Q.
Question: From RADSFAM: I’m a beginning angler and I
am confused about exactly what an “emerger” is and how
to fish them. If you can help I would appreciate it.
A.
An emerger is the term given to the stage of
an aquatic insect whose larvae/pupa or nymph
occurs on the bottom of streams or lakes, but
when it is time to emerge as an adult, it leaves
the bottom and rises through the water column to
emerge as an adult on the surface. This differs
from those nymphs who crawl across the bottom and
climb up on vegetation or rocks above the water
line to hatch.
As you can imagine, while they are drifting up
through the water column, they are quite vulnerable
to feeding fish and hence are popular to imitate.
I’m not much on offering advice on how to fish them,
but the basic idea is to put your imitation somewhere
in the water column where the naturals would
occur - often this is just below the water surface
where they “hang up” for awhile until the adult can
emerge from the immature “skin.”
~ C. E. (Bert) Cushing, aka Streamdoctor
105 W. Cherokee Dr.
Estes Park, CO 80517
Phone: 970-577-1584
Email: streamdoctor@aol.com
The ‘Stream Doctor’ is a retired professional stream ecologist and
author, now living in the West and spending way too much time
fly-fishing. You are invited to submit questions relating to
anything stream related directly to him for use in this Q & A Feature
at streamdoctor@aol.com.
Originally published July 28th, 2003 on Fly Anglers Online by Robert Younghanz.