Field Reference

[JKBogle]

Hi guys.

I may be going about this the wrong way, but I've always had a difficult time with a couple items once I get to the stream.
1. Identifying the hatch
2. Remembering the names of the flies in my box
3. Remembering what the typical hatch is for the particular stream and the particular time of day and time of year.

Is this something that just comes with experience or is there some type of quick field reference guide that you can use?

 

[afishinado]

JKBogle wrote:
Hi guys.

I may be going about this the wrong way, but I've always had a difficult time with a couple items once I get to the stream.
1. Identifying the hatch
2. Remembering the names of the flies in my box
3. Remembering what the typical hatch is for the particular stream and the particular time of day and time of year.

Is this something that just comes with experience or is there some type of quick field reference guide that you can use?

It comes with experience, but I can recommend a book that covers pretty much all the major hatches you will encounter in PA. It has pics of the insects, patterns to match the hatch and hatch charts with some stream listings.

http://www.amazon.com/Pocketguide-Pennsylvania-Hatches-Charles-Meck/dp/0979346053

 

[MKern]

It will come in time.

 

[Swattie87]

Agree, it will come in time as far as knowing the names of the specific bugs and the name of the flies that match them.

As a beginner, I think the best way to learn how to hatch fish is simply to observe. What bugs do you see? Catch one of them. Then match one as close as you can with a fly from your box, prioritizing your choice in the following order:

1. General shape of the bug (Mayfly/Caddis/Stonefly shape…there are others but those are your main 3 to start with if you’re looking to match hatches)
2. Size
3. Color

If you find you don’t have a reasonably close match for a bug that you’re encountering, pick up some flies that look close and try em’ out next time. Once you get that piece of things down you can then learn to better identify what stage of the hatch the fish are feeding on…nymph/emerger/dun/spinner. Learning the actual names of the bugs and flies comes naturally along the way in the process.

 

[Dave_W]

Good advice above. ^

At this point in your growth as a fly fisher, you want to master basics first. Fly fishing is a complex sport with an esoteric language that sometimes makes things seem harder than they need to be. For now, you should focus on being able to identify the following insects:

1. Stoneflies
2. Caddisflies
3. Mayflies
4. Midges.

This will require you to actually learn 8 different bugs as the insects listed above have both nymph and winged adult forms. Once you can generally identify these eight categories of aquatic insects, then you can start subdividing them into more specific categories. Stick to the basics for now.

 

[Acristickid]

Agree, just takes time.

Not a pocket guide but book- I have this book and it even goes over many PA streams and contains a lot of general info. Seeing how cheap it is online- hard to go wrong for $2-$3

hatches made simple

Again not a pocket guide but you can look bugs ups on troutnut dotcom. If you have a smartphone you could even check stream side.

 

[PAgeologist]

Depending upon the type of fly boxes you have, you could write the name of the fly on the lid with a small sharpie. Make sure you cover it with scotch tape, so your writing doesn't rub off in your vest/pack.

Also, don't be afraid to ask someone along the stream. The vast majority of fly fishermen will gladly give advice, and most will give you a fly or 2 if you don't have a match in your box. I learned a lot just watching and speaking with other fly fishermen.

 

[JKBogle]

That would actually work well. I use a Downstream Products chest box. They have a flat lid.

 

[huntfish]

JKBogle wrote:
3. Remembering what the typical hatch is for the particular stream and the particular time of day and time of year.

It will definitely come with more experience, however I saw this at Orvis and thought it was a pretty good ROUGH estimate of what may be hatching on a given stream at a given time of year. I couldn't fit the whole thing in the pic but you get the point.

 

[pcray1231]

March Browns start after sulphers?

I know, I know, you said ROUGH estimate. But for whoever made that thing, that one's a big mozza ball hangin out there.....

 

[Cold]

As others have suggested, it'll come.

But early on, forget naming things and just match what you see.

Learn to tell the difference between mayflies and caddisflies, and beyond that, your mental process need not be any more complicated than "tiny green mayfly" hatch or "medium sized yellow mayfly" or "small dark brown caddis".

Conveniently, this will also help you worry less about specific matching patterns and just get a general fly that (among your selection) most closely matches.

Later on, once you've noticed that a lot of the fishing you do finds you encountering those tiny green mayflies, you'll put a name to a face and confidently identify a BWO hatch. For many bugs, ID is not much more involved than that. For others, sulphurs, for instance, size and hue can really matter, and that's when you start getting into specific species, and tying to suit picky fish...but in the early stages, just tie yourself dries (EHC style and parachutes if you really want to keep it simple) in a variety of colors (tan, brown, green...) from about #12-18. With a selection like that, you should be well-equipped for the vast majority of what you'll see on most PA streams.

 

[henrydavid]

Find some new friends that like to fly fish. I know for me I learned a lot about what was going on just by talking to other fishermen. If you meet people on the stream or online and fish with them the insects hatching currently will become the topic of discussion.

I've read the books and researched online, but the photos I've seen don't always help me that much. If you're on the stream and someone picks out an insect and shows it to you all the better.

 

[mikesl]

I recommend a seine net or fishtank net to sample what is drifting in the water

Also, a key is identifying what phase of the hatch is getting the most attention from the fish (it may be below the surface)

Along hose lines, big splashy takes are usually the result of a fish overshooting after chasing an emerging insect upward in the Ayer column.. So if you see a lot of those big splashy rises and wonder why your high floating dry is getting no love.... Try more of an emerger or nymph near the surface

 

[huntfish]

pcray1231 wrote:
March Browns start after sulphers?

I know, I know, you said ROUGH estimate. But for whoever made that thing, that one's a big mozza ball hangin out there.....

Haha true. WAIT! Shouldn't MARCH browns hatch in march?! ;-)

 

[afishinado]

afishinado wrote:

JKBogle wrote:
Hi guys.

I may be going about this the wrong way, but I've always had a difficult time with a couple items once I get to the stream.
1. Identifying the hatch
2. Remembering the names of the flies in my box
3. Remembering what the typical hatch is for the particular stream and the particular time of day and time of year.

Is this something that just comes with experience or is there some type of quick field reference guide that you can use?

It comes with experience, but I can recommend a book that covers pretty much all the major hatches you will encounter in PA. It has pics of the insects, patterns to match the hatch and hatch charts with some stream listings.

http://www.amazon.com/Pocketguide-Pennsylvania-Hatches-Charles-Meck/dp/0979346053

Some good answers above, but again the book I mention above is exactly what you asked for in your OP ^.

It's a field guide small enough to carry with you on the stream. (I own the book and keep it stowed in my fishing bag.)

It's specific to PA and has good photos of all the major hatches as well as some not so common insects in nymph or larva form as well as adult. It covers the big 4 types of insects (mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies and terrestrials) and give you pics and keys to ID each insect type. It also has info on insect behavior as well as where and how the insects hatch.

There are hatch charts as well as stream listings of where the hatches occur from all over PA. And the book is chronological starting with the earliest hatches first, and taking you through the entire season into the fall.

As well, there are pics of recommended fly patterns from nymphs to emergers to duns and spinners to match each hatch.

Meck and Weamer did a great job! This book has it all for PA FFers and will put you miles ahead of most FFers beginning in the sport. I've recommended it to many anglers and have yet to have anyone not happy with it.

Hope that helps.

 

[troutbert]

A great deal of flyfishing does not involve hatch matching.

In the stream reports you will see that people catch lots of trout on pheasant tail nymphs, Hares ear nymphs, Walts Worms, Wooly Buggers, Parachute Adams, Stimulators, Green Weenies, Beetles, etc.

 

[pcray1231]

Haha true. WAIT! Shouldn't MARCH browns hatch in march?!

No, uh, see, they are MAYflies.

When matching any bug, the main thing to think about is.

1. Size.
2. What life stage - i.e. are they taking surface nymphs just under the surface, emergers in the film, duns, spinners?

If it's one of those, pick a pattern which should put the fly where they're feeding it. Look at how the hackle is arranged on the fly and logic can tell you how it'll sit in the water.

If you don't see fish rising at all, throw on a nymph and dredge.

3. Color.

As a beginner you don't gotta worry about the difference between a pale evening dun and a sulpher, or a march brown vs. gray fox. Just observe trout. Feeding on top, or just underneath? Or taking nymphs on bottom?

Realistically, there's a reason generic flies, like an Adams, are so popular. Jack of all trades approach.

Give me a parachute sulpher and a parachute adams, both in sizes 12-18, and that'll approximate all life forms of 95% of the hatches PA has to offer. A parachute can be fished as an emerger, dun, or spinner by playing with floatant and presenting it the right way. Sulpher and Adams coloration covers light and dark colored bodies. And about the only 2 mayflies that fall outside of the 12-18 range are Green Drakes and tricos. Neither of which is "stumbled on" very often, they are hatches you specifically chase.

But if you do want to learn hatches, and I'm speaking to mayflies here (caddis is a different thing altogether), here's PA's mega hatches. There are, of course, other bugs PA has to offer. But if you are on a trout stream and there are large numbers of bugs and lots of fish rising to them all over, there's a 95% chance it's one of the below.

BWO - size 18ish. March-April. Light bodied.
Hendrickson - Size 12-14. April. Dark bodied.
March Brown - size 12ish. April-mid May. Dark bodied.
Sulpher - size 14-16. early May-early June. Light bodied.
Green Drake - Size 6-10. Late May-early June. Light bodied.
Cahills - Size 14-16. Late May-July. Light bodied.
BWO - size 14ish. June. Light bodied.
Trico - size 24-26. mid July-September. Dark bodied.

The main advantage to learning them has nothing to do with picking a more exact fly to match. It's more about knowing their timing and behavior, what streams they hatch on, whether they do so in riffles or slow water, etc. The benefit is that fish feed heavily during hatches, so if you can predict when and where that will happen, you can plan accordingly to put yourself in the right place at the right time. This is very achievable. People say that 95% of the time nothing is hatching and you should nymph. That's true, overall. But that other 5% is very predictable and many anglers will purposely choose to be on the water at those times. And that is often when the best fishing is to be had.

For instance, if you wanna fish sulphers, they're gonna hatch in the evening, and spinners just after dark. Don't even bother getting to the stream until dinnertime! On the other hand, if you wanna fish tricos, they hatch overnight, so that's out, but the spinner fall happens in the early morning, as soon as the sun burns through the fog. So get there at daylight and figure on being home by late morning.

 

[MKern]

Wasn't the march brown named after a man with the last name, "March?"

 

[pcray1231]

No, it's named after a bug that looks similar in Europe, commonly called the March Brown, which does indeed typically hatch in March. When Europeans came here and saw this bug, they assumed it was the same bug and called it the same thing.

Common names are a funny thing. BWO is a horrible example. Blue Winged Olive is commonly used to identify a number of Baetid species (which, fairly, are all pretty similar looking to one another), as well as a few Drunella species (which are TOTALLY different than Baetids). So you'll get your limestone guys saying BWO is a March/April thing, size 18ish, and they re-appear a little in the October/November time frame at more like a size 20. No spinner fall to speak of. Yet someone else will scratch their head at that, and say, no, a BWO is a large, size 14 bug that primarily hatches in June, and the evening spinner fall is the main event!

They are talking about two different bugs. Not just different species, not just different genus, but entirely different families!

Sulphers is another. The main 2 species are closely related, Ephemerella invaria and dorothea. Everyone calls those sulphers. But Eporeus Vitreus is a very different bug called sulphers by some, pink ladies by others. And Cahills (macaffertium genus) are another very different bug that often gets called a sulpher.

Green Drakes in the east and west are totally different bugs. And even in the east, in some areas, people are fishing over hexes and calling them green drakes.

 

[mr7183]

So, uhh, do you want to do a post similar to this for caddis? ;-)

I can easily differentiate a caddis from a mayfly, but have a really hard time identifying the subsets within caddis flies and when to fish them. I basically just throw on a tan caddis and hope for the best.