Mayfly Hatch Shows Up on Radar in Minnesota

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/n...r-july-23-2010

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Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

On Jul 27, 10:23*am, rw wrote:
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/n...y-hatch-nws-ra...



A pity they didn't identify the bug(s). The usual suspect for showing
up on radar in this part of the world is Hexagenia limbata, but the
hex hatch is mostly a June phenomenon.....usually.....albeit there is
often a secondary hatch in August in some places. In any case, that's
the bug that famously gets fire-hosed or snow-plowed off the bridges,
streets and parking lots. It's also the one that brings confirmed
bottom feeders like carp, suckers and sturgeon (as well as pretty much
everybody else) up to feed on dries.


Fishing this hatch is one of the more interesting experiences to be
had in fly fishing.

giles.

On Jul 27, 11:23*pm, rw wrote:
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/n...y-hatch-nws-ra...

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Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

LOL, Imagine how many flyfishermen between Wisconsin and Ohio were
simultaneously saying "Whow! What a great hatch!" and thinking they
were lucky because it was local.

-riverman

"Giles" wrote in message
...
On Jul 27, 10:23 am, rw wrote:
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/n...y-hatch-nws-ra...



A pity they didn't identify the bug(s). The usual suspect for showing
up on radar in this part of the world is Hexagenia limbata, but the
hex hatch is mostly a June phenomenon.....usually.....albeit there is
often a secondary hatch in August in some places. In any case, that's
the bug that famously gets fire-hosed or snow-plowed off the bridges,
streets and parking lots. It's also the one that brings confirmed
bottom feeders like carp, suckers and sturgeon (as well as pretty much
everybody else) up to feed on dries.


Fishing this hatch is one of the more interesting experiences to be
had in fly fishing.

giles.

Sturgeon feeding on dry flies? Seriously?

I have caught several over the years, however never in my wildest dreams
would I think of catching one on a dry fly...
My Father and I have always used smelt right on the bottom... While fishing
for them as a kid below Bonneville Dam, late night, early morning when it
was dark you could see (in the moon light ) and hear them jumping. I always
thought they were just jumping to jump, maybe they were feeding on
something??

JT

On Jul 28, 10:32*am, "JT" wrote:


Sturgeon feeding on dry flies? Seriously?

Never seen it myself. Never even seen a live sturgeon in the wild,
for that matter. But I've heard reports from what I consider to be
reliable witnesses.

I have caught several over the years, however never in my wildest dreams
would I think of catching one on a dry fly...
My Father and I have always used smelt right on the bottom... While fishing
for them as a kid below Bonneville Dam, late night, early morning when it
was dark you could see (in the moon light ) and hear them jumping. I always
thought they were just jumping to jump, maybe they were feeding on
something??

Might not actually be feeding on "dry" flies. Could be they're just
chasing the emergers up the water column. I don't know. In any case,
serious bottom huggers like sturgeon or suckers jumping just for the
sheer joy of it seems to me at least as weird as chasing bugs at or
very near the surface.

There was a time, early in my fly-fishing career, when I was so
fixated on catching fish.....ANY fish, that I pursued suckers with as
much vigor and enthusiasm as trout and bluegills. During their
spawning runs up the creeks in the spring, I used to see pods of
twenty or more holding in runs at the bottom of riffles. And these
were BIG fish.....vastly larger than the puny trout I was accustomed
to. Some of them probably ran close to ten pounds.

I flogged them with everything in my not inconsiderable
arsenal......wets, dries, nymphs, streamers,
terrestrials.....everything in the book. Never got a single taker.
Never even snagged one.

In the ensuing years I've heard a good deal about people fly-fishing,
successfully, for carp. I've never managed to do that either.
Interestingly though, I've heard nothing that I can recall about
anyone actually catching suckers (or sturgeon, for that matter) on
flies.* I'd be interested in hearing or reading more about it.

giles
*bait is another matter. LOTS of people around here will fish for
suckers and carp (no sturgeon to be caught legally in southeast
curdistan.....though there has been some encouraging news about
restocking them in the milwaukee river in recent years) and a good
few, mostly recent immigrants from southeast asia, who relish them at
the table. well, caught from clean water they make good enough table
fare.....but the very few experiences i've had with the local produce
suggests that one might just as well stick to the reeking,
pestilential, rotting chemical time bomb salmonids that swim up the
local sewers in their futile annual efforts to spawn.

On Jul 28, 8:04*am, riverman wrote:
On Jul 27, 11:23*pm, rw wrote:

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/n...y-hatch-nws-ra...

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

LOL, Imagine how many flyfishermen between Wisconsin and Ohio were
simultaneously saying "Whow! What a great hatch!" and thinking they
were lucky because it was local.

-riverman

An amusing visual that I suspect not too many locals actually fall
prey to. A "hatch" as the term is used in fly-fishing is a concept
that takes a bit of enculturation to absorb. Where I grew up, in a
fly-fishing sense, the "hex" and the "mother's day caddis"* were THE
hatches that defined the term. Since both (like most hatches) are
temporally restricted, most nascent fly fishers in the region are
likely to hear a great deal about them before actually experiencing
either. Where the hatches are huge (as demonstrated by the radar
images at the start of this thread) most people are at least dimly
aware of their extent even if they have never heard of fly-fishing.

giles
*when's the last time you had a hundred or more.....maybe SEVERAL
hundred....bugs crawling all over you (inside your shirt, inside your
waders, under your hat, on your glasses, in your ears) while you were
watching several million more in the air, millions more swirling in
eddies on the stream, millions more still awaiting emergence on the
bottom, and many millions more on every surface in sight, and
thought....."wow, THIS is cool!"?

"Giles" wrote in message
...
*when's the last time you had a hundred or more.....maybe SEVERAL
hundred....bugs crawling all over you (inside your shirt, inside your
waders, under your hat, on your glasses, in your ears) while you were
watching several million more in the air, millions more swirling in
eddies on the stream, millions more still awaiting emergence on the
bottom, and many millions more on every surface in sight, and
thought....."wow, THIS is cool!"?

I believe it was May 25, Stan's Pool, Penn's Creek.

Tom

On Jul 28, 6:51*pm, Giles wrote:
snip

In the ensuing years I've heard a good deal about people fly-fishing,
successfully, for carp. *I've never managed to do that either.
Interestingly though, I've heard nothing that I can recall about
anyone actually catching suckers (or sturgeon, for that matter) on
flies.* *I'd be interested in hearing or reading more about it.

giles
snip
I used to flyfish for winter steelhead (PNW) - using either heavily
weighted maribou or leech type patterns or unweighted standard
steelhead patterns with a fast sinking tip line and short leader. It
was not at all uncommon to hook 1-3 suckers - in the mouth - on each
trip. They were generally in the 3-5# range, but the adrenaline rush
of feeling a decent fish on the end of the line was always followed by
the disappointment of a very sluggish fight.

Bob Weinberger

On Jul 31, 3:27*am, Bob wrote:


I used to flyfish for winter steelhead (PNW) - using either heavily
weighted maribou or leech type patterns or unweighted standard
steelhead patterns with a fast sinking tip line and short leader. It
was not at all uncommon to hook 1-3 suckers - in the mouth - on each
trip.

Not to disparage your angling skills, Bob, but in the absence of
testimony to the contrary one must suppose that if you caught suckers
frequently then others must have done so as well. Makes me wonder why
so few have reported their successes.

They were generally in the 3-5# range, but the adrenaline rush
of feeling a decent fish on the end of the line was always followed by
the disappointment of a very sluggish fight.

Ah, perhaps the answer to my question lies therein. Maybe others have
managed to find a way to avoid catching them and yet maintain a sense
of decorum and modesty sufficient to refrain from gloating!

Unfortunately, neither scenario does me much personal good as I cannot
honestly claim membership in either camp.

In any case, thanks for the report. I know that many people actively
pursue suckers, as they do carp, and that they then frequently pickle
or smoke them for consumption. I've tried both and found the results
satisfactory. The sluggishness you mention undoubtedly explains why
suckers, unlike carp, don't appear to be targeted for "sport"
fishing. Still, if catching them on flies of one sort or another is
effective (as it is with at least some other food
fishes.....bluegills, my own personal favorite, come readily to mind)
I wonder why so few meat fishers appear to rely heavily on fly
fishing.

giles.

Bob Weinberger