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| Streamer Eater |
I took some time to swing flies on the Yuba and was lucky enough to hook and land two beautiful rainbows. While flipping over a few rocks I found a fat juicy short-wing stonefly.
Although I’ve never fished this hatch before the huge number of shucks along the banks have convinced me to start trying.
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| Stub-Wing Stonefly |
What's your setup for fishing streamers out there. Floating line? Sink tip?
I like to use a 10ft 7ips versileader with a 2 – 3ft 10# mono leader on my switch rod. I use the same set-up when stripping streamers as well.
I tried to follow you up today. I fished from Highway 20 bridge down a ways swinging black streamer pattern on same versileader….Not even a nibble 🙂 I saw 2 fish jump out of the water. I was wondering if they were chasing dries. What do you think? Two drift boats and canoe went by – all nymphing and no luck for them either. Saw a dead salmon in stream bed that was about 2' long.
There are quite a few short-winged stoneflies along the banks right now so the fish could be keying on them. The adults can't fly so they skitter on the surface to lay their eggs. The next time I go out I'm going to try and throw a big dry like a size 4 Chubby Chernobyl to see if I can get a fish to rise. This hatch coincides with hopper season too which might help keep the fish looking up.
As for swinging I've never had a lot of luck fishing dark or bright patterns in our Valley rivers. The situation might change depending on the water color but gin clear usually points me to more natural colored patterns like olive and brown. A good commercial pattern is the Sculpzilla. Be sure to cover a lot of water too.
Salmon = egg bite!
Just to clarify, stub wing stonefly females have wings, yet crawl out on the water oviposit. Males have the signature short wings and are unable to fly. Great post, thanks for sharing!
Interesting. Both fish I saw jump were about 3-4' from the shoreline. Perhaps they were chasing stoneflies on the water, but I didn't see and of them out there.
I did see a ton of grasshoppers walking to and from the river for sure though.
They're only active during dusk and hide under rocks during the day. Try lifting rocks along the bank if you get the chance. These stoneflies look like big ol cockroaches.