STONEFLY HATCH

Hey! Looks like the stoneflies are getting ready to hatch. I know, I'm jumping the gun. I love to search for the hatch each year, even though, it's a hit and miss ordeal. Still fun to look for them.

With the amount of run-off predicted here in Utah, we may end up with high off-color conditions in May, when these little critters want to crawl out of the water to learn to fly. I have three "streams" that I try to hit during stonefly activity, and then I try to migrate north and hit some of the fabled waters in Idaho and Montana.

I have always used these braided stoneflies to imitate the nymphs. I have good luck with them. I use the dark ones to imitate the large Pteronarcys californica ( salmonfly) and the lighter ones to imitate the large golden stoneflies.

I'm hoping for a good stonefly season and already getting excited. It seem like the larger fish come out to play when the stones are migrating to hatch. It's still fun and somewhat funny to catch the smaller 8-10-inch trout with a large size six stonefly nymph sticking out of it's mouth.

When I see the adults out, I will switch to a dry fly, but I like to fish the nymph a couple weeks before I see adults and then a couple weeks after the adults are gone. I have even fished the dry fly for a couple weeks after the hatch and had decent luck.

Time to start tying some of these delicious, trout-candy nymphs and dream of great action in the next couple of months.