Insect Family Corydalidae (Hellgrammites)

Often times in March and April on the Colorado River north of Lake Buchanan in the Texas hill country, I will catch a bunch of Hellgrammies and fish them on a drifting line with a small split shot for channel cats. While I release most of them, often times I am stopped and asked what I caught them on. Since some of these fish will be in the 5 to 10 lb range it catches peoples eye. Their great bait for a channels, in swift water and clear rivers.

What really brings me to the area during these months is the White Bass and Stripper runs up the same river for spawn. I do alot of flyfishing for them. What brought me to this web site was trying to find a hellgrammite pattern that I might use to catch the channel cats when the bass fishing slows.

Any thoughts?

I'm working on a magazine article about hellgrammites, which I think are a generally underrated food source and an extremely cool group of insects.

I'm going to do a lot of research and combine it with my own experiences, but many of you have been fly fishing longer than I've been alive, so I'd like to see if any of you have stories about them -- catching big trout with stomachs full of them, finding trout rising to the dobsonfly adults, getting bit by these bugs, or anything else.

Troutnut ... the term "hellgramite" is reserved for the Dobsonfly (Corydalinae). Though the Fishfly (Chauliodinae) and the dobsonfly are from the same Megaloptera family, at first glance appear similar, and have similar stages of development, they are from different subfamily with differing subspecies and have very different morphology and biology.

The dobsonfly inhabit the more oxygenated waters of riffles and possess only tuffed gills for respiration. The fishfly inhabit the quiter waters of pools and still water. Fishflies have a primative gills called lateral filaments, while some species of fishfly utilize breathing tubes, located posterior, to accomodate the use of atmospheric oxygen for breathing in low dissolved oxygen envirions while remaining submerged.

So .. it is incorrect to use the term 'hellgramite' when talking about the fishfly larvae. They are simply, 'fishfly larvae'. You really should change your reference.

---- Reference -----
McCafferty, W. Patrick, 1981. Aquatic Entomology; Chpt. 11, Fishflies, Dobsonflies and Alderflies (order Megaloptera), p. 189-196


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O'fieldstream

The First time I saw one of these things was as a kid. We were playing around a woolen mill in old Kezar Falls Maine.
Turning over a damp old pile of wool revealed a number of adult Hellgrammites. At the age of 12 or 13 these were the scariest things I had ever seen.... still very intimidating. I remember trying to get them to bite sticks and my shoe... which they happily did once I started poking them.

Now at the age of thirty *mumble mumble* This insect has come into my life again.
After opening my little tackleshop and selling flies and gear for about a year, it was an embarrassment that I couldn't catch the Browns surfacing all over the place down on the river.
I finally got one by accident, cut open its belly and found... thats right... A dobsonfly nymph.
Although I believe they were really feeding on dragonfly or damselfly nymphs (as they were chasing and feeding near the top)
The story of my trouts belly told a different tale.

Some time at the tying bench, with a few pieces of yarn and marabou and now those old browns are no problem at all!

I have been fly fishing a lot over the past two years in the mountains of NC and Va. I have pumped the contents of many trout, and 2 out of 3 times, I find Hellgrammites in large brown trout, 18"+. perhaps they are not as numerous as caddis', but nether are crawfish, and wild trout like to eat them too!
As noted on several other replies, the warm bridge, and warm rocks, if you want to reasearch Hellgrammites, this is a good place to start.