Help to Identifying Just What it is That I'm Looking at

[Baron 0]

I hope this is the right place to ask these questions. Being new to fly tying and being new to fly fishing I often have trouble putting what I'm seeing in nature into the form of a fly. There are times that I see interesting hatches taking place and I can't identify the insect and so it's even harder to identify a fly pattern. I was on a Pocono lake last summer, I think it was August and perhaps late August at that. I was fishing for bluegill's along the edges and in the pockets when white mouth type insect started raining on the surface. They kind of look like mayflies and they kind of look like calluses I wasn't bright enough to pick one up and actually examine it, my loss. These were pure white and very triangular. I did not notice and I have them in sticking way out behind or needed that I notice the two spikes that mayflies have at the back. They were also very very small, probably 1/4 inch to three eights of an inch. Whatever they were they did not fit the same description as either species when noticed in my local neighborhood earlier in the year. I'm assuming this is what many of the locals call whitefly and are common to the area as I've never seen a pure white insect like them in the area where I actually live(Lehigh Valley). It was Sandans Fly from the other day that closely reminded me of this hatch

 

 These things were so much smaller than that but looked similar to the following in pure white:

[Current Angler 0]

Sounds like some sort of caddis to me. Try tying an elk hair caddis with bleached deer or elk hair as the wing and light ginger or watery dun hackle.

[cphubert 0]

1st looks possibly like a BWO blue wing olive (Ephemerella attenuate), the 2nd is certainly a small caddis hard to distinguish with light in photo.

[Bimini15 0]

I hope you meant white MOTH, because if you were able to distinguish the white mouth of 1/4 inch insect, I am the one that needs your help. 😊

[SilverCreek 0]

Ephemerella attenuata

http://www.troutnut.com/hatch/429/Mayfly-Attenella-attenuata-Small-Eastern-Blue-Winged-Olive#specimens

White Miller Caddis

http://www.troutnut.com/hatch/2509/Caddisfly-Nectopsyche-albida-White-Miller

 

[Sandan 0]

As to Ephemerella attenuata at least here in Colorado the later the season the lighter they are. What I'm saying is in the spring I tie em with a dark dun hackle and wing. Late season I tie em with light dun. The white millers can go down to size 20.

[Baron 0]

34 minutes ago, Bimini15 said:

I hope you meant white MOTH, because if you were able to distinguish the white mouth of 1/4 inch insect, I am the one that needs your help. 😊

Yes indeed. I entered that whole message with Apple Dictation and then posted without editing. Sure is funny how it interprets what I'm trying to say. 

I does make me wonder if this small thing isn't a moth.

The photos above are from internet images I grabbed to use as an example of shape . But what I saw was pure white, 1/4" -3/8" late afternoon in late August. I've hear the there are so many localize things hitting our lakes that we don't alway even know it. Until I began FF two years ago and even more since I began tying 8mo ago I had never much paid attention to hatches.

[Baron 0]

2 minutes ago, Sandan said:

As to Ephemerella attenuata at least here in Colorado the later the season the lighter they are. What in saying is in the spring I tie em with a dark dun hackle and wing. Late season I tie em with light dun. The white millers can go down to size 20.

It was your White miller That the most closely resembled it so far. Pure white and teeny tiny. It would have been an 18 or twenty thought a 16 would do just as well for the eyes. Tying and fly fishing has become more of a journey for me as I train myself to pay more attention. Now I have a great reason to go back to Upper Woods Pond next August!

[Sandan 0]

Tying and fishing is a fantastic journey. It's like the martial arts there's always more to learn. It's fun, frustrating at times and always rewarding. Blue ribbon flies has a white Miller video under the dry flies tying section. Now your have ANOTHER great reason to go back. 

[Poopdeck 0]

Pa is known for its whitefly hatch in some regions. The Susquehanna river gets them so thick it causes white out conditions on a bridge in Harrisburg. They are mayflies and the different varieties can hatch all summer somewhere. They are mainly found on rivers and streams but there are some that prefer the still water of ponds and small lakes. just take any dry fly pattern and tie it all white. It will work. 

[Baron 0]

Sandan I'll look that up. Thanks. Today I practiced tying Ant Flies poorly. I need to learn this Miller. 

PoopDeck I've hear that from others on a PA site and then I saw it happen on the Lehigh. So heavy you almost needed a mask. At this Pond ( Upper Woods Pond) it was very lite. One here and one way over there. 

At night under the flood lights I watch the siding and screens at pizza shops and my porch and others all summer, wherever I am,  to see what is hatching and I had never seen one that white. 

[Philly 0]

I have seen a white mayfly that small, size 18, more likely a size 20, but it was up on Pine Creek in late May.  It drove a bunch of Canadian and at least one European fly tyer, not to mention the American ones crazy.  Any ideas, Silver?  It had bunch of FF@ folks talking to themselves and reaching for another glass of scotch.  Haven't had a chance to fish the White Miller hatch on the Susky.

[Baron 0]

That whole area must get them then as Upper Woods is only 25 miles to the nearest part of Sesquehanna PA and 12 miles to the Delaware River.   I ended up using a white PMD and it worked well enough. 

[Poopdeck 0]

Here's a stock photo of the hatch. They have to turn the bridge lights out to prevent having to close the bridge because of limited visibility but also because all the mayfly carcasses makes the bridge as slick as ice. 

[SilverCreek 0]

12 hours ago, Philly said:

I have seen a white mayfly that small, size 18, more likely a size 20, but it was up on Pine Creek in late May.  It drove a bunch of Canadian and at least one European fly tyer, not to mention the American ones crazy.  Any ideas, Silver?  It had bunch of FF@ folks talking to themselves and reaching for another glass of scotch.  Haven't had a chance to fish the White Miller hatch on the Susky.

Well you could try what I do sometimes on a heavy trico spinner fall is to fish a "double fly" which is two flies tied on one larger hook.

Here's a pattern from the trout Shop in Craig, Montana on the Missouri below Holter Dam. They get massive trico spinner falls. For big trout on tiny flies, they use a double pattern.

 

The other thing is to imitate clumps of flies as we do for midges. Tie a Griffith's Gnat type of fly but in the colors to match the hatch.