Susquehanna Sulfurs

[henrydavid]

I just made the transition from trout to river smallies, on my 1st outing yesterday evening on the Susquehanna North Branch I was happy to see fish taking some sulfurs that were on the water.

Man were they big, I got about a dozen small bass on a White Wulf pattern. Next time I will try to get a photo of the sulfurs.

I have a friend that has been floating regularly at night and about 2-3 weeks ago he described some insects that might've been Green Drakes, can anyone confirm that Green Drakes exist on the North Branch ?

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Most likely, you are seeing Cahills. They come on orange, yellow and cream (among other colors). I saw the same flies on Tunckhannock Creek.

The big flies may have been Hexegenia.

I hope this helps.

 

[jifigz]

If you see the bass are feeding on top due to a hatch, it is often more productive to throw a gurgler or popper than a dry fly. "Matching the hatch," so to speak, isn't that important. If the bass are looking up they will generally take any nice looking surface treat.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

I'll 2nd that! I'm a big fan of gurglers, especially white. They worked yesterday and today.

 

[krayfish2]

We saw cahills (various Steno models), sulphurs, big speckled sedge, hex down here last to Harrisburg on Saturday. A week ago, thousands of golden stones on my house. Like nothing I'd ever seen.

 

[Dave_W]

henrydavid wrote:
I just made the transition from trout to river smallies, on my 1st outing yesterday .... can anyone confirm that Green Drakes exist on the North Branch ?

I doubt they're drakes and agree that Hex's are likely what you saw.

To be sure, I'm not great at identifying bugs. . . but the volume and diversity of mayflies that hatch off the Susky is stunning, especially for trout guys seeing these big river hatches for the first time. Lots of msyterious mayflies of different sizes and colors. I can't begin to try and idenify all the myaflies I typically find on my car when parked at gas stations along the river on summer nights.

And thousands of golden stones! Amazing diversity of macros in that river.

 

[henrydavid]

Tuesday evening when I was out last the wind had factored in, but the insects still came. My guess was both Cahill's and Sulfurs, being that there were 2 different sizes. The earlier insects were smaller, by the time the larger insects came it was dark so I failed to get any photos of the insects.

The bass weren't rising much but I still brought a few to hand.

There were more fish rising after dark taking the spent insects than before dark.

I wasn't exactly "matching the hatch" since my White Wulff was bigger than any of the insects on the water. Without seeing any rises I drifted it through a pool and took 2 bass on consecutive drifts. So if nothing else I was "sizing up".

I've never fished a gurgler but had a bass hit my fly as it unintentionally swung in the current. I will have to try some surface flies that create a disturbance on top.

I would have to disagree however that during the White Fly hatch (White Millers) that the bass are not particular. In the past I've tried different surface imitations and caught some bass however using the White Wulff was 10 times more productive.

My guess is that in 3 weeks or so we may start seeing the White Millers, last year they didn't come up my stretch of the North Branch until the end of July.

 

[troutbert]

During the White Fly hatch on the river, I've used a white Gaines popper with good success.

Start using it when

 

[henrydavid]

Well I guess I saw the Hex last night, giant flies. The larger bass were taking them but I had nothing close in my fly box. The large insects were floating down wings sticking up like tents, big risers taking them. Then in just a few minutes it was over, lots on insects in the air and nothing but large shucks on the water. It didn't last very long at all.

 

[slay12345]

I've got a container full of hexes last night from a turkey hill in Landisville. Pretty far from the river but they were covering the pumps.
How long will they go? Days? Weeks?

 

[Sylvaneous]

It's funny to think we are worried about the insects in trout streams, how they are water quality indicators. Then you have the Susquehanna that, for some reason, has killed off big chunks of year classes of smallmouth. But it has a suffocating profusion of stoneflies, and mayflies including Hex's. And it runs right though a heavily agricultural and suburban, settled region. I think a good number of mayflies and trout don't like the same thing! The bugs seem to like it a lot warmer than the trout. It is just luck that in some places, there is a good overlap of the 2.

Syl