Egg flies

[catchm]

From my observations, brown trout eggs when fresh are a caramel/yellow color as tod says, but they are only about 3mm in size. Salmon eggs are approx 5mm and an almost transluscent pale pink when fresh. The salmon eggs become more of a white/washed out color the longer they're in the water. I noticed quite a few eggs this color on the bottom of the Salmon River last week. I dye white 5mm craft store (Michael's, AC Moore, etc) pompoms with orange RIT dye. Over the past few weeks, pale to creamy colored eggs have been working very well, since they seem to match the "hatch". Blue samon eggs only come from blue salmon.....

[tod]

Catchm when I worked at the Powder Mill Hatchery (Pittsford NY 1993-95) the trout eggs that we would fertilize varied from 2.5mm to 6mm. The smaller ones had significantly lower survival rates than the larger ones and 1 female would have eggs of varing sizes at time of ripeness. Eggs in skien are not fully ripe and still growing. As a fly to imitate eggs I always choose the biggest size with in the range in order for it too stand out to the fish. Eggs have the highest nutrient per size ratio of any food source. You are forrect that the majority of eggs dropped are around 2.5 to 3mm but the same female will also drop eggs up to and including 5-6mm

[Davyfly]

For the most part trout take egg flies due to the attraction, granted they may well be taking natural eggs at times, even so they are only available for a very short period of time, further most egg flies do not represent color wise natural eggs, therefore they are attractors.

DW

[catchm]

tod, thanks for the clarification. In terms of the actual size and color of trout/salmon eggs, I'm not sure that spending a lot of time "matching the hatch" is all that necessary. I've caught steelhead on 3-10mm egg patterns in blue, purple, chartreuse, pink, yellow, orange, and red with and without dots, as well as sucker spawn in various sizes and colors. Often there doesn't seem as if there's much rhyme or reason why they take chartreuse egg with a red dot as opposed to something that looks more natural. As Davy mentions, they're attractors. I try my best to properly present my egg flies and change up colors/patterns if I don't get a take and sometimes the fish are not on the bite, like when the water temp drops suddenly from snow melt run-off.