Salmon Fly Hatch Creates Wild Times Along Montana’s Big Hole River
©Bert Gildart: They’re only about three inches in length, and they appear along the banks or in the waters of the Big Hole River but for a few brief weeks each year. When they do appear — usually about the second week of June — their emergence creates a call heard globally, at least among certain groups (Holy S—). In fact, Chuck Robbins, who guides on these waters, says he has fishing clients from countries such as Japan and from most every state in the union.
At long last, salmon fly desert the "shuck," leaving behind only a dried out case
The tiny creature responsible for this fanaticism is the salmon fly, and when it emerges, trout go wild. Their cyclic nature, however, can be slow and it is a finely tuned biological phenomena.
Eggs are deposited by females atop the river’s rushing waters. Eggs then drift to the river’s bottom where the nymph stage begins to develop. Three years later mature nymphs head toward the river’s banks and then crawl up onto shoreline vegetation where they struggle to break free, leaving behind a “shuck.” The shuck is essentially an exoskeleton.
When the insect finally struggles free it it spreads its wings and flies to nearby bushes where mating occurs. They often crash land onto the water’s surface and when they do, fish to go wild.
ASalmon fly about to take wing.
That’s what’s happening now, though not quite as dramatically as in most years because heavy atypical rains have affected the Big Hole River water levels. Still, in a day or so from now, when currents are a bit safer, I hope to join Chuck for a day of angling on this fabled river. If so, I’ll be joining a group of sportsmen about as passionate about the sport of fishing as the fish are about the sumptuous dinning that awaits them during the brief but frantic season of the salmon fly.
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THIS TIME THREE YEARS AGO:
