This Bug’s Life

Photo credit: Treven Kuhn (paflyguy_tkuhn87 at Instagram)

What is going on with the fishing at this time? Or more to the point, what’s going on with the trout fishing and where are all the bugs (and in this case, we are not talking about black flies and mosquitoes)? Based on what I’ve been hearing through the angler network, it seems like trout waters have gone to sleep – we’re not seeing caddis and mayfly hatches where we’d expect to at this time of year. 

Now, I know people reading this may be all over the country but this has been our experience here in the northeast where I do most of my fishing. And it’s because we have been experiencing a colder than normal month of May. In fact, we’ve experienced a handful of frosty morning rlier in the month which is highly usual for this time year.  

So, the short answer is we are experiencing cooler than normal water temperatures.  These cool water temperatures have definitely slowed down the hatches. Keep in mind that lifecycle of bugs is based on temperature - just because the calendar or experience says these hatches should be happening at this time of the year does not mean the bugs will oblige. The bugs are just like a field of corn. They need what we refer to as degree hours to mature. So basically, everything is running 1 to 2 weeks behind at this moment. Not totally unusual, and if the weather patterns change, things will catch up very quickly.  

Let me provide a primer by genus: 

Mayflies - as of now, we have found the best hatch activity to be from mid-day to afternoon. But because of the cooling temperatures in evening, we are not seeing the mayfly spinner returns. But do not be surprised if you spot a few spinners dropping late afternoon (air temperatures must be above 60° with a light wind to no wind at all). Why?  Mayflies are very sensitive to the terminal conditions which I’ll cover in a future blog post on fishing spinner returns.  

Caddis - when it comes to caddis, they are little bit more durable and will hatch mid-day and at the same time, the older bugs will do a spinner return. It is not unusual to see an event during the day where we have caddis coming, hatching and going. We see this activity in the middle of the afternoon because of water temperature. 

As always with fishing, we need to work with what’s going on and just remember everything in nature will eventually come back around. 

Jay