Opening Day

[Adam Grace]

I was lucky enough to have this morning off from work, so I headed out to a local trout stream.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/fishing/IMGP2111.jpg

I didn't catch a darn thing but I saw a lot of bugs emerging. I had a bunch of fun just taking pictures of them. There were a bunch of little yellow sallies, some fat weird stonelfies (that I couldn't identify) and some large grayish mayflies.

Here's a few pictures>

Grayish mayfly nymph, swimmer type. It almost looks like an Isonychia, but it's not.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/bugs/IMGP2092.jpg

The same grayish mayfly adult, sorry it's not closer, the sun was coming from the wrong direction.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/bugs/IMGP2106.jpg

A couple of little yellow sally (LYS) adults. Note the bright orange/pink marking on the second picture, very cool. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/bugs/IMGP2095.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/bugs/IMGP2107.jpg

A LYS drying it's wings shortly after emerging. Once again, the bright markings look awesome!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/bugs/IMGP2110.jpg

A LYS nymph.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/bugs/IMGP2097.jpg

That funky little stonefly emerging. Short and fat body, very strange.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/flyguyag/bugs/IMGP2101.jpg

How did your opening days go?

Hopefully you caught more fish than I did. :roll:

[Pimpinmeat]

Cool and interesting photos

[Rick J]

Adam - it is alot more than catching fish as your photos attest - what great photos!!!! I myself was gardening :( I couldn't very well take off after a week gone at Nicholas Dean!!

[chemdoc]

Hey Adam,

Bill was mentioning water temps on a post the other day. Did you happen to check the temps while you were out? I would like to head up your way to Deer Creek in May and was wondering how the temps were in that area.

Phil

[Mike Churchill]

Because I've been working a lot of hours lately, I did a casual/kid friendly opening day sharing a rod with my 7-year old daughter. We hit Cameron Park for some bass and bluegill around 11:30. In less than an hour and half of low intensity bank walking, we caught two bluegill and two largemouths and LDR'd several others. :)

Then we drove up the the Silver Fork of the American and spent about 45 minutes tromping around and tossing a Stimulator without effect. Water temperature up there was 48 degrees in the shallows around 2:30 and the air was around 75--which was a lot nicer than the 90+ at Cameron Park.

I sure wish I lived closer to Cameron Park: it is absolutely full of bass and they and the bluegill were feeding topwater starting around noon. I busted one off setting the hook on the second cast with a blue damsel that (briefly) felt like quite a bit of fish (bigger than 3 pounds) and my daughter LDR'd one that looked about 18" when it threw the fly while airborne. :shock: Lots of fish were still on nests along the banks and most of the many bass we saw were 13 inches and up. :evil:

It's good to have a fishing buddy, even if she's not yet four feet tall. :D

It should be even better after she and her 10-year old sister take a casting lesson with Jeff Putnam next weekend. :)

So how'd everybody else do?

[chemdoc]

How were the flows on the Silver Fork Mike? I was up there the first week of April and it was roaring. I was wondering how long it would be before the water slowed to a more fishable level.

Phil

[Adam Grace]

Phil, I didn't have a thermometer with me...but I was wet-wading and it was pretty darn cold. The trout seemed sluggish, no strikes on dries or nymphs, I tried many flies with no luck. I would guess the water at very high 40's or low 50's, my "boys" didn't care for the cold temps....:lol:

[Digger]

. I would guess the water at very high 40's or low 50's, my "boys" didn't care for the cold temps....:lol:

TMI buddy. :lol:

Great photos though.
Just guessing thatr mayfly is some type of speckled Callibaetis (duh).

[Adam Grace]

Digger, that was definitely not a callibaetis, it was a size #10 if not a #8!
They look just like a callibaetis though. I think it is more of what is called a Gray Drake, a large mayfly than a callibaetis., Callibaetis are more #14-#18 in size, plus they live in slow water, lakes mainly.

Does anyone have another guess about what this mayfly could be?

[jhaquett]

Hey Adam,

Was that Butte Creek you went to? I live in Chico as well and was just curious so I don't make the mistake of going there when its sluggish! 8)

[JT]

I got off of work at 8 AM on Saturday after working all night, so I didn't think it was a good idea to drive too far to fish. I decided to spend opening day on Putah Creek, landing a little over 10 fish. The biggest were 15", 17", and a pair of 18"ers.

Flies of the day were #20 midge pupal imitations, #18 micromays, and #16 caddis pupae (tan and olive). There were lots of caddis emerging throughout the day. They ranged in size from about #10-20. Colors varied from gray with gray wings, olive with gray wings, tan with tan wings, brown with tan wings, and almost black with brown wings. There were a bunch of mayfly spinners (light olive to mahogany) and tons of midges (mostly black).

The flows have been pretty stable at about 300 cfs for the past week, so the fishing has picked up again. But nobody knows how long the flows will remain stable.

[Mike Churchill]

Phil,

The flows were a little swift but definitely in the fishable range: it looked more like last July than last year's opener, when it was 39 degree raging whitewater... :shock:

Mike

[chemdoc]

Thanks Mike,

Last year is was still pretty high even in June, so this will definitely be an earlier season. Maybe with a few more degrees in water temp we will get some dry fly action.

Phil

[Adam Grace]

jhaquett, yes it was Butte Creek. It was definitely sluggish for me, I couldn't buy a fish.......but the bug activity/emergence was crazy!

If you go bring these flies, I wish that I had some of these flies with me:

Golden stone nymphs #10 & 14, if you tie them tie a skinny version, like the nymph in the picture
Little yellow sally adults #10 & 14 there are 2 sizes of them out there
Adams or Parachute Adams #10 or even an #8 , they're big mayflies
Pheasant tail nymphs, #8-10 and #14-16, the smaller sizes can represent some of those fat chubby stones, the sallies or just an ambiguous insect.
Foam Ants #10-#14 - there are some huge carpenter ants out there

I would wait for a little while, unless you like entomology. I want to get back out there to take more pictures and to study the bugs some more.


Tristan, I think you are right about it being an Ameletus. It is difficult to know without going all sciency and technical. It is safe to say that they are big mayflies. I just looked up the Ameletus in my book, "Hatch Guide for Western Streams" and the nymph looks practically identical. I also looked at the siphlonurus but the nymph looks different. The description about the hatch and where they are found makes me believe that they were Ameletus. Good Call

[bigtj]

I would go with the ameletus, too, for the nymph. That mayfly dun I'd like to know the size of the body, it looks a little march-brownish although the size is tough so I can't be sure. The ameletus is a slam-dunk as they have a very distinct banding on the tail that I can see in the picture. I have a guide called Aquatic Insect of North America which is great for keying out these instects. It also helps to put them in a white dish and photgraph them with a mm ruler for scale, if ID'ing them is your "thing". But, given time of year and size of insects I'd say ameletus is a good bet. By the way the duns are not very important at all since the swimmers emerge on land. It's only the nymphs that are of much consequence to the angler.

One of the best ways to imitate the ameletus is with the classic downstream swing. Fish it with a floating line, a 9' leader, and a #12 hare's ear, tied with medium tan hare's ear dubbing and add a wing of the dark fur that's right on the ear, and tie the tail out of that, too. You can add a few legs of partride but it's not necessar. Put a #4 or # 1 split shot about a foot in front of the fly and cast it out in the river and let it sink behind rocks and in current seams. Give the rod tip a jiggle or two as it swings into the river bank. Just keep working your way down river and covering likely water. The take is, shall we say, VERY noticeable....the trout don't want those swimmers to get away so they absolutely crush the fly. This is one of my best early-season tactics as the ameletus are reasonable important/prevelant on a number of local streams in April and May. In high-water years they come off in dirty water but in low water years like this they can be a big deal.

As far as how my opener went, I posted soemthing in the "trout" section of the forum. It was great to be over on the McCloud for such nice weather and good times.

[Adam Grace]

Thanks for the post bigtj!

[Dave Neal]

Adam-

Sweet pics!!!! I especially like the last one; it's really cool how you got the wings before they unfolded.

There is definetely something to be said for days of fishin' and it's not just the fish that your fishin' for...

[bigtj]

Adam,

You're welcome! I was giving those mayfly pictures some more thought and wanted to pass some info along. Here is a link to some good ameletus pictures:

http://www.troutnut.com/specimen/451

The pics clearly show that your picture is of an ameletus. They vary locally in color, yours was darker probably because it was about to emerge.

I looked up the dun...I'm 99% sure now it's a march brown (Rhithrogena morrisoni). Here is a link to an identifying photo:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~dmason/Mckenzie/bugs/rithrogena.html

Don't worry about the color too much, that varies locally, pay attention to the head geometry, # of tails, #/size of body sections, and the legs. The head looks right, number of tails, size, and color look pretty good, too. The wing pattern looks right, too. See the two little stubby antenna on the head sticking up? Those are right. There is a hump in front of the wings that is clearly visible in both the identifying picture and the one you took. Also, the front legs don't look like the picture of the male but they sure look like the ones on the female. By the way it for sure is a female. You can tell by the lack of "grappling hooks" on the very back of the abdomen (see the link for this tidbit). So, I'd defer to someone with more knowledge, but that fly looks very much like a march brown to me.

Thanks for the great pics and for giving me some motivation to continue to increase my own bug knowledge. It's always a fun puzzle to figure out what kind of bugs are hatching.

Best,

-John