Stimulator

Elk hair, palmered hackle and a body the colour of the caddis and stoneflies it stands in for. It floats like a cork, which is why it is the top fly in a gorge.

What it is

Randall Kaufmann’s attractor for the big stonefly and caddis hatches of the American west, and the fly that has become the default top fly for broken water on Australian trout streams. NSW DPIRD’s Snowy Mountains guide names a size 12 to 14 Stimulator as an effective attractor dry on the region’s rivers in the warmer months, and the same fly does the same job in the Victorian high country, on Tasmania’s fast rivers and on any pocket-water stream where a small dry would drown in a second.

Anatomy

From the bend forward: a short tail of elk or deer hair. A long, slim abdomen of dubbing, orange, yellow or olive, palmered with a body hackle of grizzly or ginger wound in open turns and secured with a fine wire rib. A wing of elk hair tied down over the abdomen, its tips reaching the bend, tented over the body like a caddis. A short, thicker thorax of dubbing, often a brighter colour than the abdomen, palmered with a second, denser front hackle. A thread head.

Key features

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Two hackles. The palmered body hackle and the front hackle between them float the fly through water that sinks anything else, and give a buggy, leggy footprint on the surface.

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The elk wing. Hollow hair floats, and the tented wing is the caddis and stonefly silhouette a trout sees from below.

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Colour as a dial. An orange body suggests a stonefly or a hopper; yellow, a caddis or a hopper; olive, a caddis. The Australian convention leans orange, which shows up in tannin water.

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It carries weight. The Stimulator holds a tungsten nymph two feet below it without going under, which makes it the dry-dropper top fly for a gorge.

Typical materials

Part

Typical material

Hook

Long-shank dry-fly hook, 2X or 3X long, size 10 to 14

Thread

8/0 or 70 denier, orange or tan

Tail

Elk or deer hair, short

Abdomen

Fine dry-fly dubbing, orange, yellow or olive

Body hackle

Grizzly or ginger rooster, palmered in open turns

Rib

Fine copper or gold wire, to lock the body hackle

Wing

Elk hair, tips to the bend, tented over the abdomen

Thorax

Dubbing, often amber or bright orange

Front hackle

Grizzly rooster, four or five turns

In Australian hands

The upper Eucumbene is good Stimulator water: orange-bodied size fourteen to sixteen with a natural wing is a strong searching choice. On Munyang Creek, use it as a searching dry through the season; a rubber-legged fourteen suits summer on the West Branch of the Kiewa and late summer on Diggers Creek. In Perisher Creek’s high water from December, try a sixteen or eighteen yellow-bodied version with a little flash. Beside foam hoppers on the Delatite, a Yellow Sally version is a useful change; on Nariel Creek, try a fourteen with flash under the wing and a small black nymph trailing, or fish it alone. A microscopic yellow version can be bow-and-arrow cast to the top of a Gibraltar Creek run in the ACT. In the Western Lakes, use a Red Tag or a Stimulator-style fly when a searching dry is wanted rather than a spinner imitation.

Fishing it

Two jobs. On its own, fish it as a searching dry through pocket water: one drift through each pocket, the first cast the one that counts, then move. The fly is big enough that a fish sees it in white water and buoyant enough that you see it too.

Its better job is as the top of a dry-dropper. A Stimulator will hold a tungsten Hare’s Ear or Pheasant Tail a couple of feet below it without sinking, and in a gorge that rig covers the fish at the surface and the fish at the bottom of the chute with the same cast. When the dry dips, set. When the dry gets eaten, which happens more than you would expect, set faster.