Early Black Stonefly

[alanb_ct]

It's almost that time! These are size 18. It's really hard (for me) to make the tails shorter than this, but I believe they are the key trigger feature of this fly.

[fishingfred]

Great fly Alan, I spend a large percentage of my time fishing with one type of stonefly on my line through out the year. Those look a lot like the pattern I tie myself from 8-18 and I think the boit tails are an important part in the way that stonefly works. Killer on most rivers I fished this year.

[nutman]

I would fish those starting mid febuary they seem to hatch just about then . They do seem to come by the millions when they do ,I might even go smaller . After they hatch the trout seem to be full ,so i would fish them early cause they will be active soon .It would be good to note the tempature of the water when they are hatching ,it might give you an idea when to fish for them .Id also fish them just off the bottom ,sink tip or heavy weight .

[alanb_ct]

Forget what I said, with some careful manipulation, I can tie the biot tails really short. I also did a little macro photography for you.




Another tip: the camera offers up detail your eyes can't see. I usually don't fuss, but when you run into trouble, the little details can help you. In the above for example, you can see that I was able to mount the biots on either side of the hook by putting a short thread base beneath them. The thread base is visible under the biot. You can also see how thick the black collar behind the bead becomes. This is due to the thin skin tab, after you stretch and cut it off. The benefit of this is that you get a continuous diameter thorax, right up to the bead.

By the way, here's the whole pattern:
Hook: TMC 100SPBL size 18
Body: Black UTC 70, tied with slight taper
Tails: Black goose biots
Rib: XS silver wire
Thorax: Davy Wotton Stillwater Master Class SLMC 16 Black Midge Pupa
Wingcase: Brown Thin Skin slightly less than hook gap
Bead: 5/64in black tungsten

Tight lines to all. In less than a month, these critters should be crawling all over the snow on a river near you. If you wait for a sunny afternoon, you will see more!

[Kaz]

Very nice tie. Just checked the journal and fished the Savage three times late Feb, 1st week of March and these guys were all over the Rocks. Did much better on a pattern similar to the one above than one with rubber legs. Over the years, have not seen risers to this hatch on either the Savage or other streams, but the nymph is a good producer.

[alanb_ct]

Kaz: that matches my experience in CT time-wise. I confess that I have never seen any quantity of the adults on the surface. I believe most of them crawl to the shore to emerge on the rocks and walk around in the snow near shore. For years, I sort of discounted this hatch as not important, until a few years ago. I read about its importance in Maryland from Charlie Gelso and started experimenting with Charlie's Nymph (Feb. 2008 FOTM). On two occasions late year, once on the Farmington and once on a local wild brown trout stream, I did well with these flies. I believe the key is to make them dark and slender.

[Nymphmeister]

I like that pattern and probably need to give it some good time on my line. My personal experience over the years on medium to large rivers like the Housy & Farmington is that I haven't had much success at all with imitations of any of the Early Stones, be they the Tiny Blacks or the Early Brown or Black. Whenever I pair them up with another Winter or early season pattern such as a bigger Golden Stone, egg pattern, Hare's Ear, Caddis larva, etc., my "standby" pattern virtually always catches the fish.

Aaron & I talked about this, and his experiences were similar. His theory is that in the Winter on bigger rivers & streams, the trout hold in the deeper pool water far enough away from the banks that they don't see many of the little stones (they migrate in by the shoreline shallows to crawl out at hatch time). Whereas in smaller streams the trout's holding lies are much closer to the banks in the Winter (due to the much smaller stream size) and they are exposed to large numbers of the nymphs when they migrate shoreward & hatch. I don't really fish small streams in the Winter, but I hear the smaller stones ARE effective there.

That's my 2 cents.

[nutman]

alanb , if you want to tie them shorter ,start at the head of the fly ,make a loop and adjust the tails to where you want them .Ive had very similar experiences with these flies .I think Aaron might be right and The is why I said fish them close to the bottom .I also think they emerge at night ,i cant be sure though .This isnt a strong fish catching hatch .I do feel that the trout key on the nymph .Ive never seen them hit these as drys even though i have a pattern for drys. Being a winter fishing nut you see this hatch and you are like te trout must be feeding on those .Ive often woundered why you never see them thick on the surface .though if you fish a griffiths gnat at that time of year on a sunny day I always catch trout ,though i never see the little black buggers landing on the water .maybe they just crawl back into the water and lay their eggs .

[Soft-hackle]

Black Stone Flymph

This is one that works for me. I've had success fishing it many ways when the early Black Stone Flies are around. I usually don't notice them coming off the water till March where I am. The trout don't really seem keyed in on them unless the water depth and coloration is right.

Mark

[AaronJasper]

Alain,

Those pictures are really good. The lens of the camera picks up every little detail. Those pictures of the fly look better than many that I have seen in books.

Soft-hackle,

That flymph would work well fished close to the banks in the slack water when there is a heavy migration of stonefly nymphs during a hatch. Would you fish that pattern with a hand twist retrieve or would you fish it tight line?