Pick A Hopper, Any Hopper:  Why The One You Choose Doesn’t Matter

 

A widely held belief in fly fishing is that fly pattern matters. Matters in the sense that success is dependent on having the right fly. In fact, an unwavering belief in the importance of fly pattern is practically a given in this sport: Tie on the right fly and you’ll catch fish. Not catching fish? Obviously, you don’t have the right fly. But considering the myriad of other factors involved, the premise that the fly makes the difference, that it alone determines whether or not we catch fish, is suspect. And never more so than when it comes to grasshopper patterns.

Ah, yes, hoppers. Favorites among anglers, those. After all, they come in limitless shapes, sizes, and colors. They appeal equally to our inner shopper and our sense of hope. Who among us hasn’t salivated over the variety of patterns available in fly shops and catalogs? What fly tier hasn’t spent time devising his or her own hopper, all the while envisioning boundless success? If only we can see our way to choosing or tying the right pattern, no trout anywhere are safe.

Well, not to rain on anyone’s parade, but it doesn’t really work that way. At least in my experience. Here’s why I think the hopper we choose is irrelevant to success.

Let’s assume that we’re hopper fishing on a popular river like the Madison. Let’s also assume that being preoccupied with watching our hopper drift along on the current leaves us unaware of events taking place beneath the surface. Say now that we catch some fish. Enough to give us confidence that the hopper we used was the right one—a real killer, indeed. Afterwards, we tell all who will listen that we’ve got the must-have fly, the hot fly.

But I wonder if you’d still feel that way if you knew that only one out of three or four fish that showed interest in your fly actually took it? I know I wouldn’t. I’d be questioning my choice of fly. Yet, refusals are inevitable when hopper fishing. They’re an everyday, common occurrence, and they always outnumber takes.

How do I know this? From spending lots of time sight-fishing. Some forty years worth, actually. (I offer this not by way of braggadocio, but merely to point out that, as Yogi Berra so famously remarked, you can observe a lot by watching. And observing underwater events—a necessary part of sight-fishing—can change the way we think about this sport and influence the conclusions we draw about it.) What my experience shows is that for every fish that takes a hopper, as many as three or four will refuse it.

I like to think that if most anglers were aware of this, their enthusiasm for particular patterns would diminish quickly. Mine certainly has.

When we fail to see refusals to our fly, we often end up drawing conclusions about fly pattern based only on those fish that rise and take. We don’t know anything else because we can’t see anything else. So we catch some fish and assume blithely that we’ve got the right fly. But our successful day (insert your own number of fish caught) doesn’t look quite the same if achieving it requires three to four times as many fish looking at our fly. Evaluating hopper effectiveness isn’t about the absolute number of fish caught, but rather the proportion of fish that took versus those that just looked. (It’s not my intention here to slight any degree of success. Catching fish is still the point, regardless of how many refusals we might incur in the process. I’m just saying that whether you’ve caught two fish or twenty-two, a particular hopper pattern isn’t responsible.)

Indeed, since a trout can only take the fly that’s tied to our line, belief in that fly as the limiting factor becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s only when we become aware of the refusals as well as the takes that we can begin to judge fly pattern fairly. In my own fishing one thing I always try to do is be cognizant of matters above and below the water’s surface. Consequently, I’ve become acutely aware that no matter what hopper I fish, refusals aplenty will result. Refusals that run the gamut from the briefest nod or twitch of the fins to those where a trout drifts backwards for several feet, mere inches from the fly, inspecting and finally dismissing it.

Because of this experience, I consider all hopper patterns to be equal. They all work and they all fail. Which is exactly why I don’t think it matters which one you choose to use. Of great interest to me is why this is so.

One possible explanation may lie with the natural hoppers themselves. They’re good sized insects, and rainbow and brown trout often develop caution towards big, floating flies like hoppers and stoneflies. Even though they eat them both, it is seldom with abandon. (I’ve said for years—only half kiddingly—that trout actually hate salmonflies. Given a choice between a salmonfly and a smaller food item like a caddisfly, they’ll almost always choose the smaller fly.) Certainly there are times when trout do feed avidly on stoneflies and hoppers, but it seems that those times are more the exception than the rule. All of which suggests that catching fish is dictated by something other than fly pattern. Interestingly, cutthroat trout seem to have an innate attraction to large floating objects, which renders fly pattern immaterial to them as well, but from a completely different perspective.

Something else I’ve noticed is that once a fish has refused a hopper imitation, changing patterns seldom elicits further interest, let alone a strike. It seems to me that, on any given day, fish are either hopper takers or not. This again points to something other than fly pattern as the determining factor in whether or not a fish takes a hopper.

Another observation: After spending a fair amount of time guiding on the Madison River and even more time listening to other guide and angler reports, it seems to me that when hopper fishing is good, it’s good for everyone. And that when it’s bad, it’s bad for everyone. Hopper pattern doesn’t seem to matter, nor does the skill of the angler. (With hundreds of anglers a day fishing the Madison, we can be certain a variety of hoppers are getting a workout, with varying levels of expertise.) And though a skilled fisherman invariably catches more fish than an unskilled one, success—or lack thereof—seems to remain relative. I admit that this good-for-all, bad-for-all assertion may be seen as pure conjecture, but you’d be surprised at how often this scenario plays out. Not just on the Madison, either.

Concerning angling skill, if hopper pattern was in fact responsible for our success, we should see it manifested in the results of anglers with dissimilar skills. For instance, an average angler with the “magic” hopper (one capable of actually attracting fish) should be able to out-fish an expert who lacks the same hopper. And a rank beginner should catch more fish than someone of moderate ability. But this isn’t what happens. Ever. What does happen is that over the course of a day fish are caught in direct proportion to an angler’s ability. Similarly, in the hands of an expert the “magic” hopper should never fail. But at various times and for whatever reasons, all hoppers do.

It’s often thought that fishing pressure is a factor in the productivity of fly patterns. The point generally raised is that hard-fished trout, having been caught and released a number of times, become wary of certain flies and learn to avoid them. While I think this is possible, I don’t think it’s the case with hoppers. That’s because, as I alluded to earlier, hopper fishing success seems to run on a much broader scale. It’s less about an individual fish taking or refusing a hopper, and more about how a population of fish feel about hoppers on a given day.

If we accept the premise that pattern doesn’t matter, what then? Do we simply pick a favorite hopper and fish it exclusively? Sure, we could do that, but I can think of several reasons why we shouldn’t. None that pertain to the trout, mind you, but rather ones that have everything to do with us as humans.

For starters, carrying a number of different hoppers allows us to change patterns when the fishing is slow. Even though I believe this doesn’t matter to the fish, switching patterns is still useful because it serves to reignite our interest. Suddenly, we fish with more concentration. Our casting has renewed purpose. Our presentations improve. And lo and behold, quite frequently we catch a trout.

Catching a fish right after a fly change may be seen as a direct repudiation of my premise. We changed flies, caught a fish, ergo the fly mattered. But I contend that what caught that fish was not the new fly, but a better presentation aided by renewed focus. We can never know for sure, but the weight of evidence over my years of fishing suggests to me that the act of changing flies, far more than the specific fly we change to, is what’s important.

Another reason to carry different kinds of hoppers is to help cope with visibility issues. Not visibility of our flies to the fish; they don’t need our help. Rather, visibility of the fly to us. As water and light conditions change, certain hopper patterns are more easily seen than others. Being able to see our fly allows us to know where our casts land, where the fly is at any given moment, and how it’s drifting. When the fly is visible, our presentations almost always improve. Which leads, of course, to more fish caught.

Owing to basic human nature, carrying a variety of hoppers also provides a certain psychological comfort. After all, as humans we generally enjoy having choices in life. Why treat fly patterns differently?

So feel free to tie, buy, carry and use all the different hoppers you like. Just don’t try to convince me that one is any better than another—at least when it comes to catching fish.

Note: Late in the process of writing this article, I was struck by an additional thought: What if we simply haven’t yet devised the hopper pattern that does make a difference to the trout? It’s an interesting notion. While observation and experience tell me it’s not going to happen, the fisherman inside me is willing to hold out hope. If you happen to discover a hopper that does indeed matter to the fish, I’d love to see it. Please send one along. Post-haste.