Spring Hatches - The Best Flies for Spring Fly Fishing in Northern California
Top 3 Early Spring Fishing Venues - the Best Fly Fishing Options in Northern California
Spring (March - May) hatches on our local waters - Bugs and and things that start the feeding frenzy
Spring is here, and along with it the very beginning of the prolific spring bug hatches on our favorite Northern California trout streams. The arrival of these aquatic insect hatches marks the beginning of an annual trout feeding frenzy on the Lower Sac, Upper Sac, McCloud, Pit, and Fall rivers along with Hat Creek and Baum Lake. As the days get longer and warmer, the first of the major insect hatches begins with the Pale Morning Duns or “PMDs” in late March and early April. We see PMDs throughout the entire year at times, but the major spring hatch that captivates the trout’s attention typically peaks from April through June. PMDs are one of our most abundant Mayflies on the Lower Sac, Upper Sac, Pit, and McCloud Rivers. They range in color from rusty brown to bright yellow and roughly from size #14- size #18. We fish them at every stage through a given day, often starting out imitating spent spinners from the previous day, to active nymphs, emergers, cripples and duns as the daily hatch progresses. A cloudy spring day during a strong PMD hatch can create excellent dry fly fishing on the Lower Sac, which is very rare most of the year. Typically a few weeks after the PMD hatch gets going, we start to see Yellow Sallie Stoneflies emerge. This usually happens a little later in April with May being the peak, and can last through July. They are also bright yellow, and look a lot like PMDs. Sometimes we fish nymphs such as the “UV Sally” that successfully imitate both Sallies and PMDs due to their relative similarity in size and color. When hatching at the same time, one can tell them apart by this simple visual cue. When flying, Yellow Sallies look like a Chinook Helicopter, while PMDs look like a single rotor helicopter. This is because Sallies have four wings, and PMDs have two. Both are loved by the trout, and can vary day by day which one they prefer based on hatch abundance.
