Trico Tricks

Seven tips to beat summer's hottest hatch

Every year, sometime around late July, my brother and I drive two hours and sleep overnight in a cheap motel to fish the Tricorythodes hatch on our favorite spring creek. We don't see each other as often as we should, so our annual "Trico trip" is about more than just fish. But if you could see us fishing, you'd swear it was all about the fish. Last year was especially good. Colors were not yet discernible as we parked the truck near the creek, stepped out into the humid darkness, and strung up our rods in front of the headlights.The morning twilight was on its way. With long tippets and tiny dries knotted on, we walked through chest-high meadow grass holding our rods above our heads, carefully dodging bull thistle and wild parsnip as we went. In the twilight's deep, muggy blueness, the stream's course was marked by a lighter blue ribbon of cool fog.

We entered the fog and took our first glimpse of the stream at a riffle where the steady undulations of current were broken repeatedly by the splashy rises of trout. "You take this riffle, and I'll go farther down," said my brother. He's a fine young man who defers to his elders. Standing on a small sandbar downstream from the riffle, I began lengthening line as the landscape slowly took back its colors from the night. The fog thinned, changing from pale blue to a luminous peach, and a million little Trico fairies danced in it. My size 20 Parachute Adams landed on the inside seam at the head of the riffle and disappeared in a silver swirl before it had rafted even six inches. Fast to the day's first trout, I looked downstream. Little brother was already out of sight. I slid the trout--a leopard-spotted wild brown of about 12 inches--onto the edge of the sandbar and, without touching him, released him with a quick tug of the hook.

The diminutive Tricorythodes mayfly provides some of the year's most dependable dryfly action throughout North America. You might travel many miles for an April Hendrickson hatch and completely miss it, but there's no missing the Trico. Hatching from mid-July through September, this bug is extraordinarily widespread, occurring in diverse streams all over trout country. Although many freestone rivers have Trico hatches--the densest Trico hatches occur on fertile spring creeks and tailwaters. Tricos thrive best in streams where summer is warm and vegetation abundant. Despite the bank-on-it surety of this hatch, however, some anglers find it frustrating. The insect in question is quite tiny--size 20 to 24--and also extraordinarily abundant. Consequently, a Trico hatch carries the same challenge as any dense hatch of small insects, namely, selective trout that will neither vary their feeding rhythm nor move far from their feeding lanes to take even the best-tied imitation. Accurate fly-tying, precise casting and good timing are all required. In addition, the Trico hatch offers other unique challenges as well.
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