Okay this may sound kinda dumb, but here goes…
How do you fish emergers? I’ve always assumed that they were meant to be fished in the film on a dead drift, but lately with winter time thinking going on, I’m wondering if maybe I should be using them subsurface on a swing, or dead drifted as well. If you goop them to keep them up, do you goop the whole think or just the fluff?
Good question and I look forward to reading the answers. Fishing emergers has been kind of a mystery to me also. I always assumed you would fish them in the top of the water column and in the surface film – and it takes lots of patience to fish emergers so it can kind of barely sink uder the surface – so probably using floatant on the tippet (up to 6 inches or so from the fly) and maybe not the emerger However, this assumption is probably wrong.
In Dave Hughes book - Handbook of Hatches – he describes the different insects and then what imitations are in his opinion the best. He also describes how to fish or present the imitation. You might take a look at this book.
At any rate, I want to see what responses you get to this question. Thanks for posting it.
fishin’ fool -
This is water I fear to tread. But, what the heck. The worst that can happen is Flybinder and his bud’s will pour water on me while I’m drowning.
Starting with winter - around here winter means streamers, deep nymphs, and midges. Midge hatches are occasional / sporadic, but midge fishing in the way of larva, pupa and dries is steady, on good midge streams and rivers. The larva can be fished anywhere in the water column with a decent prosect that something good will happen. Same with the pupa, but my experience is the higher in the column the better. The rises will tell you something about the depth the fish are working. Try trailing the pupa behind a griffith gnat until you find the depth the fish are hitting - might be six inches or might a foot. Deeper than that you won’t likely see a rise form - but it doesn’t mean the fish won’t take a pupa fished deeper. The griffith gnat will serve two purposes. It will take some fish that are willing to come up for adult midges, or as an attractor to draw the trout in and then take the larva / pupa.
Late winter / early spring will likely bring some blue wing olives out. From then on, through the fall and for other mayflies and caddis, emergers can be fished in a variety of ways. Again, to my way of thinking, the rise form is the most important thing to consider. My own preference for bwo’s is a size 18 Quigley Cripple, which is a really good emerger / cripple pattern, with a one size larger unweighted pheasant tail nymph or soft hackle p.t. trailing at six to eighteen inches. Another option is Mike Lawson’s half back emerger, although I find it difficult to tie that pattern in the smaller ( bwo ) sizes. But the technique is the same. Over the course of the summer and fall, I pretty much stick to these basics. And then there is the option of stripping a streamer through an obvious hatch, but that is the subject of another thread.
The greased line is another option if you want to fish the emerger / cripple only without the dry / dun / attractor option. I don’t use it, but a lot of folks do with great results. I do like swinging a soft hackle through a hatch. My favorite would be a soft hackle p.t for most situations for mayflies, or an X-caddis or sparkle caddis pupa for a caddis hatch. But then again, if you fish an elk hair caddis, for example, as a dry but let it hang at the end of the drift, it is not uncommon to have trout come up and take it as an emerger.
Another emerger / cripple pattern that I’ve had some success with is based on Scott Sanchez’ pfd ( personal floatation device ) emerger. I tried it on some godzilla midges I ran into last summer on the Falls River in the S.W. corner of Yellowstone National Park, and used a western green drake version on a local cutthroat stream that shall go unnamed, both times with very good results. It incorporates a foam post for a parachute style emerger ( the post is the “pfd” ) and I used a snowshoe wing for greater floatation. It will handle heavy water quite nicely.
Hope that is a start on answering your question. Look forward to others jumping in here with their ideas, experiences, and suggestions.
John
Fishin’,
It’s not a dumb question at all. In my estimation, there are two types of emergers-those that are specifically designed to fishing in the film. They are actually constructed to be fished half submerged. The other emerger is actually a wet fly. We often forget that many species emerge on their way to the surface. Some of the imitations have wings others are wingless or what I call flymphs (Hidy). I am particularly fond of the flymphs because they can be fished upstream, downstream, in the film, just below the surface or from the bottom to the top via various techniques and retrieves (the Leisenring Lift is one method). So, it depends upon which type you are using. If you’ve never tried the flymphs, I suggest you look into them.
Mark
fishin’:
You already got lots of great answers to a great question so here is my suggestion to compliment them:
Learn about the behavior of the natural bugs that you are trying to imitate and spend time watching the fish behavior.
If you don’t have it already; get the book Hatches by Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi. You are in PA and almost 100% of “our” bugs, (mayflies) are in that book. If you learn how the bugs hatch; you can make more sense out of how an emerger could be effective for certain insects and how you might want to fish them.
After that I would get In the Ring of the Rise by Vincent C. Marinaro another book written in and about PA. In it you will learn a LOT about rise forms and what they mean. In other words; what type of rise indicates what type of insect and what life stage; on the surface versus in the film.
I fish all types of flies that represent emergers. Some I fish on the surface like a regular dry; others in the film and still others like a wet fly or streamer. I let the fish behavior, preference and some basic entomological information about the insect I THINK they are taking help me to decide how to fish my fly.
If you like reading those two books will help you a LOT!
Trick I learned from Ken at the Idaho fish in was to put floatation goop on the wing only taking care not to get any on the body. So it floated the fly while the body remained suspended under the surface. He makes a fly called a dipper that he bends the hook downward slightly just behind the thorax so the body hangs even more below the surface like a natural emerger would. Darn thing works like crazy.
While not emergers, don’t forget that some caddis and mayflies swim and or crawl down through the water to lay their eggs. A bead head soft hackle fished deep, then allowed to do the swing and lift can be deadly in this situation. As someone else said, get “Hatches”. The more you know about the insects that the fish are eating the better you will be able to present your flies to them.
For me it depends on the emerger. For BWOs and Midges and the like I typically just go dead drift and do fine. For Caddis and sometimes PMDs, I’ll swing it…usually just subsurface. Check out this book by Rick Hafele: Nymph-Fishing Rivers And Streams: A Biologist’s View of Taking Trout Below the Surface
I know it’s mostly about more subsurface stuff but there’s tons of good info in there about general (and specific) insect behavior (emergers included) that is extremely valuable information when trying to figure out what’s going on in the water…
~Randy
O.K. guys, I have to say that this is all very good info, but I would think if it is not in the surface film it is not and emerger, if the fly is sinking past the surface film then you are quite simply nymphing. I suppose if you are swinging or lifting the nymph it may be called an emerger but I am not so sure. But then maybe I am just being Pedantic. :rolleyes:
The best emerger pattern I have used is the Klinkhammer tied with a pheasant tail body and fiery brown seals fur sub as a thorax.
All the best.
Mike.
I try to keep them just above the stream bottom…like they are just emerging and bouncing off the bottom of the stream. At the end of the swing I’ll raise them up.
Or if I see a fish or a group I’ll try to swing the emerger up right before them.
“This is water I fear to tread. But, what the heck. The worst that can happen is Flybinder and his bud’s will pour water on me while I’m drowning.”
Well, John, I’d STILL pour water on ya’ buddy, but not for what you wrote!
In fact, I’d swear, that you and I often fish together, because you typed out, nearly word for word, what I would have said myself on fishing emergers!
I can’t, and won’t, add anything to what you said!!
Hi Mike,
I’d have to disagree with you what an emerger is. I do not believe they MUST be in the surface film to be considered as an emerger. In my estimation an emerger is a nymph or pupa that is changing from that stage to the adult stage. Not all flies emerge in the surface film. Some emerge subsurface, many as they swim to the surface. Therefore some winged and wingless imitations do a very good job of imitating this occurance. Not all subsurface flies are nymphs.
You may check this out for yourself–
Mark
As I’m sure some of you know, sometimes, some mayflies (sometimes PMDs, sometimes BWOs) actually emerge before they even hit the surface (sometimes even on the bottom and then float/swim to the surface). To say that an emerger can only be fished IN the surface film and not on the surface is just getting nitpicky. Emergers can be fished under the water, in the surface film, on the surface, or a combination of two of those.
In the grand scheme of things, who really cares? If you can figure out that those fish are eating and can match it effectively enough to catch those fish, you’re ahead of the curve.
~Randy
You’re being pedantic. Some bugs break out of their nymphal shucks before rising to the surface. Others rise as nymphs and break out in the meniscus. Still others crawl out of the water and break out on land.
I’d say all are emerging once they being their specific processes.
I tend to fish emergers like dries. Last year I read somewhere about fishing emergers with
indicators.
Does anyone have an opinion?
Randy
Thanks guys. I appreciate the responses. I’m thinking on trying to fish more of the hatch this year. Instead of focusing only on nymphs and dry flies, I figure, I may up my catch rate if I try more subsurfarce techniques.
Softhackle. I think it might be good to the poster to post a picture of what he calls an emerger. I use a “softhackle” like an emerger myself…or what I call a soft hackle.
This what we call a red asss emerger, but without the herl we call it a red soft hackle:
Randy;
I often times fish tiny midge pupa or emergers; I’m talking down to size 32, with a tiny, tiny blob of Orvis Strike putty anywhere from a few inches to a foot above the fly depending on the current and feeding depth of the trout.
The putty works great because I can reposition it easily. It suspends the midge in different spots in the water column and makes following the fly and detecting those little “ticks” a whole lot easier. I also find that it doesn’t effect my casting, even when I’m fishing 7 or 8X if I keep it about the size of a peppercorn…
…and the trout don’t seem top mind it a bit.
Pale watery Dun
Dun Hackle
Black Stone Flymph
Green Drake Emerger
These are some of the flymphs and soft-hackles I use, and YES, soft-hackles also double as emerger patterns. Nice fly Big Bad.
Mark
Hey Mark, those are some realy nice flies.
All the best.
Mike.