Fish Rise But Ignore Your Dries? A Solution Emerges

Thanks to our friends at Flyshack.com

You arrive at the water's edge, scan the surface of the pool before you and see the sight you've been looking forward to all week, or maybe all winter: spreading concentric rings, unmistakable evidence of trout feeding at the surface.

You see the newly hatched mayflies sitting on the river, floating slowly downstream as they make ready to take flight. You expected them to be here and came prepared with the dry fly patterns that imitate them perfectly.

You spot a riser within range, ascertain its rhythm, then cast and gently drop your fly where it will drift directly over the feeding trout. But no fish breaks the mirror-like surface to take the fly - on this drift, or the next or the next. Frustration and bewilderment begin to rise as your fly is ignored while the rises continue all around it.

Welcome to the fascinating but sometimes maddening world of emergers - mayflies, caddis flies or midges struggling in or just below the surface film to break out of their nymph shucks, unfold their wings and legs and start their new lives as winged insects.

There's no more vulnerable stage of an aquatic insect's life. A nymph or pupa swimming to the surface has at least some mobility; some nymphs, in fact, are very good swimmers. After metamorphosing into a winged insect, the fly can take flight and leave the stream altogether (although its problem then becomes birds and bats.) But in the stage in between nymph/pupa and winged fly, bugs are obviously helpless, unable to flee and therefore highly attractive prey for trout.

The good news is that many great patterns have been developed to imitate emergers, so when your dry flies aren't getting the job done, you have lots of options.

Soft-hackle and winged wet flies have been used to catch trout in Europe and Asia for centuries. The people who tied them may not have thought of these patterns as emergers, but that's probably what trout took them for. They still work today. Such patterns as the Leadwing Coachman, Light Cahill Wet, Blue Dun, Black Gnat or Partridge and Green hang in or near the surface film and give the impression of a newly released wing and a bunch of legs, tails and antennae waving and wiggling. Select a fly about the size and color of the adult insects you see on the water, and you stand a good chance of hooking up. But be open-minded about color. Many light-colored mayflies have dark brown bodies as nymphs, and that nymphal shuck may be what the trout have come to expect their lunch to look like. A wet fly with a body of peacock herl or pheasant tail can be a dead ringer for a fly that's yet to shed its shuck.

Modern anglers have devised emergers to meet their needs on the stream. The late Gary LaFontaine's Sparkle Pupa has fooled countless trout, with its veil of trilobal Antron yarn suggesting the bubble of gases found on caddis pupa headed for the surface. The RS2 is a simple mayfly emerger pattern that was developed for the fussy, hard-fished trout of Colorado. The Klinkhamer special is a sort of half-wet, half-dry fly - its rear end hangs in the water like the abdomen of an emerger, while its parachute hackle sits flat on the surface and its wing sticks up in the air.

These and many other emerger patterns are worth a try when trout are feeding at the surface but uninterested in dry flies. But if you're still not getting strikes, try a floating or shallow-sinking nymph. Standard patterns such as the Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear or Pheasant Tail can be as effective at the surface as they are down deep. Naturally, you'll want to have a few without bead heads or other added weight for this kind of work.

Remember that trout are facing upstream watching for emergers that come drifting to them with the current. You should strive for a natural dead-drift, just as you would with a dry fly or nymph. But you should also feel free to fish your wet or damp emerger pattern downstream on the swing. This technique fooled lots of large, wild browns in Izaak Walton's England. It just goes to show that while the trout make the rules, they don't always obey them.