The Eastern Spring Creek Fly Box

by

Eugene P. Macri Jr.

You may use these articles.  You can store them.  You can read them. You may not change, republish, sell or redistribute these articles in anyway for any monetary gain.  You may not add them to your collection and sell them etc.  These articles are copyrighted and we will strictly enforce the copyright. 

© 2006 E. P. Macri Jr.

The Spring Creek fly box or better said, "Fly Boxes" is made up of the best flies overall.  Spring Creeks biologically don' have the diversity of freestone streams in terms of macroinvertebrate communities (insects and stuff) but once you add the terrestrials and things you can end up with quite a few patterns.  So let us break this down into sections based on the how you fish the fly such as dry or wet etc.  You can thus have a box (or two) of each which makes it a bit easier to fish.

Dry Flies:  Let's make this easy you should have the following:

• Sulfur dries 16-24 hackle, no hackle and spinners ( Mostly Ephemerella rotunda (invaria) and other species.
• Light Cahill 16-20 hackle, no hackle, and spinners (Stenonema and Stenacron sp.)
• Tan Caddis 16-20 Represents a multitude of caddis
• Green and Tan Caddis 14-20 (versions of Hydrospsyche and Cheumatopsyche sp.)
• White Fly (Ephron leukon) mainly for the Yellow Breeches if you fish this hatch in sizes 12-14 similar to a White Miller
• Trycorythodes sp.;Trico patterns duns and spinners: 18-26; A few sections of Falling Spring still have a little trico hatch and you'll also find a few on the lower Letort and occasionally parts of Big Spring.  Also, on the Little Lehigh and other limestone spring creeks
• Pale Morning Dun 16-20 Hackle and no hackle; parts of the Yellow Breeches
• Isonychia sp. size 14; Small Leadwing Coachman parts of the Yellow Breeches have a late hatch going into early fall
• Paraleptophlebia sp. The Chocolate Quill; Falling Spring, and other streams in the east have this early to late fall; sometimes they emerge early
• Baeitis tricaudatus Dodds; Blue Winged Olives; emerger all years 14-24 on all streams
• Grizzly Bivisible Midge 18-24; works for a variety of midges
• Black Bivisible Midge 18-24

Nymphs: Okay try these; they work well.

• Sulfur nymphs 16-20 in various shades
• dark brown fur nymphs 16-20
• light brown-tan-olive combination 14-20
• sulfur soft hackles 16-20
• tan soft hackles 16-20
• grizzly soft hackles 16-20
• sulfur emergers 16-20
• trico nymphs size 18-24
• Blue Winged Olive nymph; good bet Sawyer's Pheasant Tail 16-24
• San Juan Worm size 10 to 22; works in variety of sizes and colorations
• red worm; sizes 12-20
• red, brown, black, gray and yellow midge larva size 16-28
• scud patterns 14-18
• cressbug sizes 12-16
• caddis larva in brown, tan, and green;16-18

Terrestrials: Very important at different times of the day on different streams:

• Deerhair Beetles: sizes 14-24 in red, black, orange, green, and brown
• Letort Hopper: sizes 12-16
• Letort Cricket: sizes 12-16
• Joe's Hopper or similar pattern sizes 10-14
• Fur Ants: sizes 12-22 in cinnamon, black and orange
• Foam beetles and ants etc; sizes 12-22 in black, orange, red, green, and brown

Streamers:  Yes, they work if you use them!

• Ed Shenk's Sculpin sizes 6-12
• Muddlers sizes 10-16; they work on top too
• White Maribou sizes 14-16; larger ones work well to
• Black Mariobu sizes 14-16
• Yellow Maribou sizes 14-16
• Black Ghost sizes 12-16
• Matukas in various colors sizes 12-16
• Little Brook, Brown and Rainbow trout streamers sizes 12-16
• Wooly Buggers; black/green is my favorite but they work quite will in all colors especially all white; sizes 12-16; larger ones for big fish