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3. trico education

it seems as though trico fishing changes each year. last saturday and sunday mornings i fished the trico hatch on 2 different streams. the water temperatures were about the same, 62 to 64 degrees. even though i could see clouds of bugs the fish never rose in either place. there were some spinners on the water but no risers. does that mean that they fell in the dark before dawn? it has been very warm and i don't think the air temeperature fell below 65 either of those two nights. also, i'm positive the bugs were tricos because i got up close looks at them on the streamside vegetation. in addition i fish them in same places every year. can anyone more educated in the hatch enlighten me please?

Is there any way to fish them or get them to rise without a big spinner fall?

Thanks,
Bruce

Bruce, we have a couple of Trico threads. I'll try to pull the best one up. I believe most say that Tricos typically begin to fall when the air reaches 68-70 degrees, but not all bugs fall at once. The males hatch at night and the females very early in the morning. Often when I arrive very early, long before the cloud begins to fall en masse, there are some spinners on the water--early drops, I assume. If you are sure the bugs were tricos, not blue quills (which I've been told don't fall to the water, but return to streamside vegetation to die) and if you stayed until the cloud was no longer visible in the air and saw bugs on the water, without seeing fish rise, I'd suggest the following possiblities: the fish have been caught out, the fish haven't started keying on tricos yet (unlikely by now), the fish have been put off by very heavy fishing (also unlikely given my experience with tricos and fish), or the stream was not stocked in that section--if it's a stocked stream. Did you watch the clouds fall? You often can literally see the spinners get lower and lower, with some breaking away and descending? Were there lots of spinners on the water? Also, if it warmed up gradually instead of quickly, the spinnerfall may have been gradual, not putting enough spinners on the water at one time to trigger feeding. Was the water low and clear? If it was, if the bugs were tricos, and if you had a concentration of spinners, there probably weren't any fish there. Finally, fish are strange. Just when we think we understand their behavior, they do something very weird. Perhaps they were on strike.

No answers, Bruce, but a few thoughts:

If you saw clouds of spinners, it seems a bit unlikely that the "fall" happened earlier. With only a few spinners on the water, perhaps it was just an insufficient incentive to provoke a rise. Depending on how long the tricos have been hatching in that location, it can also take a while for the fish to "get the color" (as the Brits say) of the hatch.

The other thought is that the recent heatwave may have caused the trout to move into areas with higher oxygen levels. Although a water temp. of 62-64 degrees should not present any problem during the hatch, what are the water temperatures through the peak of the day?

(Is there any way to fish them or get them to rise without a big spinner fall?)
I hope someone answers that.---Cat food seams to work on The Harvey section of Spruce , some times when I fishing their, the guides above chum the fish. O it has to be the kind with five points like a star.

Eat a Cat fish,save the Trout

JAD

Hey John,

With all the mutant slob rainbows that get dumped into parts of Spruce, I suppose it's not surprising that some of the guides are treating them like trained pets.

Bruce,

Somewhere in the Trico thread that Louis pulled up for you there is a note from Tim Neal from Grayling. He mentions fishing a nymph through the hatch and maybe this may be an idea. Somewhere on the web I found an article on "Micro Nymphs" and I stole one from it. It's a simple little fly except tying little ones can be a pain. Find a silver/black micro sized bead-head, the tail was partridge fibers or barred woodduck, the abdomen was your black/brown tying thread with a fine silver wire wrap, the wingcase was pearl flash and just a sparse wrap of hares-ear or you can forget the wingcase...I looked it up and it's still there...Google "Micro Nymphs" and the first or second link (flyguysoutfitting) is the article...It's by a Loren Williams...The thread I used for the "Hot-Spots" I'm forgetting now...maybe Ultra thread?

A sulpher version worked for me this past May.

Gonzo said these were "stockies"...Maybe I'm over thinking this? They are interesting flies anyway...Check them out.

Spence

Spence, the "stockies" I was referring to are in Spruce. I don't know where Bruce is fishing, though given the recent weather here in PA, I hope it is a cool spring creek. Otherwise, the second thought in my original response to him may be at the heart of the problem.

Spence,

Funny you should mention Loren; I've not met him in person, but I've run across him on several different internet forums over the years, and he's always struck me as a very nice guy who really knows his stuff...

Hi Guys: I was fishing Yellow Creek near Loysburg and the Bald Eagle Creek at the Village of Curtain. I hope nobody is upset that I mentioned the streams names, but they're no secrets. Actually, we were fishing the Bald Eagle near where a good size spring entered the stream. I'm really confused. Maybe they just weren't tuned into the tricos last weekend. I know there are fish in both streams. The Bald Eagle is stocked but I don't believe it was fished out, but who knows? Do you think the rain we had on Friday might have had something to do with it? I took the temperature of the water in both places and the temps were in the low 60s as I said previously. I really want to go back to Curtain Village on Friday, but now I'm not sure what to do.
Bruce

Trout have schooled me lately with the trico hatch. Flat water, spooky trout and having to cast spot on.

I've heard from a local fly shop that the spinner falls have been occurring between 11:00 PM & 3 AM. That sure explains why the trout aren't hungry when I get on the stream at 7:00 AM.

Re; trico nymphs...


Don't make it too complicated; these are tiny flies. I used a sprig of partridge for the tail (or no tail at all) and wrapped the shank of a #20 or #22 hook with peacock fibers.. that's it.. finished with black thread... worked like a dream.

The same is true of the smallest of blue winged olives..

I used a sprig of partridge for the tail; coated the entire hook with golden olive thread; dubbed over that very lightly with the palest tan dubbing I could fine, and put on a wing case of dark gray anything... thorax was more dubbing. When wet, the olive under body shows through and looks just like the natural. I hve taken 35 fish in an afternoon on this pattern.

Re; trico nymphs...


Don't make it too complicated; these are tiny flies. I used a sprig of partridge for the tail (or no tail at all) and wrapped the shank of a #20 or #22 hook with peacock fibers.. that's it.. finished with black thread... worked like a dream.

The same is true of the smallest of blue winged olives..

I used a sprig of partridge for the tail; coated the entire hook with golden olive thread; dubbed over that very lightly with the palest tan dubbing I could fine, and put on a wing case of dark gray anything... thorax was more dubbing. When wet, the olive under body shows through and looks just like the natural. I hve taken 35 fish in an afternoon on this pattern.

Bruce,
Yellow is a puzzler. For BE it is possible that you were seeing blue quill or Jenny Spinners which have the same frustrating habit as March Browns around here. They never seem to fall en masse. They look just like trikes but a size 20 or so instead of the 22-24 variety.

Since you were fishing near a spring I would suspect the trout should still have been around but I do wonder what the water temp was befor the rain came down. It is possible they headed for cooler more oxygenated homes and had not returned to where you were fishing.

I can't believe that the trikes were falling between 11p and 3a. However if you think the fall may have passed you by try tying up a few trikes with extra fine wire in the appropriate colors and a very sparse wing and fishing a "sunken" pattern instead of a traditional nymph. This has worked for me on some very heavily fished waters (think pink trailer).
JW

Hi JohnW! The bugs were tricos for sure. Ed(Chief)was with me and we both saw some spinners on the water. We actually picked a few up to examine them. I went back to Curtain Village today and the same thing happened. I saw female spinners on the water today. I'm really confused over this. When are we going to throw some flies together?
Bruce

Bruce,
I don"t know it sounds like something is up. Did you stick around until the spinners were no longer over the water?
John

For Mike.