Apparently, I have a knack for catching suckers on flies.
Having confessed this, it’s not something I recommend unless you are willing to live with all that goes with it. You might try catching them when there is no one around, but if word gets out you will end up like me.
For starters, all my friends on Facebook want to see sucker pictures. These things have a face only their mothers could love, and I’m always expected to do something ridiculous in the photo like faking a kiss since the fish is already puckered up.
Then, once you establish a reputation as a sucker fly fisher man or woman, everyone forgets that you only occasionally catch suckers and really do land a trout or redfish more frequently than you catch suckers. But most fishermen do that, so you become that sucker fisherman.
Should you be willing to live with all this, I will share my secrets to suckers on the fly:
1. To catch a sucker you have to fish where they are, which is on the bottom. That means you will be dredging with weighted nymphs, which some also find demeaning. But if you only throw dry flies, you can forget about suckers. They would have to turn upside down to feed.
2. Use a nymph small enough to go in a sucker’s mouth. Even though they stay puckered up, anything bigger than a size 12 nymph is less likely to be picked up.
3. It’s really hard to match the hatch for what suckers feed on. My sucker nymph resembles moss. I don’t know what suckers eat, but moss is my best guess.
I am often asked how to play a sucker. Hopefully, they mean the fish. It’s really not that difficult. They pull, you pull back. I don’t remember ever losing one, especially if there were witnesses.
As far as the best tackle for suckers, I fish most of the time with an Orvis 4-weight and it doesn’t seem overly insulted when I catch a sucker. I’m sure it catches grief when I put it back with my other rods, but it doesn’t complain. Maybe other rods will.
When it’s all said and done, I have mixed emotions about sucker fishing being my area of expertise. For instance, none of the rod companies have called me up for an endorsement. The tournament scene hasn’t caught up to sucker fishing yet and sponsors are hard to sell. When I’m at the monthly Trout Unlimited meeting and everyone discusses their recent catch, I find myself prone to sit in silence and sometimes even lie about having gone fishing.
Also, carp fishermen look down on me from their low levels of self-esteem. They get articles and books written with stories about fishing in urban wastelands for carp, but won’t stoop to fly fishing for suckers. So why would anyone ever try to master sucker fishing on a fly rod?
Beats me. Probably better though than catching nothing.
