What do you do in this situation?

[enolaeagle]

Been stumped a couple times in the last few weeks with hatches so here's the rundown:

3 weeks ago-Sunday evening-yellow breeches: White fly hatch like crazy... could barely see in front of you at times. Fish surfacing everywhere with a couple people around me and noone is catching a thing.

2 weeks ago-Saturday evening-yellow breeches: White fly, Caddis and drake hatch. Fish seemed again to be taking emergers

Last night-Tulpehocken creek: some white flys, trico and caddis hatching. Fish are surfacing but seem to be taking emergers.

Through these 3 times, I've tried several patterns including emergers and came up dry but wondering how often this may happen to others. I do need to learn more about bugs but also looking to expand my flybox if needed.

 

[mcnerney]

Multiple hatches can be tough, especially when the fish key in on a specific life stage of a particular bug.......very close observation will give you the answer.

Larry

 

[williamhj]

Not knowing other information, I'd start by worry if my presentation might be dragging if bugs are drifting or my fly is drifting when the bugs are moving. I might drop a tippet size and a fly size. Since you said you tried different patterns I assume you tried hackled dries, non-hackled dries and different emerger patterns. I might mess around with soft hackles too, they can be great Additionally, fishing two flies can work. If multiple hatches going on, tie on one of each and see if they hit one. Especially helpful when one fly hatching is rather small and another is bigger. The larger fly you tie on will double as a sighter for the tiny one.

Another approach is to put on something different, a beetle say. Sometimes fish do get focused on one food item but other times the hatch gets them looking up and they might notice the beetle.

 

[siege]

1. Stomach pump

2. DuPont spinner

 

[williamhj]

1. Stomach pump

2. DuPont spinner

You forgot to mention garden hackle

 

[siege]

I had a buddy who complained that the hook on most flies was so small that it was hard to get the worm to stay on.

If ignorance is bliss, he may have been the happiest fisherman on earth.

 

[itchmesir]

Carrying enough Adams to create your own hatch will often lead to success. An Adams looks like nothing yet imitates plenty

 

[two_nymph_rig]

I'd tie on a hare's ear and catch fish along the bottom. And this is no joke, I don't fish dries.

 

[sandfly]

are you tying your own ?
buying store bought ?
or getting from a local who knows what to tie and fish ?
If its a heavy hatch its always hard to catch fish.
White fly hatch on the tulpehocken ???? (probally taking caddis pupa or a midge pupa)

 

[silver creek]

Been stumped a couple times in the last few weeks with hatches so here's the rundown:

3 weeks ago-Sunday evening-yellow breeches: White fly hatch like crazy... could barely see in front of you at times. Fish surfacing everywhere with a couple people around me and noone is catching a thing.

Did you actually SEE a fish take a dun off the surface?

When I am in the middle of a bunch of fly fishers not catching a thing, STOP fishing and look very carefully at the water. Use a seine to see if there is something floating in or under the film.

Get low to the water so you can see along the surface and look at the rises. I would bet that the fish were not taking duns. I have been in a similar situations and the fish were actually taking flying ants that were in the film and could not be seen without using a seine.

If they were taking duns, then the problem is likely drag. I'd go to a longer and thinner and tippet and fish downstream with a parachute mend to feed the fly to the fish.

2 weeks ago-Saturday evening-yellow breeches: White fly, Caddis and drake hatch. Fish seemed again to be taking emergers

Last night-Tulpehocken creek: some white flys, trico and caddis hatching. Fish are surfacing but seem to be taking emergers.

This sounds like a masking hatch situation. When you say the fish seem to be taking emergers, I need to ask whether you are familiar with rise forms.

If you look very carefully, you can tell how the fish took the aquatic insect, and where the insect was in the water column.

Here is an illustration from Field and Stream that shows:

1. A sipping rise to an insect trapped in or on the film, fine rings in the water = emerger, stillborn emerger, spinner, some small midges.

2. The slurping rise leaves a bubble, the fish's mouth breaks the surface to take a fully emerged insect = mayfly duns and other insects that have fully hatched.

3. The splashy rise, the fish slashes at the fly = typically a rise to caddis that can fly off immediately or a large terrestrial on the water like a grasshopper. The fish want the insect not to escape OR wants to beat another fish to the food.

4. The boil or head and shoulder rise. The water bulges but the fish's mouth does not break the water. The fish's shoulder or dorsal fin may break the water as the fish heads back down = The fish is feeding below the surface chasing nymphs or pupa that are rising in the water column to hatch. They are intercepting the food on the way to the surface and overshoot and break the surface or cause a bulge of water.

Look at the rise forms and examine them for 2 main factors.

(1) Where was the food when it was taken? ON the file, IN the film, or UNDER the film and if so, HOW FAR UNDER?

(2) How energetic is the rise form. Low energy like a sip mens the food is TRAPPED like a spinner, stillborn, ant, etc. Moderate energy in or under the film could be an early stage mayfly emerger. Energetic in or under the film is likely caddis emerger of a pupa rising to emerge.

Finally, in masking hatches SIZE matters. Look very carefully to see if there is an even smaller insect hatching like midges or BWO's. Many times the fsih are feeding on the smaller insect.

The key is to to STOP fishing and observe and break out the seine.

When the fish are feeding in film or just under it, here are several techniques you probably didn't try.

You can try a floating nymph which is nymph with a ball of fuzz or foam at the thorax.

Floating Nymphs

You can try the greased leader tactic with a nymph or an emerger.

If the fish were bulging like they when chasing caddis pupa, you can try the Leisering Lift.

 

[enolaeagle]

are you tying your own ?
buying store bought ?
or getting from a local who knows what to tie and fish ?
If its a heavy hatch its always hard to catch fish.
White fly hatch on the tulpehocken ???? (probally taking caddis pupa or a midge pupa)

Some are mine and some are bought.
There wasnt a huge hatch going on with the whites at the tulpehocken but there was plenty around.

I was also using a zebra parasol midge. I had a gut feeling that could've been the answer but it was a no-go.

---------- Post added at 01:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:20 PM ----------

Did you actually SEE a fish take a dun off the surface?

When I am in the middle of a bunch of fly fishers not catching a thing, STOP fishing and look very carefully at the water. Use a seine to see if there is something floating in or under the film.

Get low to the water so you can see along the surface and look at the rises. I would bet that the fish were not taking duns. I have been in a similar situations and the fish were actually taking flying ants that were in the film and could not be seen without using a seine.

If they were taking duns, then the problem is likely drag. I'd go to a longer and thinner and tippet and fish downstream with a parachute mend to feed the fly to the fish.



This sounds like a masking hatch situation. When you say the fish seem to be taking emergers, I need to ask whether you are familiar with rise forms.

If you look very carefully, you can tell how the fish took the aquatic insect, and where the insect was in the water column.

Here is an illustration from Field and Stream that shows:

1. A sipping rise to an insect trapped in or on the film, fine rings in the water = emerger, stillborn emerger, spinner, some small midges.

2. The slurping rise leaves a bubble, the fish's mouth breaks the surface to take a fully emerged insect = mayfly duns and other insects that have fully hatched.

3. The splashy rise, the fish slashes at the fly = typically a rise to caddis that can fly off immediately or a large terrestrial on the water like a grasshopper. The fish want the insect not to escape OR wants to beat another fish to the food.

4. The boil or head and shoulder rise. The water bulges but the fish's mouth does not break the water. The fish's shoulder or dorsal fin may break the water as the fish heads back down = The fish is feeding below the surface chasing nymphs or pupa that are rising in the water column to hatch. They are intercepting the food on the way to the surface and overshoot and break the surface or cause a bulge of water.

Look at the rise forms and examine them for 2 main factors.

(1) Where was the food when it was taken? ON the file, IN the film, or UNDER the film and if so, HOW FAR UNDER?

(2) How energetic is the rise form. Low energy like a sip mens the food is TRAPPED like a spinner, stillborn, ant, etc. Moderate energy in or under the film could be an early stage mayfly emerger. Energetic in or under the film is likely caddis emerger of a pupa rising to emerge.

Finally, in masking hatches SIZE matters. Look very carefully to see if there is an even smaller insect hatching like midges or BWO's. Many times the fsih are feeding on the smaller insect.

The key is to to STOP fishing and observe and break out the seine.

When the fish are feeding in film or just under it, here are several techniques you probably didn't try.

You can try a floating nymph which is nymph with a ball of fuzz or foam at the thorax.

Floating Nymphs

You can try the greased leader tactic with a nymph or an emerger.

If the fish were bulging like they when chasing caddis pupa, you can try the Leisering Lift.

During the day time on the breeches they tend to slurp the caddis and that is a huge success for me fishing the cdc micro.
During the hatches they were mostly an energetic rise(but not completely out of the water) and some were fully out.

 

[enolaeagle]

By the way, this is incredible info here! Love this site!

When you're talkin seine, id like to see a picture of what you use. Normally I in vision a large net or what I used to use for catching crayfish and hellgrammites for bait fishing which of course is too big to snag an ant etc...

 

[fredaevans]

"Post of the Day" goes to Silver. :fishing:

 

[enolaeagle]

...or I had the wrong idea of what was being described

 

[silver creek]

During the hatches they were mostly an energetic rise(but not completely out of the water) and some were fully out.

Acter reading my post again, I have to apologize if I gave any impression that you did not know how to read rises. I posted the descriptions and photos because it is much easier to show what I mean by certain rise forms.

From your energetic description of the energetic rise, it sound like they might have been taking caddis pupa. The fish's momentum of chasing a rising pupa causes the fish to overshoot even after it has taken the pupa and it will hit the water surface with a splash.

I would have tried a Leisering Lift.

---------- Post added at 10:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:18 PM ----------

By the way, this is incredible info here! Love this site!

When you're talkin seine, id like to see a picture of what you use.

I made myself a telescoping sampling net that I can extend to catch flying insects out of the air like a small butterfly net. I can extend under water to the river bottom to collect samples, or collect sample right at the surface.

Here's how to make a telescoping seine/sampling net:

You need an aquarium net, epoxy, and a telescoping handle. You can get one at Harbor Freight which has a magnet on the end for picking up lost metal objects. OR you can use an expanding antenna from an old broken transistor radio or a telescoping pointer.

1. Bend the net hand back over the front of the net. The handle in the photo would then be folded back over the opening in the photo above and pointing to the left side rather than to the right side. This seems strange but I will explain why later.

2. Take the end off of the retractable magnet. Put it next to the net handle. Measure how long the net and the telescoping handle can be for the net to fit easily into one of your large vest pockets even with a fly box in the same pocket.

Now you know why you folded the handle back - so the telescoping handle is bent over the net so it can fit into a vest pocket.

If the net is too wide to fit into your vest pocket, you will need to cut off the frame and make a smaller frame out of coat hanger wire and put the net on it. That is what I had to do.

3. Cut the end of the net wire handle and take the plastic coating off of the one of the frame wires of the net. Now try to figure out how many sections of the telescoping handle you have the remove so that the wire will fit into the hollow end section. If you make your own frame out of coat hanger wire, use the coat hanger wire to figure out how many hollow sections of handle your will need to remove.

You can tell by the photo that the second or third section is large enough for the net wire frame to slip into it.

4. From the measurement you made in instruction (2), cut back the net handle so it it is 2 inches longer. Shorten one of the plastic coated wires by 2 inches. Remove 2 inches of the plastic from the other net handle wire, straighten the wire, and put it into the handle.

Check to see if the net will fit into the vest with a fly box in the same pocket. Adjust the handle length as needed.

If you are sure everything is right, then epoxy the the cut end of the handle wire to make it smooth. Pull out only about 1 inch of the wire from the hollow end of the tube, coat it with epoxy, and insert it back into the hollow tube of the retractable handle. Remove the excess epoxy.

Be careful with the epoxy. DO NOT USE TOO MUCH EPOXY or some of it will come out of the bottom of the hollow tube and it will glue the handle tubes together.

Now you have a telescoping sampling net that can be used to catch flying insects as well as floating ones. I find it especially useful to sample things floating below the surface film and also to sample insects living in weed beds or aquatic vegetation. With net downstream of the vegetation, shake or kick the underwater vegetation with your foot and insects will be captured by the net. I have found scuds, aquatic worms, pupa that you would not know were present if you did the traditional turn-over-the rock-and-look ploy. Not all fish food crawls around on the stream bottom. In Wisconsin it is also useful for sifting through the muck for Hexagenia nymphs and other burrowing nymphs.

 

[enolaeagle]

Great stuff! And I was not offended at all by any part of your posts. I do lack in some of the entomology end of things and you've been a great help

 

[stenacron]

(probally taking caddis pupa or a midge pupa)

I'm with Sandfly here... leaning towards midge pupae.

Check out Midge Magic, diamond midge patterns... gold/olive pupa tied short on a #18 nymph hook might take a few of those porpoises.

 

[enolaeagle]

Picked up a net. (The lady at the pet store looked at me weird when I explained)

 

[enolaeagle]

I was fishing this morning and stopped in at the Yellow Breeches shop afterwards and spoke with one of the guides for awhile. He was fishing the same night during the multiple hatch and was catching browns on this spinner :banghead:

 

[rangerrich99]

I feel your pain. This seems to happen at least a couple time a year, and I've never found anything consistent to hang my hat on. However, these things have worked for me.

Fish cripples. Cripples tend to be a bit bigger than emergers and mine hang a bit lower in the water. Most of the time I tie them to a #16 stim or a PMX as an indicator.

Fish deep (2'-5'). Use the rising fish as an indicator as to where the fish are, and try for the bigger ones below with a zonker minnow or something.

Fish something completely different from the 'little white bugs.' My favorite 'anti-' is a #14 orange humpy.

Probably the only piece of advice I can give that I can really stand behind is that you want to fish tandem flies to better your odds of getting some attention. One dry, one wet, one light, one dark, one big, on e small, etc.

Most of the other replies are probably loaded with better advice, but maybe there's something here that'll help you.

Peace.