Snow Shoe Emergers

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          As most people know Snowshoe Hare emergers are very effective . The first ones brought to my attention were a hand full of Fran Betters pattern know as the Usual.I fished these neat little flies and had great success with them. Catching trout on every stream that I fished them from the small streams to big open rivers, they worked everywhere.

    This in turn got the creative juices flowing, so myself along with many other tyers began to experiment with different hook styles and dubbing colors . To come up with some cool fish catching snowshoe hare patterns..I tye them dubbed mostly in these three colors olive , golden yellow and natural gray or dun . In sizes 12 down to 18, The fly in the picture above is tied on a Dohiku 301 size 14.




   Depending on how you want your fly to present you can fish totally dry on top , or you can sink the body under the film which is deadly.You accomplish by taking some of your saliva and apply it to the body and shuck only while keeping the wing dry.This allows the shuck and the body to sink into the film leaving just the wing on top.If you have never tried this give it a go on a fish you pass this fly over and it doesn't take.You will be pleasantly surprised as this presentation usually gets a picky fish to come to the fly. The fine brown trout in the picture below was taken using this method.           

      

    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

  
      My friend Joe and I hit the Farmington River in Connecticut and the fish refused to take a standard dry or even a parachute pattern. So we switched up to the very fly above and it saved the day ! We each caught several beautiful Farmington River browns.If it weren't for this fly I'm convinced we would have returned home with the skunk. 

                                        
      Above is Joe with another beautiful Farmington River brown taken the same day as mine on a similar fly as you can see the snowshoe emerger is a productive fly.... I have provided below the recipe for this emerger so you can tye some up for your next outing..


      Recipe for the snowshoe emerger is as follows ;


Hook Dohiku 301 size 12-18 (or hook of your choice)
Thead 6 or 8/0 black uni
Shuck antron or snowshoe
Dubbing olive seal (You can sub any type of dubbing and color you would like to match the hatch)
Wing snowshoe guard hair taken from the rabbits foot
Dubbing in front of wing natural under fur from a snowshoe hares foot