flier lists the price for 10 flies as $7.75 higher than 10 individual flies? Might possibly be a trolling attempt?


I bet these would work great for trolling!:mrgreen:


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## wyogoob

Catherder said:


> Can the purist get away with fishing one of those if it is presented as a dry? ;-)


Yes, if each fly costs $2.75 or more and you fish it with a bobber...uh...I mean strike indicator.

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## DallanC

HobbyLobby, buy a couple 8x10 sheets of 1/8th craft foam. Use paper punches to punch 1/4" circles. Now thread the circles onto the hook making it look cylindrical. Add a dab of glue on each end to keep it the pieces from spreading.


-DallanC


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## DallanC

swbuckmaster said:


> I recognized this problem arround 1995 when I fished paradise ponds in american fork.


Haha that place was awesome. Once back in High School I had a taxidermy class and had to do a fish. It got down to the final week before the semester ended and the Teacher who I ran into in the hall reminded me I had not done a fish yet and it was required for an A. I told him no sweat, I'll go get a fish during lunch hour and quickly called my dad to pick me up.

We drove over there and I caught a 8lb Rainbow in a blizzard and headed back to school where my next class was the taxidermy class. I walked in with this nearly still twitching 8lb fish and the teacher (a fanatical fisherman) nearly had a coronary when he saw it. He BEGGED me for the next year to tell him where I got that big of a fish in such a short amount of time. I always just smiled and told him "my dad wont let me say, its a secret". Hahaha :mrgreen:

It was one hell-of-a-fish for sure.

-DallanC


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## swbuckmaster

Lol so how did the mount turn out? I would have loved to do taxidermy in high school.


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## DallanC

swbuckmaster said:


> Lol so how did the mount turn out? I would have loved to do taxidermy in high school.


There is a reason I'm not a fish taxidermist in life hehehe.

It was good enough to get a good grade... it didn't last long though. The method taught was to skin it, get as much meat / fat out of it, inject the rest with formaldahyde, sew it up and fill it with some wierd mixture you pour in that hardens over time to hold its shape (not plaster, it was much lighter). It turned out ok... but it still always smelled a little bit so I tossed it a year or so later. Now a days they just give you a fiberglass form that is roughly the size your fish was and call it good.

It was a really fun class though. I still have a Pheasant I mounted and a Frisbee, I mean muskrat hide I tanned (never bothered to work it and soften it up). Those where the days. The local High School here doesn't even have shop classes... makes me sad for todays youth.

-DallanC


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## swbuckmaster

Ya we made cross bows and knives in metal shop and had shot guns in our truck windows. Times have changed for the worse.


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## GaryFish

I found your fish Dallen.


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## wyogoob

Jedidiah said:


> ...........................
> 
> Anyone NOT notice that Goob's flier lists the price for 10 flies as $7.75 higher than 10 individual flies? Might possibly be a trolling attempt?


Yeah; if that's not appealing to you I'm running one $3.50 Pellet Fly for the price of two; $7.25, so you get the second fly free. Man, ya can't pass that one up!

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## DallanC

GaryFish said:


> I found your fish Dallen.


I wish I would have thought of that back in the day. :mrgreen:

-DallanC


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## wyogoob

Slow fly fishing today. We threw everything at them and then broke out the Pellet Fly!!!!!!!!!

It's amazing. I wonder how old this Tiger Trout is? 4yrs old? 6yrs old? Yet it's still hasn't forgot what a food pellet is. Caught several nice trout like this today on the Pellet Fly:


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## swbuckmaster

Nice fish!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## TPrawitt91

Goob, where does a guy get a hold of one of these?


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## wyogoob

TPrawitt91 said:


> Goob, where does a guy get a hold of one of these?


http://catalog.theflyshop.com/

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