Trico pattern
#20 female trico pattern
#20 male trico pattern
#16 double trico pattern
All ready to go!!
I found some time to sit down at the vise and tie a few of my most successful trico patterns. They could be considered more of an emerger pattern than an adult/dun pattern, but I have found great success using them throughout the hatch. The spinner fall, however, is a different story, and you may need a downed winged spinner pattern to better match the naturals. But when I get the chance to get on the stream, which is more often than not a good bit before the sun rises, I usually find a hatch already in progress. And in that time, when the light is low, you can often see the female duns emerging and/or floating downstream. And if you watch long enough, you will see them disappear from the surface as the trout feed. It is in this time that I go to the pattern I have sown you here. It is easy to tie and can be modified to fit the many different materials you may already have.
So here it goes
Hook - #18-#26 standard dry fly hook (with #20-#22 being the most successful)
Thread – black 8/0 or 70 denier
Tail – white or cream hackle barbs (you can use micro fibers or even paint brush fibers)
Abdomen – super fine dubbing (black for the males/PMD for the females)
Wing – light dun snow shoe rabbits foot fibers (you can use z-lon, poly yarn, or very thin packing foam)
Thorax – black super fine tied in thick just like the natural
Head – black tying thread
I have also included a photo of a double winged pattern ( #16 dry fly hook) that represents two flies that would rest very close together on the water during the peak of the hatch and/or spinner fall. And again you can modify this pattern very easily to accommodate the materials you have at home. So if you don’t want to try the small stuff just yet, give this a try. It would also be a good idea to have a few Griffith’s gnats in sizes #18-#22. This pattern was designed to look like a small cluster of midges, but it will also work in the same manner during the trico hatch.
I fish these patterns on a long leader. I start with a standard 9 foot tapered leader down to 5x and then add about two feet of 6x to that. If I am having trouble getting fish to take, I may add another foot or two of 7x, but I rarely have to do this. Another good thing to do is approach fish very carefully. Moving slowly when wading is critical, and if you can stay out of the water...even better! Casting down to fish is preferable, as the fish will see the fly first, and not your fly line. And if you can't do that, try to get into a position where you can cast accross to fish. Casting up to fish should be a last resort, unless you are fishing over broken water.
I enjoy using a lighter fly rod for this kind of fishing because they tend to handle the light line, flies, and tippet much better than the standard 5 weight fly rods. My rods of choice would be a 4 weight for bigger streams and longer casts, and then a 3 or a 2 weight for smaller streams where shorter casts are necessary.
I hope you all can get out there for the trico hatch. It is one of the biggest mayfly hatches of the year, even though they are one of the smallest of all the mayfly species.
