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3. Tricos

Here in a couple months, tricos start hatching pretty heavily on the streams around where I live, but I've never had much luck imitating them. I figured this might be a good place to ask this question. What flies do you use to imitate them? I've always just used a #20 Adams during the hatch, and I catch a few that way, but mostly it gets refused. That can get frustrating when the trout are rising like crazy.

Thanks for any help.

We have some good Trico threads. I'll bump one or two up. The right fly is necessary, and a 20 Adams is too big for PA trout, and it has the wrong profile for educated fish.

Scroll down to "Al's Trico". It is a simple tie that works well for trico hatches.

http://www.littlelehighflyshop.com/FlyPatterns.aspx

Thanks. If it takes a fly smaller than #20, I'll probably just forget about it and fish a nymph.

Afishinado, good to see you here. I know you from other sites, if you're the only Afish around.

Martinlf, I'm the same Afish.

Tricos average a size 24, so a size 20 fly may not work very well. The LL fly in the link is just a thread body and hackle (tied reverse at the bend), not really hard to master. Most importantly it fools a lot of trout during a trico hatch.

Amen to that, Afishinado.

Motrout, in the threads I bumped up below are several patterns based on the Al's Trico concept and silhouette. Some are easier to see on the water. I just found this out, but you can use a badger hackle instead of grizzly on an Al's Trico to make it easier to see, and the fish don't mind at all. I'm a big fan of Varivas Ultra Midge hooks for Trico ties, but if you're not willing to order them from England (the only way I know to get them now) Tiemco 2488's also have the wide gap and short shank that makes hooking fish easier on small flies. (For me, at least.) Once you bite the small fly bug (is that redundant?) it's hard not to become a fan.

Thanks a lot folks. I'm still relatively unexperienced with the fly-rod (I've only been at it couple years) so I generally draw the line at a #20 fly and 7x tippet. Any trout that requires either one to be smaller is probably too intelligent for me to catch anyway, at least right now.

I really respect you folks that can catch them on those tiny flies. I've tried a few times during winter midge hatches, but I've never had much luck.

Motrout, I remember thinking the same thing and know how you feel. In time you may feel like going smaller; it's not as hard as it looks, but everyone has to find what works best for them as they go. I've been fishing a while, but I have my bad days and am always learning new flies, methods, and waters. That's what makes it so much fun.

What are Tricos?

Motrout wrote;

"Any trout that requires either one to be smaller is probably too intelligent for me to catch anyway, at least right now."

Don't give those spotted creatures too much credit! You'll get the hang of it-just keep at it. If you have trouble seeing flies smaller than a #20 just use a cheater dry fly about a #16 behind the #20 or smaller fly. Tie on a fly you can see then attach a piece of 7X, about 18" long to the bend of the cheater, then tie the fly to the end of that length of tippet. Make your cast but forget the micro fly and keep your eyes on the larger "indicator" fly. When it gets pulled down or jiggled strike and you'll likely of hooked somebody on the micro fly.

Now I'll really piss a bunch of people off but what the heck---7X is plenty thin enough to fool any trout worth catching and is reasonably strong enough to be able to land the fish without an inordinate amount of time flopping around in the river getting all that lactose build-up in it's body. IMO Anything thinner than 7X is unecessary (I use it only rarely and for fish I believe to be less than 18" in length) and you probably weren't meant to catch that fish anyway.

The ectasy, and orgiastic pleasure, Louis, and others, will feel when they are present to experience a scene like this!

I like the idea of the indicator/cheater fly... I may have to try that.

Matt,

You wrote,

"7X is plenty thin enough to fool any trout worth catching and is reasonably strong enough to be able to land the fish without an inordinate amount of time flopping around in the river getting all that lactose build-up in it's body. IMO Anything thinner than 7X is unecessary (I use it only rarely and for fish I believe to be less than 18" in length) and you probably weren't meant to catch that fish anyway."

I agree...The stuff has improved so much over the years in terms of strength...I think most of the problems with light tippet is more than likely because it wasn't protected from the sun etc...Old tippet can be a problem...I have had some problems 6x or smaller sometimes with it pig tailing around my knots...It always seems to happen when it's cold and damp out...Could never figure this out and when it happens it's a pain you know where.

I used to be somewhat lazy and would be out after dark walking downstream and not cut back my leader. I may have been using 6x during the day. I lost a couple really nice trout because I couldn't muscle them away from trouble...You do this a couple times and your cured...It's like putting your hand in fire...You only do that once.

Spence

PS Matt that's a good call to bring up over-playing fish...Some folks just don't realize how fragile a trout can be...They don't seem to be as hardy as those smallies we also like to hassle.

matt and spence
i will respectfully disagree with you on the 7x comment. i have caught many trout over 18" on 8x and 9x with supersmall midges (28 and 30) on glass calm pools with a downstream cast. i resort to this when they refuse flies attached with 7x.
i caught a 19 1/2 inch wild rainbow on matt's old stomping grounds (armstrong's) last year with a 28 cream midge emerger on 8x. and i landed her in under 2 minutes. the key in my opinion is knowing just how strong your tippet is and how much stress you can put on it to land a fish quickly.
i completely agree that a lot of us over-play fish. maybe it is out of panic or fear of losing it. but a lot of us will take as long to land a fish on 6x as we would on 8x. you don't need to be so dainty!
i know that i may be the odd man out on this topic (on this site) but i have landed a hellava lotta tarpon over 50 pounds on 12-16 pound tippett in under 20 minutes - a few times as short as 8 minutes.
think about how much a five pound fish weighs in water and how much flex/give there is in your fly rod. and just how strong modern fluorocarbon or monofilament is. most of the 7x out there is rated around 2 pounds. you can drag a streamlined 4 pound fish around with a two pound leash - as long as you keep it smooth and don't jerk the rod.
i fight all of the larger fish no matter what species from the reel - you spent a bunch of money for...for the drag - why not use it! when the fish wants line - let it take it against the drag, not against your finger. you will lose a lot fewer fish that way and land them a lot faster.
i still have nightmares about the 25"+ rainbow that took me into my backing on nelson's. i lost her not because the 7x broke, but because i tried to "play her out". that was the only trout that ever took me into my backing and neither the tippet nor the lamson reel failed - i did!!
my opinion
gut

I wrote;

"Anything thinner than 7X is unecessary (I use it only rarely and for fish I believe to be less than 18" in length) and you probably weren't meant to catch that fish anyway."

I'll caveat this statement to say "anything thinner than 7X for me is unecessary and I probably wasn't meant to catch that fish anyway."

I've chosen not to use tippet of lesser diameter/strength than 7X. That is my choice, maybe because I just hate breaking off flies and leaving them in a fish's mouth, or maybe because I'm just not good enough to use anything less than 7X.

However if anyone wants to use 8X - 12X and enjoys doing so and feels the trout are no worse for the wear after landing them then just have at it!

matt
i hope that you didn't misunderstand my last post. i, too start with the idea that the thinnest i wish to go is 7x but if i am getting refusals on flies that i believe are good and drifted drag free, then i go smaller. i have changed tippets with the same fly and it does sometimes make a difference. on the other hand, i have caught fish in riffles with 24-26 flies on 6x so i'm not just a light line junkie.
tony

No misunderstanding at all, if fellows like smaller than 7X then that is cool, it just isn't a pursuit that has any interest for me.

Very interesting thread here at the end. A few comments. Rod at the Little Lehigh Flyshop maintains, and he may be right, that at times 8X is necessary on the Little Lehigh if you want to hook up. He noted to me that Gary Borger, who teaches a class there from time to time, was in agreement. I've sometimes gone to 8X during Trico season when the water was low and clear and fish seemed put off by my 7X. I use Enrico Puglisi for all my light lines. The 8X tests at 2.1 pounds, stronger than some 7X (the 7X, by the way, tests at 3.4). The biggest fish I've landed on 8X was about 15-16" but I didn't play it long at all, using side pressure to tire it a bit and net it quickly. I do care about releasing fish quickly, so much so that I never photograph them. (That's not to say that anyone who does makes any kind of mistake--I'm just a bit paranoid about this.)

Even though I have resorted to 8X, I have been trying to use heavier and heavier tippets whenever possible, and making them longer when I need more waves to combat drag. For all my olive fishing so far this season, fishing #18 and #20 flies, I've been using 5X. George Harvey, I believe it was, conducted an experiment in which he stuck lengths of different weight tippets in actual beetles and drifted them down to trout. The trout weren't spooked by the largest tippets. His claim was that it is drag, not the tippet, that puts a fish off.

I do think at times fish get tippet shy, though, and that's why a down and across cast sometimes works best.

Also, it's helped me immensely to use my drag more when fighting larger fish. For years I tried to set my drag light and palm my reel, but a guide who admitted he was going against the prevailing mindset told me he likes to set his drag as tight as he can for the tippet and let it do the work. Doing this has helped me keep more consistent pressure on fish in recent years, and to tire them quicker. I've also landed more fish doing this. It just works for me. Perhaps someday I'll get good enough to depend on my palm, but until then I'm glad to use the drag on the reel.

Regarding tippet X size and strength - I do agree with Louis that trout on pressured waters may react less favorably to 6X or 7X than they might to 8X. That being said there are waters I fish out west, that do get reasonable pressure, where I've never used lighter than 6X and that is only when I'm fishing #20 or smaller. On "big" #16 - #18 flies I never go less than 5X and catch many of 20" and larger wild fish every trip. Also on the Catskill rivers I fish, and they have heavy pressure, I never go less than 6X because many of the fish I'm casting to are 19" - 23" and what's the sense of hooking them only to likely lose them when the tippet breaks?