I fished one of my favorite streams today, been wanting to test out a new pattern color for a Hendrickson spinner. I had to wait until the magic hour, just before 6:00pm to fish it, so I started with midges. A cold front came through, and the weather was down right cool, around 63 deg at 10:20 when I arrived on the water.
I looked around and could see midges hovering on the waters surface, so I put on a size 22 midge emerger black, and targeted some rises. I had a blast all afternoon catching rainbows and browns in the seams and slack water.
Later in the afternoon, the Hendrickson's started to show up, the females were Ovipositing, dipping onto the surface and the fish tried to sip them but most went on about their business of making more insects.
It was the males, I was most interested in anyways. I tied on the rusty spinner pattern size 16 and it was donkey kong until dark. I had a blast catching all browns.
A bat even picked the fly off the water briefly then dropped it about 3ft from it snatched it.
I was hoping the color would be a good match, and it was. Most of the takes were lazy sips, the fish not giving it a second look.
Here are some pic's of the day.
looks like a good day...that last brown is a beast... 0--0
damnation! he's back at it and caught a big fat bastard to boot!
as usual nice fishy pics 0--0 I hope they are still biting this evening....... ;hb
TP,
Thanks for the informative posts as usual. I was at this same stream shortly after you made a post about wishing that you had some rusty spinners. I tied up a bunch and you were dead on! So thanks! They were also very fond of a grey body black hackle midge, then the magic started. I fished a Quill Gordon with a rusty spinner off the back. They couldn't resist. Then the bats came and chased me off the stream. I called it quits when one hit my rod two feet from my hand.
The Hendrickson's are in full swing now. I saw lots of females dipping, but the wind kept the fish from eating them. It was all the insects could do, just to drop eggs.
The Holy one, gave me a pattern he ties for the pinks, and his color dubbing is dead on. It's a mixture of pink, that matches what I saw perfect, with the yellow egg sack.
The parachute style will do well on the slack water, where the female spinners fall and die. I plan to use it when the wind and weather conditions are just right.
The Hendrickson's are one of my favorite hatches.
I also saw some light cahills starting to come off, and the sulphurs are starting in good numbers as well.
Its the reason I like the stream so well, it is by far the most productive in terms of hatches. The diversity of insects is amazing. There are all the standard eastern hatches, and some I can not yet identify, but I am working on it.
you forgot this pic ;D
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I hope you got sunburned agian ;D