Hexagenia



Excellent Hex spinner water, the love the riffs

The fishing pressure on the local trout streams has become basically non-existent and I have found most areas here empty of fisherman.  We have good  water levels and with the warm humid weather the fly hatches are excellent. One in particular has had me on a local stream every evening for the past three nights,  the Hex spinner fall.  The first evening I noticed the larger spinners floating in the air above the riffles and mistakenly thought it was the larger Isos we have here.  I don't expect them to be this large this late in the summer, but, the fish were going nuts on them so, I played along.  Not having an Iso pattern I used a #10 brown X Caddis and in about 45 minutes up to dark and had landed @15 browns, 5 of these 18- 20" and none under 14".  The next evening I had a revelation.



Hex comparadun compared to #14 BWO









24" brown trout



As I stood along the shore preparing to wade out a fly landed on my cheek , it was a female hex spinner.  These flies are probably all of 1 1/2" long  and then I realized these weren't Iso spinners, they were Hex.  The trout don't start rising, not really rising , more like SLASHING, until about 8:10 and this continues on into darkness.  While I stood there another fly landed on the bill of my hat so I snapped a picture, it was the male spinner .  I had no patterns for this fly but I did have a few stimulators in my box and the trout loved them.  Again, another evening of BIG browns.





Male Hex spinner





 Yesterday I took a few minutute at the vise and tied a couple Hex comparaduns on #8 4x long hooks and hit the riffs again for the third evening in a row.  To the point, another tremendous evening and the largest brown I've ever take out of a local trout stream, a 24" male.  The spinner fall seemed to be lighter yesterday, I don't know if the showers we were having was affecting the Hex or if the hatchs/ spinner fall is nearing it's end for the time being.





Well, I will once again hit the riff tonight, it's an urge I can't resist.  It's like being hooked on a bad habit.  I've been Hexed.