Willow flies?

[Troutman]

Anyone know if the Willow mayflies are hatching out yet?

[mmorgan135]

do they look like an albino mayfly? If so yes. I about took a dunk today trying to catch one to take a picture for you too see if it was what you were talking about. I cant remember if its June or July, but it seems that the first of the month there are millons of mayflies at our dock on the Hiwassee. Youll go to bed and wake up and the trees are coverd in them and the post, deck, and roof of the dock are covered as well. It only lasts for a day or two it seems.

[Troutman]

I have only seen these flies on Watts Bar lake down at Kingston. I believe they could be the Hexagenia Bilineata. I'm no expert but the research I've looked at online says they are in the lake. They are very large mayflies and hatch out down there during the summer. I was hoping some of you guys that live down that way would confirm if they are there yet.
Heres a pict. of what they look like. Everyone just calls them "Willow Flies". cdu1961 and Kingstonian what do you say? It's been a few years since I've been there for the hatch.

[Kingstonian]

Yep, troutman, that is what the locals call a willowfly. They run about 1 1/2 to 2" long including tail. I saw a few tangled in a spiderweb on a dock in Kingston earlier in the week when I was out with my kayak, but haven't seem any big hatches. That day I didn't get any hits on a popping bug, but I didn't fish much either. There could be some more hatching downstream.

Usually they hit a peak (more of a plateau, really) about the 4th of July week, continuing to hatch well through the whole month. Some store windows get so many at night drawn to the lights that it looks like there are curtains up. I have a picture of a boat house that had some many on it that it looked furry.

And nightfishing under a blacklight can make a real mess out of your boat with all the willowflies sticking to the condensation, then dying.

I'll keep my eyes open and post if I notice any big activity. Willowflies make for great warmwater flyrod action. Bluegill, largemouth, smallmouth, even the occasional crappie will feed on them. Most fishermen just use small cork poppers, but a more realistic copy might do well if it could survive all the bluegill hits.

[Bran]

Troutman, Those flies are all over Buggs Island in Southern VA right now. I know we're a little ahead of you temp. wise on this side of the Blue Ridge
but I just started seeing them in big numbers last week.

[Troutman]

You guys should try to get out to fish this hatch. It's probably one of the best times to fish for carp with dry flies. Imagine this.......Several 6-10pd carp slurping big dries off the surface mixed in with lots of bull bluegills! A green drake imitation or a large # 10 Black rubber leg stimulator should work pretty good.

Kingstonian, thanks for the update! I may bring my yak down there one weekend soon.
Bran, post us some picts. if you get out to the island soon. Good luck.

[Bran]

You know troutman I have some pics downloaded to my PC here at work now, I just need to check out that photobucket and figure out how to do that. I have been doing some catfishing here the last week or so and so have
only flyfished once or twice. I slipped down to a small river Saturday for awhile and caught some redbreast and knotty heads on the fly.
What size rod do you use for those carp? I only have a 5 wt. and am thinking it may be too light for those? Anyhow I am really just learning about
FF so I need to invest in some more outfits, I told my wife that would make a
good Father's day present....Ok you guys take care and I'll work on the
pics.

[Bran]

Ok, I attempted to put some pictures on photo bucket so here we go.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...Picture046.jpg
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...Picture047.jpg
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...Picture035.jpg
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...Picture050.jpg
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...Picture036.jpg
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...Picture021.jpg

The first couple are of my daughter Emily catching Crappie on my 3 wt. rod.
Then there are a couple Sunfish photos from a small lake near the house, just
some beautiful fish and if they were much bigger they would pull you in the
pond. The bass was at 3.5 - 4 lbs on my 3 wt, just an accident while I was catching specs off the brush. Lastly is a photo of some of my Smallmouth territory taken on Memorial day up the Roanoke river. Let me know if these work ok. Thanks.

[Troutman]

Nice picts Bran. My daughter enjoys fishing also, as long as its not all day! I use the bottom [img] code on photobucket. click on it to highlight, Copy and paste to your message. The pict. will show up directly on the message. You can preview it before you submit it to the forum. Paula can walk you through if you need help.
If I was looking for a flyrod for Carp, I would go with an 8wt. A fast 7wt. would OK and would be more useful on the smallies as well. You "need" bigger rods for those larger and heavier streamers to catch bigger fish. At least that is what I told my wife!

[Bran]

I'm going to try a couple for practice.

This is one of the creeks on our farm that I wade and catch a variety of fish in.

This is my other fishing buddy, she is usually with me if my daughter isn't.

You can see the size of these sunfish here. We have a neighbor who stocked his pond with these and this spring he found a hole in the dam, he told me to catch all I could and transfer them to another pond because he
was going to have to drain it to repair the dam. They are a ball on light flyrods or ultralight spinning rigs, I caught them on BHP's all afternoon.
I'm going to look into the heavier rods, I saw on the fishing report that Daniel said TFO was coming out with an 8 wt. 4 pc for 149.99. I'll check it out when he gets it on the catalog this week. Thanks for your advice again.