Fly of the Week: TFP PMD Cripple
The Fly Projects PMD Cripple is the perfect fly for targeting fish on the Missouri River during PMD hatches. Fish on the Mo, and other rivers tend to focus and target on cripples since they are easier to eat. Trout expend less energy eating cripples than they do adults.
I started fishing crippled PMD's on the Missouri River and Henry's Fork a long time ago when I realized that big trout will eat a crippled PMD in the bright sun in the middle of the day.
We would get continued refusals on PMD duns, and sometimes we would get them to eat a rusty spinner. We even realized that fish would refuse the cripples similar to this one that had a big bright CDC post on them. I used to think, damn, they won’t even eat a CDC cripple? Fish this against a CDC cripple and watch what it looks like on that water next to the real ones and you will quickly realize why.