White Flies Upper Susquehanna

[Bamboozle]

Those pincers impress me too and I'm no lady!

Once while fishing the Delaware for shad, I had a female Mallard following me around so I started looking for something to feed her.

I found a 3" - 4" long Hellgrammite and tossed it to her. She grabbed it and swallowed it whole!! :-o

It freaked me out and now I am leery of Delaware ducks too as I figure if they can swallow whole Hellgrammittes, they can kick my a$$.

 

[Baron]

Allright, I have to go again and reveal my novice status and ask if these white flies (not the larvae) are fished as wet or dry or emerger?

 

[Bamboozle]

Actually, all four life stages (nymph, emerger, pre-adult, adult) are imitated as the Ephoron leukon goes through the entire life cycle after hatching in a single night.

To be honest, you can catch fish on nymphs, emergers, dries and spinners at any time during the hatch. You just have to figure out what the fish you are targeting, wants.

 

[Baron]

Got it. Just ordered a bunch of similar stuff to try out this weekend. PMD, Yellow Sallies and more. It’ll be fun cycling through the offerings until I land it.

 

[afishinado]

Baron wrote:
Got it. Just ordered a bunch of similar stuff to try out this weekend. PMD, Yellow Sallies and more. It’ll be fun cycling through the offerings until I land it.

Smallies are aggressive when they are looking up for food on top. Poppers work well for them. You most often need not resort to trout flies to match the hatch to catch bass. In fact doing so will likely result catching many dinks, panfish and other small fish when bigger bass are on the prowl for a good meal.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

I tied what I would describe as a "micro-gurgler":
* X-wide gape, short shank #8 hook (like a dropshot worm hook)
* white foam
* white bucktail
* sparse white hackle.
It's a simple 2-3 minute tie.

I have not tried it on the Susky during the whitefly hatch, but that's my intent. It's a bit bigger than the mayflies, but should be visible and durable with better hooking than a "trout fly" (ie, catskills style dun on standard hook).

I may be overthinking this, but that's part of the fun for me.

 

[salmonoid]

Fly-Swatter wrote:
I tied what I would describe as a "micro-gurgler":
* X-wide gape, short shank #8 hook (like a dropshot worm hook)
* white foam
* white bucktail
* sparse white hackle.
It's a simple 2-3 minute tie.

I have not tried it on the Susky during the whitefly hatch, but that's my intent. It's a bit bigger than the mayflies, but should be visible and durable with better hooking than a "trout fly" (ie, catskills style dun on standard hook).

I may be overthinking this, but that's part of the fun for me.

You can also underthink it and take the stance that if it sort of looks like food and moves, fish will eat it. That's the mindset I take when fishing for trout at night. The trout don't know what I'm throwing; just that it displaces water and moves, therefore it must be alive and food. Micro-gurglers fit that category (although I usually fish something bigger than that), but I fish mine in black.

The singlemost impressive hatch of flies I've ever seen in my life was two years ago to the day and it was the white fly hatch on the Susquehanna. I was coming home from work and as I was coming down off of Chiques Hill on 441 towards Columbia, I saw a few flies smack the windshield. Crossing over route 30, the density increased into more than just flurries and so I pulled off to the Columbia Crossings parking lot. A crowd of vehicles and people had gathered to watch and at that location, it was a full-on squall. If ever I saw a billion living organisms at once, that was it. What was interesting to me is that the 24 hours prior, we had received heavy rains and the river was on its way to flood stage (rising to over 350,000cfs at Marietta) and was double chocolate milk. In amongst the logs and trees that were floating by, I did manage to spot a lone riser about a hundred yards out, at one point.

 

[henrydavid]

The white flies should be coming soon, in the meanwhile you can get some practice with the Sulphurs which are out now.

 

[Tuz]

Bamboozle - That's pretty funny right there

 

[Tuz]

Keep us posted - if anybody sees any white flies on the river I expect a report!

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Right.

 

[krayfish2]

Drove the long 90 seconds to the river last night for a quick look. The breeze was blowing towards the house and I saw what looked like a snow squall roll by. They have started near Harrisburg but aren't up to full speed yet.

I was out one time with a light on in the boat. The guy up front yelled 'cut the light, bats everywhere!". I laughed knowing that they were dobsonflies. Found 6 dead in the boat when I got up the next day.

 

[jpop_66]

krayfish2 wrote:
Drove the long 90 seconds to the river last night for a quick look. The breeze was blowing towards the house and I saw what looked like a snow squall roll by. They have started near Harrisburg but aren't up to full speed yet.

I was out one time with a light on in the boat. The guy up front yelled 'cut the light, bats everywhere!". I laughed knowing that they were dobsonflies. Found 6 dead in the boat when I got up the next day.

Nice! We had to delay out trip until 8/14, so hopefully well get a chance to some on the north branch of Susq.

 

[henrydavid]

White flies showed up on Sunday Aug. 2nd in the Falls area of the North Branch, the bite was very good. Monday the hatch was better and action was crazy. Not sure when I'll be able to check again, river is on the rise.

 

[Dave_W]

Saw white flies vicinity Marysville/Dauphin last night but they were sparse (by white fly standards).