Hendrickson emerger

[hondo 0]

I am trying to do some tying for next year and want to Tie some Hendrickson emergers. I have some ideas but on of the areas I am stuck is the body color and dubbing material. I have seen such variation form tan to reddish -brown and rust.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Merry Xmas

[Joe Hard 0]

The male and female are two different colours, the darker red brown is the male and the lighter tan the female. The nymphs have a stocky body, thicker in the thorax. there legs look undersized, there bodies are visibly segmented with 3 tails that look like lemon wood duck fibers. Their body colours range from dark red brown to dark brown almost black, (depending on there environment, freestone nymphs display lighter colours and are smaller than there limestone counterparts). Females are larger and range from 10 to 12 millimeters. Patterns in size 12 to 14 will match the male and female.

 

Depending on the weather hatches can start as early as the first week in April in there southern reaches and as late as the second week of June in the north. Under normal conditions the duns appear around 10:00 a.m. and continue to surface to about 6:00 p.m.

 

When its time to emerge, the nymphs crawl out from under rocks to the topside of submerged rocks where the trout can see them. The nymphs slowly wiggle there way to the surface where they drift spread eagle in or below the surface film. While drifting with the current, the thorax splits and the dun struggles out of the shuck. Sometimes the nymphs will slowly descend back to the bottom on there first trip and several minutes later they will again head for the surface. Once they finally reach the surface the duns emerge, as they drift with the current, the wings form and the duns take off.

 

The male and female are very different, the males have two tomato red eyes, the tails and legs match the reddish brown bodies with slate-blue wings. The females have two small dark eye spots on their small heads. The female bodies are a creamy mid-tan shade, tails and legs are the same colour as there bodies and there wings are slate blue.

 

This info is adapted from Mayflies, by Ted Fauceglia. There are no emerger pattern's in this book for Hendrickson, but the Nymph calls for a mixture of red and black fur dubbing. the male dun calls for mixture of red and brown fur dubbing. The male spinner is a mixture of red and black fur dubbing. All tied with red brown thread head. The female dun and spinner patterns call for a light tan fur dubbing, the dun calls for a tan thread head and the spinner a brown thread head.

 

I was reading about Hendricksons last night so I had this info close at hand. I hope it helps you come up with an emerger pattern and Merry Christmas

[hondo 0]

Joe

 

Thanks. I think what I am going to do is tie up some with a dark and light body. I was able to observe the emergers during a major hatch last spring and took some notes on them. I plan to use dun antron or CDC for a wing pad and wood duck fibers as tails with some med brown zelon underneath the tails as a shuck.

 

Merry Xmas

[Hot Tuna 0]

Caucci/Nastasi deer hair emerger, Rosnebauer's rabbit foot emerger and Hendrickson klinkhamer.

Three excellent recipes....

HT