trico's

[tav]

been doin alittle reading on trico's they say thin ct. they come out in aug. thru oct. females in the mornin and males at nifght. i just bought some on line and gonna try them but what are the one that i should key on.

• 3 Angel Wing Trico Spinners #20 - #22
• 3 Trico Male Spinner #20 - #22
• 3 Parachute Trico's #20 - #22
• 3 Trico Duns #20 - #22
• 3 Trico Emergers #20 - #22

 

[Trout Fever]

have fun tying them little buggers good luck let us know how you make out

 

[trico mike]

Key in on the male and female spinners. 22's are to big use a 24-26 and on heavily pressured fish 28's work. Male duns usually hatch way after dark so they are rarley important although sometimes you will see them hatching at dark. Females will hatch in the morning and sometimes trou key on them other times they don't. The best part of the hatch is the spinner fall. Huge numbers of spinners will be on the water and trout rise to them eagerly. Start the day off in the early am( at first light) with a female dun. When you see the swarms starting switch to a female spinner and at the tail end of the spinner fall use a male spinner. It doesn't always work like that but it is the best proggression of flies to use. Also be aware of caddis on the water sometimes fish will be rising to caddis during the trico hatch.

 

[JeffK]

I think Mike is right on. I use 22 tricos during first couple of weeks of the season and for NJ streams where nobody else fishes tricos, but on the PA limestoners where tricos are a regular thing the trout get pickier and pickier throughout the season. I don't know if I have used a 20 trico in 30 years - back in the day finding hooks smaller than 20 was tough, but not today.

What pattern to use? Let the fish tell you. I get as many trico patterns as I can from friends and when I travel because you never can tell what they will hit. I tie mine with a small chartreuse post so I can see them. In general I have less luck with yarn wings and like hackle, CDC, organza, and foam wings. Yarn wings get too beat up and the fish see too many of them IMHO. Try a sunk spinner now and again.

Mike is also right about trying something else. Somedays the tricos will drive you nuts so switch it up - especially in the Lehigh Valley where people are fishing tricos every morning for 4 months. Tan caddis around 18-16 are around all summer and are never a bad choice. One guy I know swears by micro caddis. The CDC patterns work better than deer hair patterns in the summer IMHO. In the Little Lehigh there are other summer mayflies that mate at night so a small rusty spinner can work in the morning some days. Terrestrials sometimes do fine. If you aren't fooling anything try something totally different.

 

[Rusty Spinner]

I can attest to the trico hatch and the tan caddis firsthand this past weekend in VT on the Winooski. Both days I was out the female dun was the key. I was on the river both days as the sun came up and left early, before the spinner fall. There were tan caddis bouncing around both days, but the trout were not pressured where I was and ate my dun just fine.

 

[Walter H]

From my experience the Female patterns work the best. This season I've been using #24 females using biot bodies and fine dubbed thoraxes. I use both spinners and CDC emerger patterns. I did use some #20 male trico's earlier in the season, but smaller does seem to be better with this hatch. Funny story, two weeks ago I fished the E. Branch of the Croton durign the morning Trico hatch. The conditions were not ideal, and the hatch was sparse. I got a little impatient between the dun and spinner fall and started spot casting to small sunnies. They all rejected the trico. Some time passes, and the sunny's stack up in a line right in front of me. I cast to them a few times, and they all rejected the fly. I started to wonder if the pattern was too big, or if I was getting drag, basically questioning the situation. A few minutes passed, and off to the far side of the line, I saw a sleeker, yellowish sillhoutte gently holding position. Knowing darn well what that profile was, I cast immediately in front of sillhoutte, and the water exploded. I fought that brown for what seemed like 10 minutes. My point... Funny things happen during the trico hatch. Small sunfish rejected a fly, which they normally would swarm and inhale, and an older holdover brown viciuosly inhaled it. Make sure you have small, buggy looking tricos. I highly recomend biot and cdc. and if it's not working, change out the fly (caddis, midge, rusty spinner etc) or tie on smaller tippet. Just my experience, diffrent conditions will dictate diffrent tactics.