Sulphur
Season Most fly fishers, most of the time, do not wind up fishing over significant hatches. We often have to use attractor or generalist fly patterns to try to tempt fish that are feeding opportunistically rather than selectively, or maybe not actively feeding at all. Or when the fish are actively feeding there may be a number of different flies on the water simultaneously. It can be maddening trying to discover the insect of the moment and the correct live cycle stage that one’s fly should be imitating. And the fish sometimes act like couch potatoes with a remote control, constantly changing channels. You try one fly after another until you finally catch a trout and think you’ve got the problem solved. Then the trout switch to something else and you have to start the whole process over again. I’ve had the opportunity to meet a good many hatches over the years, some of them memorable. A lot of those wonderful days came to me more or less by accident. It comes from just spending a lot of time on stream during prime time for hatches. Hopefully you’re prepared with the right flies, but sometimes you’re not. That’s why a lot of us carry more and more flies as time goes on. Every time we get caught with our flies down we add a few more patterns to the selection we carry in case we encounter a similar situation in the future. Sometimes that strategy pays off, other times it just makes our vest a little heavier. Some insects are more reliable than others, and of course these provide the greatest number of fond memories and become our favorites. There isn’t much contest as to my personal favorite mayfly, the hatch that has provided me with the greatest quantity and quality of “meetings.” That would be the Sulphur group. The time to be out looking for Sulphurs is approximately from mid-May through mid-June. They can start as much as two weeks earlier if the water is low and warm, or as much as two weeks later if it’s high and cold. The best time of day is the last three hours or so of daylight. I usually start by fishing nymph patterns, if there’s no surface activity. Then I’ll shift to emergers and duns once the fish start to show. Spinners often produce best at the end of the day, but I sometimes stick with the dun pattern if the fish will accept it, since the upright wing is much more visible in the fading light. On overcast days the duns can dribble off all day long and the fish will take them. But activity usually increases progressively as the light diminishes, and sometimes the most frantic feeding occurs just at the time when you can no longer see your fly on the water. There are a number of different insect species in the Sulphur group. I try to avoid entomological Latin these days, since I can’t seem to keep up with the ever more frequent taxonomic changes. Remember that the trout also don’t know the Latin names of the insects, or even the common names for that matter. In some cases it can be helpful to know the species name of the insect you’re dealing with, mainly so that you can research its hatching behavior. But it’s often sufficient to get a “ballpark” match of the size and color of the insects on the water when imitating mayfly hatches and in my experience that is usually the case with Sulphurs. I can only recall one occasion on which I was thoroughly skunked during a Sulphur hatch. I was fishing a riffle on Valley Creek on a lovely May evening as darkness approached. There must have been twenty trout actively feeding a short cast in front of me, and I could not buy a strike. I’d taken care to have my leader and presentation right, and made numerous fly changes, but utterly failed to solve the problem of the evening. Once the Sulphurs start their annual emergence, you’ll see a number of different colors ranging from a pale cream, almost white, through various shades of yellow sometimes with a bit of tan or orange. The earliest forms tend to be the largest, around a size 14. As the season wears on, they generally get smaller and smaller, finishing up at a size 18 to 20. I’ve seen as many as six visibly different forms on the water simultaneously, and I’ve rarely seen the fish too selective to respond favorably to a number of different patterns. I often fish a simple hackle dry fly with cream hackle and tails and a pale yellow body, most often in a size 16. This fly is very reliable during Sulphur hatches, but I do carry a number of other “change-up” patterns for those times when it fails to produce. If you are able to do it, spend as many evenings as possible this spring on streams with good Sulphur hatches. If you’re lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, it’s an experience you won’t forget. I’m happy to be hosting the Sulphur Series for the DVWFFA again this spring. I’m also hosting the Lehigh float trip and have chosen a date that has a good chance for Sulphurs. Join me if you can. |