On Jun 27, 9:13*pm, Frank Reid wrote:
Okay. *The actual behaivior is that the mayflies hatch (most at the
surface) from the nymph, become the "dun" and fly away. *This is the
behaivior you described with the bug coming to the surface in a
bubble. * *Later the spinners, or egg laying adults drop onto the
water and release their eggs into the water, often, they just stay on
the water and die. *They then slip beneath the surface film.
So, with these two situations, you'll have 4 major feeding actions and
their tale signs.
The first is when the mayflies are hatching from the nymph. *The
mayfly shoots to the surface and tries to fly away as quickly as
possible. *The trout will rocket to the surface in pursuit. *This
makes a big splashy rise as the fish feed on the emergers.
When the dun hatches out at the surface, sometimes, due to damp
weather or wind, the dun will get stuck on the surface. *The rise on
this one is the fish half heartedly chasing the bug to the surface and
then realizing it can just sit at the surface and munch. *Not really
splashy, but a very determined rise.
The third one is with the spinners hitting the surface, before they
drop below the film. *The fish will porpoise and sip the bugs off the
surface. *Normally very gentle.
The final one is then spinners that have slipped below the surface.
This one you may miss. *If you see the spinners dropping onto the
water, use a spinner pattern with splayed out wings as a sub-surface
fly. *Fish it like a nymph. *You'll nail tons of fish.
Frank Reid

Speaking of spinner falls......

Last night Becky and I watched what is some of the most spectacular
(and perhaps the earliest) film footage I have ever seen of a monster
hatch. The bugs looked ever so much like our own local giants, the
hex. And as is true of the hex hatch here, just about everything that
can find a way will take advantage of the windfall by gorging to
capacity. Sometime in the 60's David Attenborough accompanied a
representative of one colonial government or another on an extended
trek through uncharted territory in New Guinea (in the usual effort to
bring enlightement, etc., to the poor natives). In the morning, when
the dead and dying bugs eddied by the tens of millions in the
backwaters near the shore where the village was located, the
inhabitants came down to the water with bowls or baskets or canoes and
filled them as fast as they could.....which was not as fast as one
might expect because they stuffed the bugs in their mouths faster than
they did in the containers.....much as Becky and I will do with
mulberries here in another day or two.

g.
who, reflecting on a recent thread about the strangest things people
have caught on flies, wonders if anyone here has ever fished in new
guinea.