I fished a lake up in BC for 4 days solid last fall and the fish wanted leeches.. leeches... and more leeches. Actually, nothing but leeches.

It took me about a day to figure that out as I used "the usual suspects" for fly choices. Then I worked thru the usual repitorie of leeches and buggers.

Wally Adams, who used to work for Kaufmans, told me about that fall back trick years ago. When he told me that I kept wondering "how does one tell the difference between a nip and a strike".

After fishing leeches and buggers for 3 days solid I figured out the difference. A strike was a solid weight on the end of the line, and the nips.. well you could feel them as a series of pecks. I remembered what Wally said and threw some slack after some nips and found out the fish had grabbed that fly when the line went slack.

I'm headed back to that lake in 3 weeks and have a box of almost nothing but leeches and buggers. I've been tying them since about the first of April.

That's also how I came up with the funny handle of "Zen Leecher". Same time Jim became the "Master".