The Hackle Box: Yellow Sally
My party line regarding mountain stream fly fisherman is how in tune it gets me to my surroundings and my sweet home in the foothills of a running stream- paying attention to when it rains, how it rains, is it raining over there? Or just at my house? Wow, look at all of this emerging off this here pond; if this is going on here, then the mountain must just be popping off right now. It’s the little moments that folks normally hike right by- the flipping of rocks, the giving attention to, and appreciating, the tiniest bits of life the river has to offer in a way that I would never notice or even care to know existed otherwise. It’s not just getting in tune with pristine conditions for trout to emerge, but the conditions that the little microorganisms they grub on depend on too. So basically, it just makes you a way better person in general.
With all my years of watching, tracking, and taking in the essence of a river, my favorite days are when I sneak up the river after work and go- hell yea, the little yellow things are out. The little yellow things would be (typically mating) yellow stoneflies, aka Yellow Sallies. Through my research, I still can’t figure out who the hell Sally is or why they call them that, so in my fly box, I call them Lisa Simpsons, just something a little more relatable. Like the whole Simpson family, they’re steadfast and dependable. Because when you’re lucky enough to catch them on a buzz around, not even Sideshow Bob can slow them down.
Yellow stoneflies have one of the longest-lasting hatch periods of any buggy-type critters in the East. Generally, they start around late April and can last through October, so as far as I’m concerned, they’re a must-have in the box. And it’d be worth poking a couple of them in the rim of your super special lucky fishing hat just as a backup.
Most of our fly patterns are meant to imitate insects as the nymphs emerge, sprout, and shake off their wings to flutter around for the few hours or, if they’re lucky, days before they either get swallowed up or squashed by a clumsy angler like myself. But stoneflies mostly hatch overnight- so it’s their mating time that we’re hammering the Yellow Sally pattern, poor things. When the ladies drop their eggs on the river surface, all the fellas get alerted by this tiny little sound they drum on the water and come filing in to get their rocks off- that’s when they get ate. Ain’t that the way. Another reminder of how cruel nature can be to itself and how short of a stick much of it gets stuck with.
When you see these guys and gals in flight, it will look like they’ve got two sets of wings. Think of if you asked a five-year-old to draw a picture of a butterfly and just made the body bright yellow and the wings off-white; that’s them in real life. They dart quickly and do a pleasant little dance just above the river. If you can snag one in your hat, their wings lay on one another, turning into a sleek little fish snack. While the mating time is when they’ll be most plentiful- and trust me, you’ll know when it’s happening because you’ll be stuck in a tornado of yellow fluttering bugs- plenty of stragglers hatch sporadically through the day as well.
So even if you aren’t planning to fish late, can’t push it to the edge of when it’s getting dark, and you can’t really see but should really start heading back to the car, it’s still worth it to tie one of these on just about any time the bite is slow.
PS: everybody seems to tie a red butt on them; see how Smitty’s Fly Box does it: Yellow Sally
D’oh!
