Trico logic

[Maurice]

I was at the Breeches last evening for a couple hours before dark. The fishing sucked water temp in the breeches below the Run was 70 degrees. I had a couple missesd fish but didn't hang on to any.

Anyway, I kept seeing some small brown flies flying upstream with fat bodies.

I've never been a big Trico hatch follower but I recall from discussion that one sex hatches int he evening and the other in the morning and the spinner fall occurs on Sunny mornings during summer until the first frost.

Anyway, what are the characteristics of the trico hatch; sex, color, size, time of day, etc.

lets hear it from the trico lovers

Maurice

 

[Chaz]

Males are dark brown to black, but tricos in some areas have a parasite that changes the normal color to a deep maroon. Anyway the males hatch in the late evening during the summer and the females hatch around dawn. I’ll qualify that by saying that you’re likely to see either or both hatching in the early morning and the trout will take them until the male spinners start falling. Males drop first followed by females.
Females are dark like the males but the abdomen is from cream to lime green in color. ALL TRICOS in Pa are a size 24, not bigger not smaller; they fly in a wavy horizontal motion. Para. Mollis fly in a vertical motion, this time of the year they can be from an 18 to about a 22. I usually do well on these in the evening fishing spinners. Sometime you can catch a few trout on the spinners during the trico hatch. I use 6x tippet, unless I’m not getting any rises then I change to 7x, no need to ever use anything smaller, you’ll lose a lot of fish if you do, or you’ll play them to death.
There is a baetis that mimics the Para. Mollis and trout may be caught on this pattern during the evenings too, it's about a 20, but you may find some smaller too.
I try casting to where I think the next rise is going to be not where the fish just rose.This is because trout cruise when they are taking tricos and seldom rise at teh same spot twice in a row. I'm not saying never.

 

[JackM]

I swear I saw a size 23 trico once, but I didn't have my micrometer, so I can't be sure. I was near the West Virginia border however, so that could explain things.

 

[Coughlin]

Chaz,
Nice explanation. thanks.
Coughlin

 

[afishinado]

Chaz covered it quite well. I tie only a #24 male (all black body) and female (black with a cream abdomen). I have a light olive marker I carry with me for the female if they have an olive hue, but I don’t believe it makes a difference. Caught quite a few trout today during the spinner fall. Lately I’ve had luck with the LL fly shop version.(Al’s Trico). Easy to tie yet effective.

http://www.littlelehighflyshop.com/generic3.html

Here is some info about tricos from Troutnut. Photos aren’t really representative of most tricos around here, but the info is good.

http://www.troutnut.com/hatch/669/Mayfly-Tricorythodes-Tricos

It’s a fun hatch to fish. Good luck.

 

[ian_brown]

I fished the trico hatch on the little Lehigh heritage section yesterday, and caught my first trout on that stream. I used a #22 spinner with black thread, black microfibbets, black poly dubbing and midge crystal flash wings. FWIW - I also tried an Al's Trico, but the fish gave it the fin. However, I didn't tie the thorax properly.

 

[Padraic]

I have a DVD of Feeding Lies by Ozzie Ozefovich.
http://www.underwateroz.com/

There is a short clip of trout feeding on tricos that is a real eye opener. You wouldn't believe how deep in the surface film those tricos sit.

I remember there was a big stir about a Charlie Meck article on "sunken tricos". Everyone poo-hooed the idea, and not just here. Well after seeing the video, I'm not sure it's not a great idea. It certainly would be a realistic presentation.

 

[dryflyguy]

I've been fishing tricos for about 20 years now - mainly on spring creek in state college.
I tie them with all black body, and half black, half white. But I'm not really sure how much it matters - I catch just about the same on each. I used to tie them strictly in size 24, but the last 8-10 years, I've been doing quite well on size 22.
It pays to use a good wide gap hook - mustad 94840's just doesn't cut it in that size. I like Tiemco 518, or Orvis bigeye hooks.
Although I catch most of my fish on spinners, the dun can be important at times, and I usually catch some on them before the spinners fall. On cooler mornings, things are delayed a bit - especially in fall . I've caught fish on duns all morning in october, when the spinners sometimes don't fall until noon.

 

[sandfly]

UGH !! Tricos we have here on pine to0. At least the fish don't feed on em...fished the LL for 30 years when they hatched, you guys can keep em...last night we had yellow sallies and sulfers coming off !!!

 

[troutbert]

Tricos. Ugghh. Very well put.

 

[afishinado]

I found this photo on another site. It's a great photo of the black bodied trico male and the white bodied female with a green egg sack.

 

[Coughlin]

Afish, thanks for the photo. It shows what I consider to be the triggger, at least on the Tully: wings. I tie my tricos in 22/24 all black but with a prominient wing, usually a z-lon type material rounded off. I make the wing almost a third larger than the body.
Coughlin

 

[RLeeP]

>UGH !! Tricos we have here on pine to0. At least the fish don't feed on em...>>

I think there are only about 8 streams in the entire state where you really, really need to fish a trike during the trike.

Everywhere else, a #10 deerhair ant works on fish rising to the trike.

Unless you're on the Juniata and the more dinky smallmouth are rising to the trikes. Then you can catch them by bopping the risers on the head with one of those awful squirrel hair crayfish flies...

 

[Fredrick]

Check out this video of the hatch on the LL

http://www.littlelehighflyshop.com/generic4.html :-D