newbie needs help w/ Musky hatch-

[mbwmn]

i was out on a very quiet section of the Musky saturday nite (upstream of Penwell/Pt.Mtn) w/ the wife, and she got her first 3 on a fly! exciting stuff...

around 8:15pm there were so many fish rising you would have thought it was raining! i tried 10+ different dry flies w/ no luck. there were some small (sz16?) dark gray caddis(?) earlier in the evening, and i was trying elkhair and sparkling emerger patterns: no joy.

just before we got off the water (9pm?) i shined? my headlight down and saw hundreds of what appeared to be spent mayflies floating by. in the light of my headlight they also appeared to be a darker grayish color. i had been expecting (and pitching) sulphurs, as i've been seeing masses of them in flight further downstream in the more turbulent water around Pt.Mtn. these spent flies did not appear to have the more "solid" wings of caddis. (i think caddis look like moths). the spent flies had wings spread that were veined like a mayfly...

any ideas what these were, and for how much longer i can expect to see them? some of the rises just before i noticed all the dead ones were quite spectacular, w/ fish leaping out of the water. not the subtle concentric rings i've seen w/ privious caddis (grannom) hatches...

tia,
-mike

 

[JeffK]

I would guess sulphur spinners. The mating swarms form around the riffles in the evening After they mate, they lay their eggs and die. Should be around for a couple more weeks and are one of the best hatches anywhere in the Northeast. Try a rusty spinner in 16 or 14. Bigger ones easier to see so I start there, but switch if the larger one fails. In the dark, patterns with a post (parachute flies can work OK as spinners), spun hackle clipped on the bottom, or a comparadun type fly can be easier to spot than the usual pattern with a flat synthetic yarn wing. Spinners really require a dead drift, because they are well, dead, and any movement turns the trout off. BTW, 2 years ago I only carried sparkle duns and parachutes in 12 to 16 during sulphur season and didn't see any change in results from carrying a ton of flies.

Caddis are another option. They hatch so quick that trout rarely take the adults during the hatch and focus on the pupa. A maddeningly difficult hatch to master. Soft hackles, tradtional wets, Fox's Poopah, LaFontaine sparkle caddis are a few of the usual patterns for caddis pupa. The caddis spinners in the evening can also be effective and few fish them. They can often be the solution.

 

[mbwmn]

i tried 3 or 4 different sizes/colors/styles of what i think a sulphur looks like previous to seeing all the spent flies. guess my presentation needs work!

they (the spent floating flies) were awfully dark-colored tho'...

 

[Matt Grobert]

I was on the water as well Saturday night and they were sulphur spinners, AND the trout were snotty as hell! Even though there were fish rising all around us, we only got a few. I wound up fishing a very sparsely tied #18 rusty spinner on a 12ft 6X leader, and I got way more looks and refusals than takes. You had to have a perfect drift.....or the shadow would move up under your fly, and then either take a natural next to your fly or go back to the bottom.

I did a lot of talking to myself and the fish that night. It was fun but tough.

Matt ><)))))'>

 

[JeffK]

I was at the Pequest last night and the fish went nuts just at dark. I didn't find them that picky (I think), but in the dark it is awfully hard to get the right drift. Randomly casting into a bunch of rising fish almost guarantees that you will drift over none of them. You have to pick a single fish at a time and work it. Unfortunately, that is very hard in the dark with small flies. Where I fish in the dark is fairly shallow with easy wading. The shallower the water the more accurate your casts need to be. So fishing at dark is a trade off of going to a shallow smooth bottom so wading in the dark is not suicidal versus the need for more pinpoint casting in the dark. I think most of my problems were getting the fly over a fish, not the choice of fly (but it is hard to tell in the dark and I could be wrong).

In addition, after 2 or 3 fish the fly I was using would get wet so it wouldn't float well, but it was hard to tell if it was floating right and changing flies in the dark is a PITA so I kept drying the fly on my shirt, which didn't work all that well. I am going to tie a few foam sulphurs that should float forever and see how they do after dark. Maybe try a glow-in-the-dark post (Kreinik makes glow-in-the-dark braid).

I did get a couple swinging wet flies (including a 15" bow that was the best jumper of the year). Seemed to work best swinging the fly into the correct lane and then releasing line so it drifted straight down to the fish. Still hard to get the right drift in the dark.

Didn't check the water, but the sulphur spinner swarms in the air were light while I could still see. My car was plastered with little black caddis when I got home.

 

[dcabarle]

In addition, after 2 or 3 fish the fly I was using would get wet so it wouldn't float well, but it was hard to tell if it was floating right and changing flies in the dark is a PITA so I kept drying the fly on my shirt, which didn't work all that well.

Two words for you: Frogs Fanny!

 

[Rusty Spinner]

mbwmn,

You most likely saw the sulphur spinners, but we did see a decent olive (BWO) hatch over the past week in a size 18 that may be what you saw as rusty spinners in that stretch of water you mentioned. I was on or next to the water most everyday this past week - often in that area - and while the sulphurs are the bulk of the bugs the trout are feeding on, they are also eating olives and lots of caddis of which look like a brown sedge or along those color lines.

BTW - this sulphur hatch has been excellent most evenings on the Musky for a couple of weeks now. Get out and hit up this hatch an hour before dark, a bit earlier when they're chasing caddis or sulphur emergers. And stay until dark as the spinners fall. You can pick up 5 or more quick fish in that last half hour of light almost every night there is not a heavy rain storm or strong winds. Like JeffK said, this will last a few more weeks. It's dry fly heaven right now...

 

[NJDrew]

Two words for you: Frogs Fanny!

+ 1

I usually will dry the fly with my Orvis fly dryer (discontinued I think), then re-apply frogs fanny after every catch. Ive found that a slimy fly will sink even faster than a wet fly.</p>

 

[Rusty Spinner]

I was on the water as well Saturday night and they were sulphur spinners, AND the trout were snotty as hell! Even though there were fish rising all around us, we only got a few. I wound up fishing a very sparsely tied #18 rusty spinner on a 12ft 6X leader, and I got way more looks and refusals than takes. You had to have a perfect drift.....or the shadow would move up under your fly, and then either take a natural next to your fly or go back to the bottom.

I did a lot of talking to myself and the fish that night. It was fun but tough.

Matt ><)))))'>

Matt,

I've seen the same thing even from the fresh stockies this sulphur hatch. Low water doesn't help. But some evenings it's been like taking candy from a baby. I like to tie yellowish spinners with clear Antron wings for this spinner fall rather than rusty spinners. They seem to key to that yellow-orange color better, IMO. And for night/low light fishing I just tie in a piece of white foam above the thorax/over the wings to see the fly better.

Or my other trick is to toss a size 12 Light Cahill parachute over them which often gets a solid take.

 

[NJDrew]

Does anyone here use a sulphur spinner with the egg sack? By that I mean, at the end of the abdomen before the tail there is a small amount of orange.

 

[JeffK]

I guess the cornutas must be hatching on the Musky because I see the 16 to 18 spinners on my car in the morning. That is another option.

The spinner thing can be tough. One guy I fish with is really good with spinners after dark on the tails of slow, calm pools. He always uses a leader twice the length of his rod in that situation. I would call that excessive if he didn't out fish me 5 to 1 on smooth water spinner falls. In addition, real spinners are very delicate critters and the flies we use for them always look clunky when compared to the real thing. I generally use Hi Vis wings for spinners, but have organza, packing foam, hen, hackle, and CDC spent wing spinners because each has its day when the fish are picky.

 

[brough]

Drew,

Yes, when I tie my sulphers I will tie an egg sac on about half of them. I tie the sac even on small loopwing sulpher emerger patterns. Sometimes the small ammount of orange is the trick to stop refusing, but sometimes not ...........:bang: