The giant Salmonflies of the Western mountains are legendary for their proclivity to elicit consistent dry-fly action and ferocious strikes.
Gonzo,
Is the summer "Blue Quill" a Paraleptophlebia adoptiva or does it have another name?
According to Edmunds, the females will mate more than once and often proceed to shoreline foliage when finished with ovipositing as opposed to dying spent on the water. The males start the swarms first, often well before. They are often observed along the shoreline dipping from six to two feet and rising again. On occasion, many males for unknown reasons drop to the water at this time and become trapped in the meniscus. When the females finally arrive, they join them quickly at the top, copulate during the four foot fall, and just as quickly make short dives to either dip their abdomens into the water or land on the water to lay their eggs. Then it's up and back at it until they're finished. Edmunds reports that they will repeat this cycle as many as three times before they occasionally die spent on the water or more often head back to the bushes. This is good information for the angler to note.
Therefore I don't think I need to concern myself with tying any more flies.
Thanks for the info though.
You must be having a light surgery schedule today to be reading, and responding, to these posts!
For me the P. mollis is kind of a mystery. I see tons of them(spinners) on Penns, Big Fishing Creek etc, but don't see many on the water, but I have have been VERY successful fishing the spinner on Penns, go figure.
The heaviest mollis emergences I've seen were on the Cortland NY area stream called "Factory Brook" -which is actually the closest thing to a "spring creek" in the area, being mostly groundwater fed. I've seen the spinners too, but never a "fall".