The Merry Month of May
At last - it’s the merry month of May, often referred to as “the sweetest month”. The earth is humming with new life: the birds seem to be singing a little more melodiously, the landscape adorned with a multiplying tapestry of colorful blooms, the days are getting longer and temperatures are beginning to warm. It’s now wild turkey season, and lots of fly hatches have been seen on our rivers and streams!
All of our rivers and streams have been stocked, and trout fishers were found up and down stream throughout our region; it was nice to see so many anglers out again, with a good number of out-of-state cars as well residents’ in the DEC’s Fisherman Parking Areas.Fly hatches have been fairly steady over the past week, some in the mornings and a greater number in the afternoons, with tremendous numbers of flies noted on Friday and into the weekend, despite the return to chilly water temperatures back down in the 40s. Fly hatches included a variety, from Blue Quills toHendricksons to Grannom Caddis; however for the most part, the trout were not actively rising to feed off the surface (much to the disappointment of many dry-fly fishers) but were rather taking wet flies and nymphs below. This is probably due to the cooler water temperatures, as well as the activity stage of the flies under the surface.
Unlike mayflies, such as Hendricksons (Ephemerella subvaria) which transform from egg to nymph to adult and lack a pupal stage, Caddis flies undergo a complete metamorphosis, from larva to pupa to adult. The larvae of the Caddis fly are worm-like and live on the stream bottom, usually inside protective cases made of rocks or twigs, where they feed off the bottom. They metamorphose into the pupa stage when the larva leaves the home case, developing wing pads and legs to enable it to swim upwards to the surface. Their bodies are actually smaller and more refined in the pupa stage, and as free-swimming creatures, they are vulnerable ‘targets’ to the trout. When the Grannom Caddis are about as they have been the past week and a half, the trout are focused on the wiggling caddis pupae below the surface and will feed heavily on them, rather than rising to flies on the surface, especially when water temperatures are below 50 degrees.