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Clam Worm Fundamentals
by Ken Abrames

The Clam Worm Hatch.
In the last several years there have been movies made about it, stories told and re-told about it, countless articles written describing flies and methods and places to go; still, even with all this attention, catching fish with regularity during the hatch remains a mystery to many of us. I am very simplistic in my approach to fishing during this hatch. I don't get too fancy.

Over the years I have learned that it is very easy to outsmart myself when fishing. So I try to stick to the fundamentals as best as I can. I believe that my experience with clam worm fishing is very limited and yet when I look back I realize that I've been fishing this phenomenon for decades. I've seen my pet theories evolve into new pet theories. I've seen my killer flies become new killer flies. I've seen my choice of lines change from floaters, to sink tips, to sinkers, to intermediates and back to floaters again because I've found that they all work at certain times. Fishing the clam worm hatch has been a learning curve for me. There are lots of different parts to it and they change depending on the locations you fish, the types of worms that are present, and the flies and methods you choose to fish the worm hatch with.

What worked best for me last year was a long rod, a floating line and a three fly dropper rig with a small float that I put on the leader just above the head fly. I found that the float kept the flies high in the water and that this simple modification increased the numbers of fish that came to my flies better than any other method I have ever used. I have used this type of system on and off for about ten years now and I fish both with the float and without it.

The three fly dropper rig can be used with any type of line and it is the single most effective tactic I know of to increase the number of strikes you receive while fishing a hatch. It is a traditional fly fishing technique that has been used for centuries and it is a good one. What the three fly rig enables you to do is to try different flies at the same time and take the mystery out of what fly the fish prefer. They will often only hit one of the flies you try, and it is a good way of finding out which pattern is most effective when the fish are given the chance to make a choice. It is an enlightening method to say the least.

Many people are hesitant to try a dropper rig for fear that the flies will tangle or foul. When casting droppers, allow the backcast to straighten out before making the forward stroke. Try to minimize the fishing time spent false casting by shooting the line with the head alone. High line speed with the loop straightened out behind you will be effective but the law of averages begins to work against you as the number of repeated backcasts with tight loops increases. Rods that are moderate to slow in action can also be used as they load easily and are pleasurable to cast for extended periods.

There is an old method of rigging droppers that works so well it may never be improved. It is based on the principle of laying the dropper alongside the leader (instead of having it stick out) and keeping it short, 2 inches or so. You do this by cutting the butt section at 15 inches, slipping a float on the standing part and connecting a section of leader approx. 26 inches long to it with a surgeon's knot. I prefer a five-turn knot. Then cut the tag end that points back toward the line off, right next to the knot and leave the end that points away from the line intact. That small section is where the fly is tied. Tie the (head) fly about 2 to 2 1/2 inches down from the knot. Take the long section and tie in another dropper knot 18 inches down from the first knot, repeat the steps, tie in another (middle) fly (different size, different pattern), and then cut your leader so that your tail fly (different size, different pattern), is about 18 inches below the middle dropper.

This results in a leader that has three flies that can be cast without fouling. I do not use the system of tying droppers to the bend of the hook because it is not as effective in hooking fish, in fact if a fish has taken the tail fly the tension on the leader often prevents another fish from being hooked. I have witnessed this many times myself. The short dropper allows the fly to be sucked into the fish's mouth when he flares his gills and attempts to pull it in. (See ill, pg. 40, A Perfect Fish, above)

There is no 'one size fits all' method of presentation for fishing the clamworm hatch effectively. There are as many methods as there are people who experiment. There are so many lines and variations on them nowadays that it would take an encyclopedic dissertation to list and explain all the variations in technique that are possible. With that in mind I will restrict myself to sharing what has worked best for me over the years. I will start with location.

I like to fish in waders and I like to fish slowly and methodically. I like to take my time. I'm not in a hurry and I like to watch things unfold. Patience is the quickest way to learn how to observe. The clam worm hatch has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Each location where worms swarm has its own unfolding rhythm and some are quite different than others as to time of day, sizes and types of worms, locations and activity of worms (how they move), how the fish feed on them and much more. These factors affect how the stripers can be caught. Some flies and presentations that work well in one place do not necessarily work well in others. If they did then everyone would have solved the puzzle by now and there would not be contradictory information as to the best methods to fish the hatch. I know through personal experience of a large salt pond that has a worm hatch that in some years begins in March, during the day, when the water temperature reaches 70 degrees in small backwater coves. One cove will be full of worms swimming everywhere, while right next to it is a cove that may be a little deeper or more shaded and there are no worms at all. I know another place a few miles away where the hatch begins at night in July. In Western Connecticut, I'm told by reliable people that the hatches continue throughout the summer in many tidal creeks both day and night. What this means to me is simply that worm hatches are a local phenomenon and are quite variable as to time of the year and time of day. It also explains why so many hypotheses are correct and at the same time contradictory.

There are some constants that are common to all hatches wherever they are located and fortunately they will help you form strategies that can help you catch fish. When the water that the worms are in is not moving or moving very slowly then the fish will move to the worms to feed. This means you have to notice and anticipate the movement of the fish, similar to fishing for trout in a pond or lake. Sometimes this is as simple as finding the largest concentration of worms and waiting for the fish to show up. A school of stripers feeding as it moves will often follow subtle wind currents as they move along or follow a breakline that has a slight change in depth. To catch them you have to anticipate their movement and position yourself to make a good presentation when they pass by or mill in the area. You have to become observant.

You have to see little things like the edge of a weed bed or a change in the bottom from mud to sand and notice if the fish are using these visual aids to orient their movements similar to our using a path in a field to move along.

There are many very good fresh water books written about this type of fishing that go into great detail about rods, lines, leaders, how to find edges that the fish move along and many other fascinating details of still water fishing. Reading one of them will add a great deal of insight in how to fish backwaters and other low velocity current environments for stripers and other salt-water gamefish. Even though these books were written for fresh water fishermen the principles that they reveal are very important fundamentals that are operational in every still water situation including the salt. A good book that I highly recommend is Lake Fishing with a Fly, by Randall Kaufman, who has also written a book on flats fishing for bonefish using these same principles.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, with a lot in between, is moving water. When the water is moving, as in a tidal river, the fish do not swim to the worms to feed, they hold on station and wait for the current to bring the worms to their position. Here the same traditional fly fishing presentations that work so well in trout fishing shine. There is very little random aggressive feeding. The fish become quite deliberate in their movements and as the hatch progresses become even more precise in what they will rise to. Their routines become fixed, and flies that worked at the beginning of the hatch often are ignored. This can be frustrating. The fish continue to rise but will no longer take the fly that was working so well a few minutes ago. The best solution I have found is a floating line, three flies and mending to use the current to bring those flies to the fish as they expect their food to come to them. A little float on the leader up above the head fly dropper knot can often do wonders.

I use the same tackle when I am fishing in still water but I cast and retrieve, always trying to intercept or parallel the movement of the fish. I start off by retrieving briskly and incrementally slowing down until I find the speed that begins to work. Often this is very slow, so slow that only a floating line with a float will keep the flies from sinking to the bottom. Fishing slowly is one of the most deadly techniques for catching stripers especially big ones. I have found that when fish want a slow retrieve somewhere between the surface and six to eight feet deep a floating line brings me more success than any other type of line. The reason for this is mechanical. I can control the speed and depth my flies will fish. I am pulling the chain not pushing it.

Here is a list of flies that I have used with a lot of success. All of them have worked for me throughout the entire hatch from the beginning through the middle and to the end. Vary the sizes and switch the colors around and always experiment with new ideas. Try every clam worm fly you know about. Pitting one fly against two others with the dropper system will tell you in short order which flies the fish prefer that day. Fish always tell the truth even when they keep their mouth shut.

• the Ruthless
• the Orange Ruthless (same fly tied with fire orange hackle)
• Rusty River Rider
• Gold-bodied General Practitioner (gold braid instead of orange wool)
• Ken's Clam Worm fly, when the worms are those little tiny ones