Impressive But Frustrating Trico Hatches...

[ksbass]

My family camped and fished Sat-Tuesday at the park. Spent alot of time in the C&R area. Saturday afternoon was really good in the middle section below the riffles. Several kids were wading upstream in the shallow area right above the riffles. The water was riled with the activity but the fish didn't seem to mind. My son and I caught several on olive scuds, brown SJW and I tried out my version of the Japanese beetles. The foam beetles produced well and were great fun.

Sunday morning I hit the C&R riffles early. I was met with a cloud of Tricos. I hadn't seen this much hatch ever. Below the riffles the fish were boiling the surface. I thought this was going to be fun. Wrong! I didn't have a close trico fly in my pack and tried several different dry patterns on 7x to no avail. Zippo. The trout were taking the tricos all around my fly but not the fly. I gave up and tied on a brown SJW. 6 fish in 10 casts. I felt much better. The hatch was over by 8:30 with the cloud of zig-zagging tricos all but gone. Later I stopped by Tims for some advice on the Tricos. I bought a few #22 tricos and tied a few others. We fished some in zone 2 later in the afternoon and had good luck with the beetles again along the far bank under the shady spots. Mostly dinks. Good action and great long distance casting practice though.

Monday morning was going to be different. I again hit the C&R riffles this time armed with the trico flys. The hatch was much lighter but I did manage 3 on the tiny #22 tricos. Thanks Tim. The action was much slower in that area so I walked up towards dry hollow to fish the shallows. I noticed a large spider web totally full of live tricos. The web was perfectly shaped and I'm sure the spider was busy if not really full. I didn't have my camera at that moment but came back an hour or so later and took this shot. The web had been blown apart from the wind but there were still a bunch of trapped bugs. The shallows brought more trout on the beetles. I got hungry so I headed back to the camp for breakfast. My family decided we needed a trout meal for supper so we hit the park and Emma caught 3 on pink SJWs. The crowd got big so we headed to Z2 to catch a few more for supper. The fresh fried trout and taters sure were good. We all decided we needed another trout meal to go with the sweet corn a friend gave us so I fished zone 2 Tuesday AM. I started in the lower end and again witnessed a decent trico hatch. I hooked one on the trico fly but that was it. I did turn several with a cream SJW including 2 very nice fish but brought nothing to hand in the first hour. As the crowd cleared I moved up and noticed some risers along the far bank in the chain-link fence area. I tied on a foam beetle and caught six in 45 minutes including 4 nice keepers. We had a great early lunch then hooked up and headed home. Nice weekend. Awesome weather and decent fishing.

[DoveTail]

Nice report, sounds like you were hooking up some great fish.