I’ve spent the better part of my summer testing a theory. Will the wild brown trout in my home waters eat a big dry fly? More specifically, will they eat it regularly? And for the trout that do fall for an extra-large fly, is their average size extra-large to match?
The season is half over, and I have some thoughts . . .
Last year was the summer of the cicadas, and that experience mirrored a seminal moment in my fishing life, seventeen years prior. The conditions, the fishing and the experience did not disappoint. The one-and-a-half inch cicada oddity was so unusual, that it brought out the largest fish in the system, ready not only to eat big surface patterns on sunny, summer days but to attack them.
The fishing with cicadas was extraordinary.
READ: Troutbitten | Cicadas, Sawyer and the Clinic
VIDEO: Troutbitten | Fish and Film: Post-Cicada Blues
We don’t have grasshoppers here — not in the necessary abundance to get a trout’s attention to the point where they expect the big hopper. Likewise, we have no salmon flies, and even our prevalent stoneflies are not available to the trout as a reliable meal. They crawl out of the water to hatch. They mate, and the females dap the surface to deposit eggs for the next generation. So the stones are fun to watch, but they’re not a great dry fly pattern for catching trout. Not here.
Eighteen years ago, I pushed the Cicada dries on the trout for at least a month after the last winged, big-eyed peanut flew clumsily and wrecked into the water. I called it fishing the memory. And if I graphed my production, you’d see a steep line going south from mid-July to mid-August, until it bottomed out into nothingness.
Cicadas on left. Experiments on the right.
I fished the memory last summer too, with exactly the same meager results. The slowing action told me, over and over, that these wild trout won’t eat something they don’t expect — not on top, and not anything that unusual.
At a campground one evening this past May, I met a friend of a friend who told me stories of our local brown trout eating big cricket dry flies — all day, not just in the morning. He handed me a pattern of black foam and instilled in me a good dose of hope. I would love to find a big dry fly that brings even marginal success for producing large trout. Give me something that can outpace my go-to Perfect Parachute Ant, because that’s not a big fly in a size 10.
I want to believe.
ARTICLE\VIDEO: Troutbitten | The Perfect Parachute Ant
My favorite summer fly. The Perfect Parachute Ant
What he handed me was a GFA design (General Foam Attractor widely credited to Walter Wiese) that was very similar in size and shape to the cicada fly I’d settled on eighteen years ago. That alone gave me the confidence to tie up copies and place it heavily in my rotation. This was destiny, I dreamed. This was a fortuitous meeting where I was gifted a magic dry fly that might change the minds of stubborn trout — big ones. And once my guide season ended in early June, testing began in earnest.
Results were poor.
When perfect dead drifts were rejected, I mixed in plops and skitters, both bold and subtle, both mid-stream and bankside — so close to structure that the foam would bounce off the logs. Now that looks like a cricket, I thought.
Nothing came to the net worth mentioning.
After weeks of trips, the cricket-as-big-as-a-cicada caught just a handful of trout. I continued testing against my summer baseline of the parachute ant, and while my confidence fly caught both numbers and size, the cricket did not. Surprisingly, I didn’t have many refusals either. That inch-and-a-half, chunky profile was just too much for a respectable trout to buy in.
A month ago, I added a few other options. I downsized what “big” might be, and I tied on Chubby’s, hoppers and even a smaller version of my favorite GFA Cicada. And here’s where my results have become interesting . . .
I know that legs and wiggle will always get attention. And when the full package is within a profile that gets a look but does not spook a trout, these fish are willing to take a chance. I’ve certainly gotten more looks, and I’ve seen more commitment too.
This recent, marginal success has me thinking maybe I can find just the right size, shape and wiggle to mimic a common (enough) food form or trigger a recent memory for the best trout in the river. Such a fly will convince the best trout to move upward and eat a large dry, if I tweak the pattern just right.
I want to believe.
Fish hard, friends.
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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
On the Green River in Utah the cicada hatch is in late May to April. We were there in mid July and for kicks the guide put on a big cicada. I watched a big brown come across the water for about 20′, grab the cicada and fly through air a few feet before landing. He clearly had a memory of the cicada hatch.
Right on. And I’ve seen a major difference in watersheds that experience big bugs every year or even multiple times every year. In those places, trout are much more ready for a big dry fly. That’s how it was when we fished in Patagonia. We were in between Cicadas and another big bug that was coming, but we didn’t have much trouble getting trout to pay attention to big cicadas. Here in my home waters, these trout will not see another bug anywhere close to the size of a cicada for another 16 years.
Quite a question you pose here for a dedicated, eastern dry fly guy. Not sure about “force feeding” as it means making an animal feed against its will, but semantics aside, I do get your drift. You’re hoping to find large dry/surface flies that will trigger a feeding response and/or a reactionary bite, consistently, from larger wild brown trout in your PA streams/rivers during the summer season. Can I assume you mean primarily while prospecting and not when casting to rising fish? Looking for the eastern equivalent of western chubbies is an intriguing one. Finding a large surface fly that can do it consistently in the summer is the kind of challenge that I like but will be one difficult code to crack.
Once the hatches have waned, large trout turn their attention to a different array of food items. Worms, frogs, mice(?), crayfish, juvenile trout, baitfish, sculpins, and the occasional beetle, moth, hopper, ant, cricket, or caterpillar. As a rule, many of these food items may make them much less inclined to look up and or fill their bellies up with a single eat. Hence the real challenge is offering a fly that will make them look up. This would best be achieved with any surface fly that can ignite a lateral line response with that perfect “plop”. However, the mood for that lateral line reaction is not always there, making consistency a pretty heavy lift.
Another limiting factor is that wild brown trout also tend to go into a feeding funk (doggo) when water temperatures get to the upper 60s and higher, which is typical of freestone rivers/streams and maybe even your spring fed limestone rivers/streams . . . ?
It is also likely that large, wild brown trout tend to become nocturnal feeders from July through September. This would mean finding a large surface fly that produces consistent, daytime summer eats to a restricted to a sub-group of non-nocturnal trout.
Another consideration is the toll that fishing pressure takes on a population fish once summer arrives. Trout that have been pounded with dry flies for three months may also be reluctant to rise to that large surface pattern you’re looking for.
Here are some larger surface flies that I think are worth trying if you haven’t already. You can always fall back on that perfect Ant since it seems to be doing the trick.
Beetles (weighted) #8 #6
Moths (Large, gurgler style)
Small (1½ – 2” bodies) mouse flies
Foam coffin fly (oversized)
Hoppers (weighted)
Good luck!
Good stuff, Rick. Candidly, I don’t really think there is a code to crack. I want to believe, but . . . I don’t think there’s anything to be found.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true here. There’s a ridiculous amount of food on these rocks. I’d guess that a trout of any size could probably sustain itself on cress bugs alone. Makes me wonder why they ever rise for anything, honestly.
Even if the results are poor, for me just it happen once and a while gives me a story to tell. Keep us updated on your experience I’ll try in on our NJ wild browns.
I know what you mean, Mike. But I will say, lucking into a fish once in a while doesn’t do much for me. I fish to figure some things out and meet the fish on their terms. One fish in a few hours is nothing but luck to me. And that’s fun, but it doesn’t keep me motivated.
Wait, you don’t have grasshoppers in your local fields near your rivers/streams? I find this hard to believe.
🙂 Believe what I wrote:
Certainly we have grasshoppers. Trout don’t see them often enough to matter. And most of our streams do not border fields.
Make sense?
Dom
Dom,
For more than 20 years my go to terrestrial has been the “Black Kat” , my very large (tied on a 3x , size 4 streamer hook) walnut caterpillar. I first observed trout feeding on these very active, massive bugs in late August 2003. I devised a pattern and have fished it every season from August until October. Here is the story of the Black Kat as it appeared in my book “Trout Boomer and the Little J”.
“Black Kats”
By Bill Anderson
Datana Integerrima
Several years ago I was watching small pod of fish above the 305 bridge on the Little Juniata River. It was that time of morning with the sun shining just right. The browns were working trico spinners off the end of a water logged deadfall. The log formed a concentrated feeding lane, located sixty feet upstream from my vantage point on the high bank. Steep banks are typical for this stretch of the “j”.
With plan laid, I climbed down into the waist deep water, close to the bank, edging forward, testing each step among the slimy submerged boulders, ranging in size from basketballs to large dog boxes. Finally I got into position about 30 feet downstream from the first of the 10 or so “noses” that were placidly sucking down the tiny black and white spinners. Careful side arm casts with a 12 ft, 7x leader brought a confident “nosing” from the southernmost trout and I carefully pulled the healthy and cooperative 11 inch yearling brown away from the limb and his brethren…..then it happened!
Forty yards Downstream…. and in mid-current, something big shattered the tranquility of my fussy fishing. I turned so suddenly that my carefully hooked fish was instantly liberated, snapping the cobweb that held him. While rebuilding my tippet and half way through the affixing of another tiny spinner… it happened again! Same place, similar concussion (very similar to the way a 4 or 5 pound largemouth takes a lip hooked live frog). Just then I saw something black and hairy come floating around the end of the limb. It was ignored by the smallish trout feeding on Tricos just as a group of chipping sparrows might ignore a tomato horn worm. I watched as the current carried it, away from the bank, past my station and on into mid-stream. With my line hanging limp, I waited….. …. then….. without warning….. ten feet upstream from the previous ambush site, the 2 inch squirming morsel disappeared into a large white mouth, attached to a dark brown, spotted body. A different and possibly larger, fish had joined in on the feast!
The Tricos and their predators were forgotten….now I watched intently and there on the water was a squadron of the black caterpillars. One came close enough for me to scoop it up for examination. It was rubbery and very black on its top, bottom and sides. It had white fuzz protruding from each of thirteen segments. This fuzzy hair was fully a 1/2 inch or more long and appeared to be matted as it floated on the surface tension. Its head was shiny black as though enameled and as I cradled it in my wet hand, it squirmed and writhed from end to end, a motion which it repeated in the water. The critter would undoubtedly be immediately noticeable to any trout within yards.
Well I was clearly on to something, but I did not know what to do about it. I had only brought my Trico box and some ants. Even if I had the full arsenal of flies from my vest or even the hundreds of patterns back at the fly shop, there was nothing even close to this critter. It took me 15 agonizing minutes to rush back to the Spruce Creek Fly Co. tying table and then to the materials lining our walls. I selected some 5/16″ round, black foam and a pack of white Angora rabbit hair. I lashed these materials to a #6, 3X long, streamer hook and gave it a shiny black head with head cement. I was pleased with a fair facsimile of the critter which I laid beside the vise. With six flies in hand, I returned to the bombing site and this time I brought a real rod, a 9 foot TiCrX, 6wt. I figured that with such big bugs and known bad actors lurking in the deep pool, I did not want to be guilty of bringing a pea shooter to a tank battle.
I raised several big “j” trout that day (didn’t say I hooked or landed them all) and I have been fishing “Bill’s Black Cat” every summer since. Beginning late July right through fall, this is my go to terrestrial, anywhere on the “j”. Strikes almost always come within a count of three after the “splat”. Fish
Dom,
Really love that you’re doing this experiment. This kind of out-of-the-box testing that you report about on Troutbitten is really cool. Hope the force feeding works well enough that it can be another summer option and I’m looking forward to your next update.
I’ve had good luck in the summer fishing my local limestoner with a deer hair hopper in size 10 -12, which matches the local hoppers I see streamside. Let it land with a plop and you’ll be surprised at the aggressive the takes you’ll get. I’ve had less success with similar sized foam hopper patterns on trout, but they work great on fallfish, sunfish and smallies in the local freestone streams!
I don’t know if I’m force feeding them. This time of the year I love throwing a size 12 mole fly in Iso colors on the tag dry with a size 22 no mercy midge about a foot below. Hey now.
Bill’s Black Kat and Charlie’s deer hair hopper and my go to terrestrial, the leadbelly beetle, all produce that just-right splat or plop that ignites the lateral line response in big trout. When they’re really fired up I’ll see a wake as they move to attack my #8 beetle. I have found that 18 wraps of 0.010 or 0.015 lead wire produce perfect plops (soft and hard respectively) without having to try to do with forceful casting. The weighted beetle also has a deeper, more realistic posture in the water and much easier for trout to engulf it. The same, perfect plop or splat can be achieved by weighting larger foam popers that are more difficult to splat due to air resistance.
larger foam hoppers ( not poppers)
Dom, have you tried imitating a katydid/leaf hopper? Something like a chartruese chubby might work. I’ve seen trout go after them in summer on heavily wooded streams out east like you have in PA. I once had success fishing an unweighted green weenie as a dry fly after seeing a trout inhale a katydid that had fallen in. I speculate that the color was enough to trigger the eat, even though the size and profile didnt match.
Haven’t really tested the idea since, but might be worth incorporating a bright green hopper pattern into your experimenting. Katydids are mostly active at night so might only be a late evening thing, if a thing at all.
Cheers!
Maybe try a Popper Fry. Not a bass popper, this is something they use in the UK to imitate a wounded fry floating on the surface. I know some guys out west use it on lakes with success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYwQHyj1k64