As I stood beside the stream rigging my fly rod, I could hardly believe my eyes. The streams was very cold and there were still spots of snow along the bank. I thought I saw several trout feeding on the surface in a small bay upstream of a log jam. It wasn’t until I saw several little black stoneflies (adult) resting on the snow banks that I realized what was happening. There were enough adult little black stoneflies drifting on the slow pockets on the stream to prompt the trout to feed.
Fishing the Little Black Stonefly
I put a Murray’s Little Dark Stonefly Dry size 18 on my 9ft 6X leader and crawled over to within casting distance of the rising trout. The gradient was low and the pool was so flat that I was afraid my approach would scare the trout. I paused there and watched the pool for five minutes. They kept feeding so I made a slack line puddle cast, dropping my stonefly two feet upstream of the trout. He took it with a delicate dimple riseform indicating it looked to him like the natural stonefly. His fighting commotion put the other closeby trout down so I eased my way upstream looking for other feeding trout.
A very slow back eddy the size of a SUV had several trout sipping in the natural little black stoneflies. This eddy was on my side of the stream and it presented a demanding problem. All of the trout were feeding in the upper part of the pool in a lazy Susan current as the flow of the stream pushed the flies upstream. They were actually facing downstream toward me. Not only would they have a chance of seeing me as I cast to them, but, worse getting a natural drag free fly drift to them would be difficult. I figured I would only be able to get one cast to them. I got lucky. A puddle drag free cast placed enough slack leader on the pool that the closest trout took my fly before drag set in.
A corner feeding station a foot in diameter 50 feet upstream had several dry stonefly feeders. The feeding areas was perfectly flat with hardly any current. However, the currents which circled the feeding station were very fast, presenting a drag problem with an artificial fly. A pendulum cast, permitting the fly with only 3 or 4 inches of tippet to touch the stream did catch one of these trout.
These stoneflies are not always hatching in the winter but when they are on they present exciting fishing.