The following appeared as an article in
The Mid-Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide Spring '01
|
On a peaceful Sunday morning I waved as a black clad family of churchgoers clattered by and down the dirt road in a buggy. Alongside the road the meadow stream glided full and clear. I stood watching as a mating swarm of tiny black mayflies hovered over a gurgling riffle. They were trico's sp. tricorythodes and as I watched, the swirling mass dropped closer and closer to the bubbling water.
Their proximity to the surface suggested that they would soon fall. I quickly rigged my rod and tied on a #22 spinner. I looked carefully at the fly; the white rear end contrasted sharply with the black thorax. It was an imitation of a female, the egg mass that had colored her abdomen green moments before, now gone, leaving her rear end opaque.
|
 |
| Trico Spinner |
|
|
| Soon females began dropping out of the swarm, hundreds at a time. They fell to the surface and many were swept into foam lines that snaked their way downstream. The brown trout were waiting for them, suspended inches, beneath the surface, “on the fin,” as the English say.
The trout were out from their underbank lies, positioned in feeding lanes that delivered such an abundance of groceries that they never had to move their heads more than 2-3 inches to either side. Each fish developed its own feeding rhythm, one tipping up at 3 second intervals, another at 5. They sipped calmly, the insect’s spent-wing silhouette promised them that there was no need to hurry. The bug was dead and wasn’t going to get away. I forced myself not to hurry either. I knew that barring an unwelcome wind, this bonanza would continue for at least another hour, maybe 2, as spinners washed down from far upstream.
I eased up close to the nearest rising brown, across and a little downstream from him. Kneeling at the edge of the stream, I would cast sidearm in order to keep the rod low and out of the trout’s cone of vision.
He was tight against the bank, plucking spinners from a tiny eddy. It was important that I get as close as possible; I had to hit a very small target. Now the trout was feeding at a predictable rhythm, his sips made the sound of a bubble breaking. This was not a normal rise to an insect. The fish was not coming up for a fly - he was eating the fly that was there when he came up. Not only did the artificial have to be floated, drag free, within a 3-4 inch slot, it had to arrive at the right time.
|
Most readers would assume this was a typical summer scene on one of the many rich limestone streams in southeastern Pennsylvania. Wrong, on both counts. It was late May in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. In recent years much has been written of the trico hatch as a summertime occurrence. But down South things get started a little earlier. I have witnessed fishable trico hatches, on Virginia’s Mossy Creek, as early as mid-April and have seen them as late as Thanksgiving.
Weather conditions and water temperature affect the timing of any hatch, but Southern trico’s can be counted on to begin emerging 1 to 2 months before their yankee cousins, up in the mid-Atlantic region. As shown above, the experienced trico fisherman can see that the bugs act the same, North or South. Fish catching patterns and techniques know no political boundaries.
|
| Interstate route #81 follows the eastern edge of the Appalachians down through Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley. South of Harrisburg, fabled limestone streams flow through a patchwork of tidy farms, with black and white cows grazing in peaceful pastures, and hay barns adorned with hex signs. The Letort, Yellow Breeches, Big Spring and Falling Springs Run are waters made famous, through the writings of trico fishing pioneers, Vince Marinaro, Charlie Fox, Ernest Schwiebert, Ed Shenk and Barry Beck.
But the trout fishing and the Trico hatches don’t end at the Mason-Dixon Line. Get a head start on the trico fishing this year. Grab a map, buy a guide-book, or book a guide and come on down. Drive a few hours more on #81 and you’ll find trout streams and trico hatches in a bucolic setting, the only things missing are the hex signs.
|
 |
| Spinners in a Web |
|
|
|
