BirdTrout
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Balanced Leech
A streamer, tied #8–14, carried year round. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — all year.
- #8–14Hook size
- streamerType
- AllSeason
- 1Hatch matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 5 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
Each of these is the same hatch record the app's own panel reads, so a pattern recommended on a river card in the app is recommended for one of the insects below.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | Jig hook with an extension pin, sizes 8–14 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Black 6/0 |
| Tail | Black, brown or olive marabou |
| Body | Matching dubbing or chenille |
| Bead | Tungsten, pinned forward so the fly hangs level |
When to fish it
Suspended and twitched, or swung slowly through soft water at low light. It hangs horizontal, which is the whole reason for the pin.
Carried all year. The insects it matches are active all year, in water from 35°F to 75°F.
Target species
- Trout
- Bass
- Panfish
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Au Sable River northern lower Michigan · July mean 72.1°F
- Catawba River the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Jackson River the Virginia mountains · July mean 66.3°F
- Muskegon River northern lower Michigan · July mean 71.0°F
- Escanaba River the Upper Peninsula · July mean 68.3°F
- Saint Croix River northern Wisconsin · July mean 77.2°F
- Smith River the Virginia mountains · July mean 51.9°F
- Tygart Valley River the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.6°F
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Aaron Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Aaron Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Aarons Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.2°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Woolly Bugger (Black) streamer · #2–12 — If you could only own one fly. Leech, sculpin, big nymph, all of it.
- Woolly Bugger (Brown) streamer · #2–12 — Brown with a bit of copper reads as a crayfish. Hop it along the bottom.
- Woolly Bugger (Olive) streamer · #2–12 — The clear-water version. Smaller and lighter than you think you need.
- Black Ghost streamer · #4–10 — A classic bucktail for stained water and low light.
- Clouser Crayfish streamer · #4–8 — Moved in short hops along the bottom. A crayfish never swims across a river.