Right around dusk, the lightning bugs come out in full force and since the stone creek pools are full of lunkers and relatively still, the water is like a sheet of glass. Those little buggers drive the trout crazy!!! I couldn’t believe how furious those fish get! Does anyone know anything that comes close to replicating a lightning bug?
It’s hard to cast even a AAAA battery. You could try replacing your fly line with an extra long 12v copper wire hooked up to a set of batterys in a fanny pack. A small amber bulb on the butt end of an EHC might do the trick.
Grin 
Snow on the roof but with fire still in the hearth
Harrison Steeves has a lightening bug pattern that uses Krenick fiber for the glowing abodomen segment. Do a search on him on google, you a re likely to find a pattern
If you mean as in a fly pattern then I would tie a thin foam body beetle with a yellow thread or antron/chenile section on the abdomen. If you meant a real insect thats close to a lightning bug then I’m not quite sure.
I’ve never tied or fished 'em but it seems to me that some kind of glow in the dark material is in order here. You know , when you put a flashlight on it , it glows for awhile .
Life is like a fly swap…You never know what your going to get.
Steeve’s Firefly, when tied with the “pattern correct” abdominal material, glows very nicely after a few seconds underneath those little UV pencil lights that you can buy to cure Loon’s Knot Sense epoxy. Works very well…
I use a lightning bug fly that is a simple foam beetle. Just add a drop of glow in the dark paint to the butt end of the beetle. Not quite the same glow, but fish still love it. I used it with good success on Fishing Creek here in PA.
You can get the paint at almost any craft store. I think it runs 2 or 3 bucks a bottle.
Don
I’ve never seen a fish take a firefly and have always been told that they’re poisonous. I guess that’s just an old wive’s tale?
Dear Letort Run,
Just catch a couple of live ones and mash them on a regular old crowe beetle.
Eventually the glow wears off and you have to reapply.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Just say my first firefly this weekend in Mindon NE. We don’t have them in this part of Wyo. They are preety neat, the wife and I spent about an hour watching them.
The granddaughter is trying to walk on her own, my back is still sore from the one or two finger walks.
Wyo-blizzard
I thought I remembered this topic:
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Get a little glass vial with a removable top; about the size of the smallest rattle and tie it to a hook just as if you were tying a rattle fly. Catch a few lightning bugs & insert one into the vial, then put on the top & have some fun ! Used to be a great way to catch bass at dusk !
Silvertop,
I knew I should have patented that idea!
Now you have spread it all over the web,
and I will never make a dime off of it!
MW
If you want to try another approach, try wrapping the body with “glow in the dark” crystal flash, it glows pretty well.
What about cracking one of those glow sticks open and painting your fly with it. We put one on our bikes last night coming home from the firework display and they were still light this morning. Might be worth an experiment.
Leo C
if you plan on releasing any of the trout caught on these patterns, i strongly urge you to not use any glow-in-the-dark chemical compounds. non-toxic to us may not hold true for the trout, and i doubt any of the makers of these chemicals have done many tests on the toxicity levels when ingested by trout.
seems to me that any flourescent body material would make a reasonable, and safe, substitute. i also remember hearing about some “new” glow-in-the-dark tying materials somewhere…maybe Orvis?
just my $.02
I believe Uni makes a glow-in-the-dark floss?
I have some on my tying desk at home. I use it on patterns that I put in x-mas tree ornament balls. Kinda a neat green glow to the fly.
Chars,
Paul H.
“Whiskey is for drinking; Water is for Fighting over.”
Tyflier,
I highly doubt you have to worry. Afterall, they don’t test “non-toxics” on humans, they test them on animals. So I would think that if it is OK, in small doses, to humans, it should be alright, in the small doses a trout would get from a fly, for the fish.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Paul
I posted the original topic that Bamboozle alluded to, and after a lot of experimentation I found that the simplest and most effective pattern is just a size 12 hook with a a black dubbed body and just some fluorescent yellow foam in the back. Use some red floss of thread for the head and tie in two turkey quill wings that are the length of the body. This looks very much like the lightning bug and floats well in flat water. If you are going to fish rougher water, add some hackle to the front 1/3. I’ve taken many brookies and browns on this fly this summer. It also is a great bluegill fly, even during the day.
For night fishing, IMO you’d want to add a glowing spot up on the wing for the sake of the angler.