Troutnut Forum > Fly Hatch Talk > Trico Tips, Page 2
This topic is about the Mayfly Genus Tricorythodes
A cult following is something to which few insects can lay claim, but the tiny Tricorythodes mayflies certainly qualify. Their widespread, reliable, heavy hatches draw impressive rises of ultra-selective trout which demand the most of a technical dry-fly angler's skills.
It is surprising that such a great hatch took so long to come to the attention of fly fishermen. The Tricos were first introduced to anglers in a 1969 Outdoor Life article by Vincent Marinaro, who misidentified them as Caenis. By the early 1970s the identification had been corrected but Swisher and Richards still wrote in Selective Trout, "Few anglers are familiar with these extremely small but important mayflies." The next wave of publications boosted Tricorythodes to its current fame. I suspect their early dismissal was due in part to tackle limitations; anglers in the 1950s had no means to effectively tie and present size 22-28 flies. Read more...
There is 3 more specimen...
The Discussion
| GONZO | July 26th, 2007, 11:50 am | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 866 | Louis, everyone else has probably figured out by now that the main idea behind my book was to keep everyone so busy at the tying table that I'd have the streams to myself. I'm not sure why, but obviously that strategy isn't working on you. (But, I will keep trying!) :) | |
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| Martinlf | July 26th, 2007, 1:44 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | Smoked out at last. I had suspected, but we have it right from the Gonzo's mouth. I believe another tactic he is using to keep us off the streams is getting us hooked on the Troutnut board. Now, back to Tricos. Running out the door slightly late for a daughter's cello lesson, to kill time during the instruction I grabbed Knopp and Cormier. Of course I turned to Tricos first, and found some interesting information. The book claims that females generally hatch "between 9:00 am and noon" in the earlier season and that the hatch becomes progressively earlier, happening at 4:00 am in August and September as "the warmer weather of summer advances the hatches to "about daybreak." Then as the weather cools the hatch progressively moves later in the day. I was aware of the move to later hatching times in the fall, but had not observed early hatching in June and July until yesterday, when I observed female duns on the water at about 9 or 10. (Probably closer to 9). The book notes that female duns and male spinners can be on the water at the same time, with the earliest females already mating by the time those slow to get out of bed are shedding their shucks. The female spinners, with their small greyish/whitish abdomens, now devoid of eggs, fall last of all. The book also recommends a hackled female dun for the hottest weather, to better imitate the rapidly escaping duns. This is really news to me, and something I'll probably try. By the way, yesterday I got into the same bunch of snots who turned up their noses at everything last time, and it was a repeat performance. I didn't try any clusters on them, but they did refuse the sunken Trico along with snowshoe wings, antron wings, hackle wings, and parachutes. They spit water at a few of these flies on their best drifts just to frustrate me and laugh as I jerked the fly into the trees behind me. I am currently engineering some lead-weighted cherry bomb flies for these fish. With antron wings. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| GONZO | July 26th, 2007, 2:07 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 866 | More good stuff, Louis. Of course, you were warned about the diminishing returns of overexposure. (Although the same can probably be said about my posts, so I'll shut up about that.) Seriously, I'm skeptical about the Knopp reasoning regarding the fully hackled duns. When this works (and I don't dispute that it can), I think it is more about the way a tiny hackled fly responds to micro-drag. (Marinaro held the same view.) Jason questions the whole "emerger to low dun to high dun" idea in a thread with a similar name, and I think he is right. Anyway, if duns are rapidly escaping the surface, why would fish focus on that hard to catch target and not on the easier and more vulnerable emergers? Again, just a thought. | |
| Martinlf | July 26th, 2007, 2:10 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | Knopp does mention the micro drag issue (I should have included that) but thanks for the helpful ideas. As for the snots, they live upstream of my favorite Trico hole and I've been hitting them last. Perhaps I should start on them first to change the variables a bit. I may put a hackled dun over one early in the morning one day. Or one of Matt's CDC duns. Or a nymph in the film. Hmm. Part of the problem with them has been drag. They are bank feeders on the opposite side of the stream, up against a cliff, in very flat water with eddies and current changes where they feed. Add to that the fact that my casting is not what it should be and we can see why they are giving me fits. But for now, its back to the tying table! | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| GONZO | July 26th, 2007, 3:25 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 866 | Fish protected by tricky currents can often be more of a presentation problem than a fly choice problem, although the fully hackled fly may have some advantages in assisting presentation. The most obvious way to deal with the situation would be to try to deliver the fly from the same current band in which the fish are feeding in order to minimize drag, rather than across multiple mixed current bands, but I'm not sure if this is a possibility where those "snots" are holding. Even if it is possible, the two approaches--from downstream in the same band or from upstream in the same band--present compromises of their own. The more traditional approach, from downstream casting upstream, presents the risk of lining the fish by casting over them. The less conventional approach, from upstream feeding the fly downstream, has distinct advantages over tough fish, but hooking them is more complicated even if you can get into that position without spooking the fish. When it works, it can be magic, but if the fish doesn't take on the first drift you also have the problem of lifting the line to cast again without putting the fish down. You've chosen a very difficult target in those fish, Louis! I'm not surprised that they have been testing your wits and will. But I also understand the irresistible challenge they present. You go, boy! | |
| Martinlf | July 28th, 2007, 10:22 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | Matt, I tied up some of your Trico duns and love the way the biots replicate exactly the segmentation I noticed on the duns I looked at last time out. I'm certain that presentation is the most important issue with Tricos, but the look of your pattern satisfies me, and I'm sure if I present it properly the fish will like it too. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| Wbranch | July 29th, 2007, 9:30 am | |
| Starlight PA Posts: 230 | Louis, I'm glad you like the appearance of the Trico dun. I did not develop this fly but saw it elsewhwere about eight years ago. However I have never seen it tied commercially or in any fly shop catalog so it is pretty much unfished by others. | |
| West Branch & main stem fly fisher for forty-two years. | ||
| Martinlf | July 29th, 2007, 9:48 am | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | Matt, I'll bet your fly works well as an emerger, with the CDC wing holding the body just in the film or below it. I'm also thinking about tying some other emergers for hatching duns. One idea is to tie a nymph pattern but use Quigley's pull over method with hackle to get an emerging leg and wing illusion at the head of the fly. I may use something like a Tiemco 2488 to get the body lower in the film. Another possibility will be Gonzo's shucking dun, which works very well on baetis--if I can tie it small enough. Again, I fool around with these things partly for my own amusement, and partly to see if a change of pattern works for ultra selective fish. Another fun thing with smaller wild fish. Some are very tough, and even harder to hook because they spit the fly so quickly. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| Martinlf | August 10th, 2007, 1:11 am | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | I'm sticking this back up for Grabbit's perusal. I had pretty good luck on Spring Creek with my standard reverse parachute a week back. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| Grabbit | August 11th, 2007, 1:32 am | |
| Columbus, OH Posts: 21 | Louis, I would like to see the reverse para pattern, sounds oh so intriguing, if you would please post a pic I would quite grateful. I have used Al's fly pattern for trico spinners and they work well. thanks much.....Grabbit..... definition of FLYTYING: to tinker with little things which may or may not be of great importance to a trout. or.... making a controlled mess upon a hook and desk then running to a river before cleaning up. | |
| Fishing with nymphs is for fat little kids... man up and throw a dry. | ||
| Martinlf | August 11th, 2007, 9:05 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | Grabbit, I'm a complete Luddite with digital photos, and my daughter who has the camera and is a whiz with them is at the beach. Sorry. If I remember, when she returns, I'll try to get some photos up. But the upside down fly is very simple to tie as described above. The main difference is that the hackle is trimmed on the top of the fly so it flips over and the hook rides up. I've been tying it both reverse style like Al's Trico, with the thorax near the bend, and like a standard hackle fly, with the thorax near the eye. With the latter, I add tails. (I also tie it right side up, just for laughs.) For my standard fly based on Al's trico, imagine an Al's Trico silhouette in a parachute. I use a short shank hook, varivas 988, Tiemco 2488, or Tiemco 921 (for all my Tricos, actually) and after winding thread on the shank for the abdomen, I start with a high vis post reverse style near the bend. I use Borger's method, slipping the high vis under the shank and pulling both ends up so the post can't pull out. A drop of super glue at the base and some quick wraps and posting wraps at the base and up, the post is ready and won't slip around. Then an oversize grizzly hackle, a ball of dubbing for the thorax, wrap the hackle and tie off (I do this under the hackle, and whip finish on the post under the hackle with a few wraps and a ultra-mini drop of gorilla glue on the last loop pulled in to lock it all in permanently. Or you can tie off on the shank, just behind the thorax and whip finish along the shank.) The high vis post makes the fly much easier to see than Al's Trico, and it can be left long or trimmed/flattened if the fish seem to mind it. I haven't noticed that they do mind the post, though some fish seem to want a different style of fly sometimes. Spring Creek trout took the parachute readily last week. It's often the first pattern I tie on, switching around to other styles if the fish won't take it. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| Martinlf | October 6th, 2007, 11:21 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | Lam, here's the Trico thread I was thinking of. Some good info here I believe. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| Martinlf | December 23rd, 2007, 2:56 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 903 | Another fly tying thread for winter. I'm always eager to hear about new Trico patterns. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
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