Monday, June 13, 2011

Cornuta of Old now Drunella Lata

The other guy is telling us that Cornuta is on Penns, well that's just not the case, the name was changes a few years ago the correct name is "Drunella lata". I love all that has been written about this hatch and spinner falls, not a lot, seems as if most all authors do not think the spinner stage is of any importance nor are the duns! Having fished this hatch for the past 40 years and having the creek to ourselfs I think this might be a good case of not telling anyone about it. During the mornings it is a great hatch, not a blanked one but a good steady one here and one there but the duns have a bad habit of changing colors with the amount of time that they are on the water. The nymph actualy starts hatching within the last 12" of the water column, the duns float for a long time due to the matted wings, they emerge as a pale greenish yellow then change to a medium olve and finaly to dirty dark olive body and the trout do key on the color. We did experiment with a floating nymph with one wing as a loop the other as a spinner wing position and the trout loved them but it was always the body color that is the key to success. This a lovely hatch to just wade upstream and key on the feeding fish above you, if the day is cloudy they will come all morning.
  The spinner stage is what we all wait for, actual body size is really a 15, the actual fly has a crook in the last 1/4 of the abdomen and is really apparent to the total length of the body. The body color is really a very dark olive almost black, I have at least 4 colors that I use and I select according to how I feel at the moment with no scientific basis for my choice only do not fish these guys in the riffles. The spinner has a habit of beating their wings as they fall in the riffles in order to eject their egg mass, a hackled fly would do better in this area. It is best to key on the mid pool to the tail outs for the active feeders. This is a hatch/spinner fall that will last 3-4 weeks, no hords looking for the Swarm!
  Next will be ant and beetle fishing.

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