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Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 22 May 2023, 09:21 • #1 
Sport
Joined: 12/25/22
Posts: 65
Location: Hartford, CT
I've read about using vegetative imitations for Carp, but this morning's catch, a rainbow trout, had a belly full of tan leaves, all about the same size, just smaller than a quarter. We had 2-3 inches of rain over the past weekend and trees are still coming into leaf so these may have been tender and tasty vegetables for the fish? I was fishing with perdigon and copper john nymphs and caught a half dozen or so on those flies. Just surprised at the stomach contents of this guy and wondered if there might be a leaf fly pattern to try?


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Re: Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 22 May 2023, 13:39 • #2 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/27/16
Posts: 2327
Location: US-IL
Might have been bugs riding those leaves?Vegan trout?


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Re: Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 22 May 2023, 15:16 • #3 
Sport
Joined: 09/15/21
Posts: 35
Well...there might be something to the Hornberg profile after all. Always wondered about that one, along with a heap of Classic Salmon patterns.

That is more than an "accidental" ingestion of leaves in singular form, but it might (in theory) be possible if the trout were rooting about in veggie material for other food items. Fish sometimes ingest a whole mouthful of other material in a chomp, but I suspect you might find the target prey items in there with the leaves. Was it just leaves?


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Re: Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 22 May 2023, 15:27 • #4 
Sport
Joined: 12/25/22
Posts: 65
Location: Hartford, CT
Other than the one dark worm or invertebra thing shown on the top left of the photo, the stomach contents were all crumpled leaves. At first I thought they were some winged moths but when I washed all the stomach contents in water there were all leaves. No other evidence of insects or aquatic animals.


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Re: Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 23 May 2023, 10:31 • #5 
Master Guide
Joined: 02/02/16
Posts: 515
Location: Georgia
Pretty basic but an olive woolly bugger should be a good option for your salad eating rainbows. Add leaves to the list of a thousand other food sources that a woolly bugger imitates. I also wonder if the rainbow spotted bugs clinging on the leaves - maybe try a drowning ant fly behind an olive bugger?


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Re: Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 23 May 2023, 16:44 • #6 
Sport
Joined: 09/15/21
Posts: 35
greenteal wrote:
At first I thought they were some winged moths but when I washed all the stomach contents in water there were all leaves. No other evidence of insects or aquatic animals.

Some morsels can be mighty small, anything Daphnia or Copepod size can be washed out or overlooked very easily. Not saying you did this, but there's a lot of micro size forage in detritus and it might have been more efficient to just gobble it in leaves and all.

Not sure how a trouts digestive system does with such approaches to feeding, but large goldfish I had years ago could devour mealworms, then later purge themselves of the inedible/undigestible exo material. They'd crap some out, but most of it was hocked out after eating a bunch of 'em.

Perhaps trout can do something like that. Or they're just plain stupid.


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Re: Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 24 May 2023, 01:01 • #7 
Sport
Joined: 05/03/14
Posts: 38
Location: Jämtland - Sweden
If it was a stocked fish it might have confused the fallen leaves as pellets?


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Re: Leaf Fly Patterns?
Post 26 May 2023, 07:25 • #8 
New Member
Joined: 07/04/12
Posts: 1
Location: Southcentral PA
These leaves resemble watercress and the size is about right. I have watched large browns stick their heads into cress beds and thrash about, then drop back to pick off dislodged scuds and cress bugs in the drift. Cress beds also frequently harbor small snails, aquatic earthworms, and leeches. These leaves might be incidental stomach contents similar to small sticks, pebbles and other materials from caddis fly larval cases being consumed when trout ingest the entire caddis case package.


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