Tricos - What I Know and Don't Know (which some days seems like the latter...)

By Dave Anderson

First and foremost, I am no trico expert.  In fact, I have never been much for trying to fish "the white curse," as I have heard it referred to many times by fly anglers. That is until last summer when on the prodding of a friend and some intrigue to do some exploration, I decided to roll out of bed early enough one August morning to actually hit the trico hatch while there were plenty of fish willing to take dries.  I didn't know at the time if the trout were taking dries or spinners, but a #22 black bodied trico with light dun hackle worked well enough for some trout to think it looked appetizing enough to eat.  There's a saying that goes something like, "I'd rather be lucky than good."  No doubt I was pretty lucky that day, but like all of my other fly fishing pursuits thus far in life, I wanted to be good.

From that day forward, I was hooked (no pun intended) and looked forward to late July of 2002 when I could test some patterns and expand my very limited knowledge of tricos.  I did some reading and consulted with some local experts, and even was lucky enough to have message boarders share trico recipes with me, which by the way, have worked out beautifully.  The biggest tip I got, which increased my productivity by leaps and bounds was to use as little dubbing as possible and to use way less poly-pro for the spinner wings than you think you need.  Tying smaller proportioned flies, as well as starting to tie #24 patterns has been a huge help.

The only absolutes I can tell you from my two years of fishing tricos in southeast Minnesota is the following:

*Tricos start hatching in the wee hours of the morning - about that time your full bladder wakes you from you slumber.

*Tricos in the early season (late July - I fished my first hatch on July 24) until September will already be hatched and swarming in a cloud mass when you get to the stream.

*Standard business hours for tricos early have been: 8:00-11:00 AM, check please, just like clockwork.

*The spinner fall will always follow the emergence.  It sounds obvious, I know, so stick around until the fish stop rising (i/e 11:00AM).

*Why trout take your fly on one drift but smash it on the next remains a mystery, which in my book is an absolute.

Now for the things I have observed, but aren't necessarily aboslutes:

*Fishing two dries at once doubles the fun and chance.  I have gotten into fishing a standard dry with the first fly and tying on two feet of tippet to the next fly and trailing it with a spinner - both adequately greased up for high floatation.

*When the water is off, there are several things to remember.  Tricos will still hatch (as was the case in the Whitewater area this past August - an absolute blizzard of flies), but the fish may not be keying on top (which was also the case on the same stream).  I have found that the Shillinglaw Emerger in a #20 pattern, also tied sparsely, either dead drifted behind a nymph, or give a little Leisenring Lift at the end of the run will produce fish.

*When the weather cools, so does the action.  I showed up at one of my consistent runs this August.  The water was clear, the tricos were swarmed and already hatched, but the fish weren't slashing about in their usual feeding frenzy.  The weather was overcast and cool whereas in days past I had been fishing tricos in some pretty warm morning hours.

*Weather can also be responsible for the hatch coming off later in the morning the later in the season the hatch goes.  I have witnessed this yet, but some of my reliable sources notice that they hatch may not come off until early in the afternoon once we hit late September.

*And finally, if you cannot cast accurately and adequately, compounded with oversized flies, too large of tippet, and generally poor mending abilities, tricos may not be for you.  It amazes me how damn picky fish are based entirely on the drift of a #24 food morsel that's floating by.

I had a great season with tricos.  The water was clean where I pursued them, and I found out more streams that have them, but I'm still luckier than good right now, so this editorial may have an addendum to it by August of 2003.