The Salmonfly: Guide to the Dream Hatch of the West
By Skip Morris
()
About this ebook
Read more from Skip Morris
Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple: An Easy-to-Follow All-Color Guide Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5365 Fly-Fishing Tips for Trout, Bass, and Panfish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTactics for Trout Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeasons for Trout Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Salmonfly
Related ebooks
The Orvis Streamside Guide to Trout Foods and Their Imitations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGetting Started Fly Fishing For Trout Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFly Fishing Basics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shark and the Albatross: A Wildlife Filmmaker Reveals Why Nature Matters to Us All Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mayfly Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOther Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Natural History of Insects in 100 Limericks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTaxidermy Vol. 2 Small Birds - The Collection, Skinning and Mounting of Small Birds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsButterflies of the San Francisco Bay Region Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFly-Fish Better: Practical Advice on Tackle, Methods, and Flies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHandbook of Hatches: Introductory Guide to the Foods Trout Eat & the Most Effective Flies to Match Them Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalf Hours with the Lower Animals: Protozoans, Sponges, Corals, Shells, Insects, and Crustaceans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Insect Folk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsButterfly Basics: My First Book of Butterflies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Common Spiders of the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Glow-Worm and Other Beetles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Common Spiders of the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFly Fishing for Salmon - With Chapters on: Which Flies to Use and How to Make Them and Instructions on How and Where to Fish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDashing Dragonflies: A 4D Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCockroaches Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frank Sawyer's Nymphing Secrets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScorpions: Plus Other Popular Invertebrates Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fishing For Trout Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFish That Can't Swim and Birds That Can't Fly Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUgliest Animals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPocket Guide to Matching the Hatch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuper Surprising Trivia About Rain Forest Animals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnimal Life of the British Isles: A Pocket Guide to the Mammals, Reptiles and Batrachians of Wayside and Woodland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings101 Favorite Nymphs and Wet Flies: History, Tying Tips, and Fishing Strategies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWet Flies: Tying and Fishing Soft-Hackles, Flymphs, Winged Wets, and All-Fur Wet Flies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Outdoors For You
How to Survive Off the Grid: From Backyard Homesteads to Bunkers (and Everything in Between) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlive: The Story of the Andes Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Advanced Bushcraft: An Expert Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/552 Prepper Projects: A Project a Week to Help You Prepare for the Unpredictable Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bushcraft Illustrated: A Visual Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Survival Hacks: Over 200 Ways to Use Everyday Items for Wilderness Survival Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mind Gym: An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emergency Survival Manual: 294 Life-Saving Skills Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Outdoor Survival Guide: Survival Skills You Need Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Basis of the Motion Picture 127 Hours Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bushcraft First Aid: A Field Guide to Wilderness Emergency Care Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ultimate Bushcraft Survival Manual: 272 Wilderness Skills Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Field Guide to Knots: How to Identify, Tie, and Untie Over 80 Essential Knots for Outdoor Pursuits Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide: Emergency Preparedness for ANY Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pocket Guide to Essential Knots: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Most Important Knots for Everyone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How To Be Alone: an 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Foraging: The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Foraging Wild Edible Plants and Medicinal Herbs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUltimate Survival Hacks Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Survive Anything: From Animal Attacks to the End of the World (and Everything in Between) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bushcraft Field Guide to Trapping, Gathering, and Cooking in the Wild Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Guide to Forest Bathing (Expanded Edition): Experience the Healing Power of Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Total Outdoorsman Skills & Tools: 324 Tips Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Salmonfly
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Salmonfly - Skip Morris
illustrations.
Introduction
Here’s the proof you’re neither a poser nor a dabbler but a true fly fisher: you ache to fish the Salmonfly hatch. How could a true fly fisher resist huge fluttering insects crashing onto rivers to disappear down the dark caverns of big trout’s open jaws? Can’t be done. Impossible. (Impossible for me anyway—greetings fellow true fly fisher.)
Does trout-river fly fishing get more exciting than this? I doubt it. The Salmonfly is the biggest insect in most of the rivers it inhabits. And after a couple of years spent living as an armored-looking trout entrée under quick currents, it presents trout and fly fishers alike with a glorious gift: it sprouts wings and then flies and clambers around its home river, often tumbling into the water. Picture it: a huge helpless insect bobbing down the river, that stout body perhaps as long as the first two joints of your finger, begging even the largest trout to attack.
The snag lies in getting the timing right for the hatch and then doing the right things—a genuinely tricky proposition. You can spend days during a good hatch catching very little. Many fly fishers do. I have. Sure, it’s fun watching the big insects scamper around tree trunks and sail by on fluttering wings, but if that’s all you get, it’s small consolation when you came expecting mythical action on dry flies that remind you of chunky bass bugs. So you need a comprehensive plan of attack, complete with all the tricks and tactics that can shift the battle in your favor when the Salmonflies or the weather or the river or all three are on the defensive. This little book contains that plan.
I’ll even tell you when you should ignore those nearly irresistible giant bugs, because sometimes even at the peak of the Salmonfly hatch you’ll catch far more trout on a size 20 midge than a size 6 Stimulator—yes, knowing when to ignore the Salmonfly hatch is valuable knowledge.
I’ll tell you, too, all about another big stonefly that creates all kinds of great fishing right around Salmonfly time yet—remarkably!—remains little-known. But despite the Salmonfly’s caveats and catches, when those great insects are drifting by and the trout are all about grabbing them, you can live a fly fisher’s dream. So welcome, fellow true fly fisher, to that dream bug, the magnificent Salmonfly.
Let’s step around the legend to look at the Salmonfly in a clinical way: its form, habits, habitat—a brief introductory profile of the great insect. For you scientific-Latin fans, the Salmonfly is Pteronarcys californica .
Form: The Nymph
Length: 1 to almost 2½ inches, not including tails and antennae. Hook sizes for imitations: 8 to 2.
Body: the rear half, which is called the abdomen,
is a stout cylinder; the front half, the thorax,
continues at about the same thickness as the abdomen with three pointy shields up its back. (The first shield behind the head is just for show. The next two are wing pads
containing the immature wings.) Fly fishers typically call wing pads, or anything resembling them, wing cases.
Legs: six, chunkier than most aquatic-insect legs, but still slender.
Antennae: two, longish.
Tails: two, noticeably thicker than the antennae, and short.
Head: wide, though even including the eyes, not quite so wide as the thorax.
Gills: feathery and spread along the underside of the thorax and back a little under the abdomen.
Coloring: brown to black on top (usually blackish, in my experience). This coloring spreads over the back and sides of the insect from the tails to the antennae, with the legs, wing pads, abdomen, and thorax all a consistent dark color.
What Trout See. To both fly fisher and trout, a Salmonfly nymph looks the same (although you do need to see the brown or tan of the underside in the photo on the left to understand the whole effect). That’s because the creature is down in the trout’s submerged world—the trout gets a full 360-degree view.
A Salmonfly adult? That’s different. The fly fisher sees the insect from a top view or perhaps from the side—all dark coloring. A trout, however, sees the underside of the insect with that brushstroke of pinkish or reddish orange. The dark legs extending from the sides of the thorax are significant. But although edges of the wings and the antennae and tails are also visible, they play minor roles overall.
It always serves the fly fisher to understand how trout see an insect.
The underside is different; it’s usually a sort of tan or light brown through the abdomen and thorax, a bar of quiet colors up the belly of the beast. Gills are whitish or gray. Note that these colors vary somewhat from river to river, region to region.
Form: The Adult
Length: 1 to almost 2½ inches, not including tails, wings, and antennae. Hook sizes for imitations: 8 to 2.
Body: very similar body shape to the nymph, but with wings instead of wing cases.
Wings: four, but they look like two (almost one) when folded back at rest, lying down flat over the body.
Legs: six, like the nymph’s, and blackish.
Antennae: two, longish (like the nymph’s antennae)
Here’s how an adult Salmonfly looks from underwater after it’s spent enough time on the river for its abdomen to sink and its wings to lie against the water’s surface. For a while after hitting the water, a Salmonfly (or another big stonefly we’ll get to) floats higher than this, the underside of the insect’s body pressing on or just through and the legs piercing the water’s surface, the wings above it usually folded or flapping.
A trout sees the underside of a river’s surface almost as a mirror—so all he first sees of a floating insect is what penetrates that mirror. Within this broad ceiling that reflects the riverbed, a little window lies directly above a trout’s eyes. This is the trout’s only chance to see outside the water. A trout will typically see a big stone—or your fly—as just body and legs or, if the insect’s been awash for a while, he’ll see it largely submerged as in the photograph above—either way, the trout can view only the parts of the insect that touch or penetrate the water’s surface, up until the last moment before he takes it. This is why I prefer dry flies that rest their bodies down on the water rather than riding high on hackle points—the trout gets the best look at the fly this way, because there’s more to catch the trout’s eye, and the fly convincingly imitates the real stonefly’s posture on the river.
When the insect eventually drifts over the trout, every aspect of that fly both in and out of the water comes into plain view—but a trout normally decides whether or not it’s interested in some floating creature well before it floats right overhead. If you want your fly to look like a real Salmonfly when the trout’s making his decision, prefer a fly that settles its belly down on the water like just another stonefly, displaying its stout self below the water’s surface as an invitation. ARLEN THOMASON
Tails: two, noticeably thicker than the antennae and short (like the nymph’s tails).
Head: wide, though even including eyes, not quite so wide as the thorax (same as the nymph’s head).
Gills: just some remnants, and they’re no longer functional or noticeable.
Coloring: pretty much the same brown to black coloring as the nymph along the back and sides, and for the legs, tails, and antennae. The underside, however, is a pinkish or reddish orange—the color of some salmon flesh, for which the insect was named. There is normally a band of orange behind the head. The wings are brown. Just as it does with the nymph, coloring of the adult varies somewhat from river to river, region to region.
Life Cycle
Nearly all stoneflies, from the tiny black winter stone to the great Salmonfly and all the others between, live the life that follows with only minor variations.
A Salmonfly begins life as a fertilized egg, dropped on the water by a female adult Salmonfly. The egg settles down through the currents to the riverbed. Gradually this egg matures to a tiny nymph.