WNY Dry Fly Action - Part 2

After my last steelhead outing(on Wednesday), I met Lucas Carroll once again for a morning of dry fly fishing on a WNY Inland trout stream. The weather was still warm on Thursday morning, and we were very excited in anticipation of seeing even more bugs than we did on Tuesday. But that good feeling didn't last very long, as our favorite spot was already occupied by several other fly fisherman. We chated for a minute or two before moving downstream to find our own water. And even though the spot we chose was not our first choice, it turned out to be a very wise second choice, in fact it may have turned out even better!

Fishing sarted off without a hitch. And we took several nice fish nymphing a section of flat water. Our choice of flies was simple....#14 black BH nymph, and small #22 midge larvae. They both worked well enough, but what we really wanted was a sign of surface feeding. After a good 30 - 40 minutes of fishing nymphs, the fish started to show themselves with a few risers here and there. Just enough to prompt Lucas and I to switch to a dry. You could see a few Hendrickon duns coming off now with BWO spinners starting to fill the air. The action started to pick up, with trout starting to take duns with some regularity. I spotted a nice fish feeding just off the opposite bank in some shallow water. It would swim here and there to get into position, and then in an instant, poke it's nose out of the water to take in a dun. I made several good casts before the fish even saw my fly, and then in an instant the fish rose and sucked it in. I set up on the fish, but with a few good head shakes it was gone. I checked my hook and sure enough it was bent! Then I remembered that I had the same thing happen to me last year with a few March Brown patterns that I had tied with some light wire hooks. The fish took them well enough, I just couldn't keep them on. Obviously I forgot to get rid of those hooks! I took a quick inventory of my fly box and found some acceptible replacements that were not tied on light wire hooks. By this time Lucas had caught at least one fish upstream from me and was working on finding more fish to toss a dry too. I got back to work on casting to that same fish that was now eagerly sipping duns again. This time I had to make numerous casts and perfect drifts before the fish took the fly in. And this time the hook held and I was able to put my first dry fly caught fish in the net.

Then we noticed female spinners with their bright orange/yellow eggs hovering above the water. They would do their dance, diving up and down over the water. Soon, they too would be food for the trout, but for awhile, I just watched. A little bit after that, the spinners started dropping and the fish came up in greater numbers to feast. We switched to #14 rusty spinner patterns, and found many other willing fish. This went on for about 45 minutes or so before it died down. We spent a little while longer casting to a few sporadic risers, but fish were few and far between at this point.

Then, after a lull in the action, it started all over again. We could see duns starting to appear again, followed by a few selective trout that would either splash at the surface for emergers or mouth the duns. We then made our third dry fly change of the morning, and caught a few more before our morning was done. A little bit later, on our walk out, we stopped on top of an old cow bridge that spans the creek. To our amazement, the air was filled with female hendrickson spinners....could we stay another hour? Not this morning!

What an amazing morning of fishing. Challeneging, rewarding, and a whole lot of fun! It was a blast to watch the water and trout, and then try and keep up with the changes. Make sure that when you are on the water this spring that you have at least a half dozen nymphs, emergers, duns, and spinners to match the hatch(a dozen of each would be better). Nothing can be worse than not being prepared on the stream. And make sure that you are also prepared to change flies and tactics as the trout dictate. You could be the best fly caster and technical fisherman out there, but if your not watching what is happening, you will miss much of the action. I have had the pleasure to watch and get to know some really great fly fishermen over the years, and the one thing they do better than anyone else is.....observe!!!!!

Oh....and one more thing! Make sure to throw out any flies that aren't working for you, like those "light wire" hooks. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way!

To check out even more photos from our morning, check on Lucas Carroll's blog and flickr page.

Posted April 19th, 2010 at 7:24 AM by Brian Bradfield