A silly question.

[Librarian]

So I was looking at some websites and books about the Tulpehocken. I’d like to drive up there from South Jersey this winter. I’ve read that one of the flies to bring are “Egg Flies”.

Two questions. What pattern fly? And the real silly question is what lays the eggs that the trout are eating?

TIA.

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[PennKev]

What pattern fly?

There are a plethora of egg imitating flies out there. It's really angler preference, but Sucker Spawn, Glo-bugs, and Estaz eggs are pretty popular. There are a limitless variety of similar flies. For stream trout I like egg imitations in yellow, light orange, and peach colors. There are other brighter and/or weirder colors trout like too. For example chartreuse and pale blue.

And the real silly question is what lays the eggs that the trout are eating?

They are eating other trout's eggs. Regardless of whether the fish are wild or stocked, they will be dropping eggs and other fish will eat them. Browns and brookies are naturally fall spawners, and stocked rainbows have been bread to spawn in the fall also.

 

[JimKennedy]

Egg patterns are productive year round. While trout spawn in autumn through very early spring (mostly autumn), suckers and carp are March and April spawners, as are white perch. Yellow perch are February spawners. Bass and various sunnies spawn in May. And catfish in the heat of summer.

At least that’s the general way it shakes out in the mid Atlantic.

Trout populations overlap with all these other fish, to some degree, and fish eggs are fish eggs when you are looking for something to eat.

While there may not be fish eggs in every trout stream, they are a high calorie, low effort food that can show up at any time, so a trout is often fooled by a salmon egg fly pattern in august, May or any other time of year.

The big advantage we have is the trout are not checking the in-season calendar at the grocery store.

Egg patterns: a worthy addition to your fly box for year round fishing.