Yes, I give fly fishermen a lot of crap for being prissy, but I can’t say that it doesn’t work. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be posting a link to the Thunder Beetle dry fly pattern here.
My take on fly fishing (yes, I’ve done some) is that most of the patterns exist only to excite the guys tying (or buying) them. Fish see them entirely differently and from the underside, they only see an outline. Relatively boring floating flies like this beetle work exceedingly well. Now while this is titled as a beetle, it sure looks like a dark grasshopper to me. In any case, I’m pretty sure this one will catch fish.
If you read Big Trout by Bernie Taylor, you will see that he is firmly in the camp that fly fishing is a key way to take monster trout.
PATTERN DESCRIPTION:
The Thunder Beetle is a high floating, buggy pattern made to imitate beetles and cicada’s. Beetles are very common terrestrials, therefore make great patterns to fish in any type of water throughout the year. The bulky profile of a beetle is unmistakable and big trout will seldom refuse a well presented beetle imitation. I mainly tie Thunder Beetles with a black body. For the underbody, I prefer peacock, black, blue, purple and red colors. If you don’t have any beetles in your fly box, tie up a few Thunder Beetles and give them a try when nothing else seems to be working. You might be surprised by the results.
Thunder Beetle Dry Fly Tutorial from Hopper Fishing
