The Golden Stone

It’s spring, and the Golden Stoneflies are hatching. Usually the hatch begins in April and continues into June, providing great angling opportunities throughout the beginning of the season. Some fisheries start earlier, and some continue later, depending on water temperature and snowmelt runoff. No fly fisher should ignore this hatch.

Look for the nymphs in riffles that have a cobble rocky bottom and cold, highly oxygenated water. (Stoneflies like clean water, so if the stonefly population in your favorite stream has declined, it likely is due to a decline in water purity.) Look underneath the rocks, and you will find Golden Stone nymphs crawling on the bottom. The nymphs live there for two to four years, molting multiple times as they grow, before they are mature and hatch. To hatch into an adult, the mature nymph crawls out of the water and on to rocks, logs, or anything else that might be poking from the stream. They don’t change from nymph/pupa to adult in the water column, like mayflies or caddisflies.

Once hatched, the adults live from one to three weeks in the vegetation near the water, where they mate. You’ll see them on branches and other structure. Some may be flying over the water, but the adults aren’t great fliers. Usually the bug that you see flying is a female adult, flying back to the water to lay her eggs. This usually happens at dusk.

As when fishing imitations of any aquatic insect, matching the hatch is important to any successful day on the water when Golden Stoneflies are about. Both realistic or suggestive patterns will take fish. Sometimes you need only suggestive patterns, while other times the fish are so picky that realistic flies are necessary. You need both in your fly box. For example, on Hat Creek at the start of the season, the trout haven’t seen flies since November, so in late April, the fish are less wary, and a suggestive fly works just fine. After a week or two, the trout have seen thousands of flies, and the fish get so skittish that they seem as if they’re counting the legs on your pattern, so realistic flies tend to be the way to go at this time. On the lower Sacramento River, the fish typically are less wary, and suggestive flies are the go-to patterns.

Nymph Imitations

The Golden Stonefly is found all over the West. Sometimes local Golden Stone nymph patterns work better than the well-known patterns used everywhere, and sometimes it’s the other way around. Realistic Golden Stone nymph imitations such as Mike Mercer’s Gold Bead Poxyback Biot Golden Stone tend to require advanced tying techniques. Generic, suggestive imitations, such as the Rubberlegs Golden Stone Nymph, are easier to tie.

I fish Mercer’s Gold Bead Poxyback Biot Golden Stone in size 6 to 10 and the Rubberlegs Golden Stone in size 6 to 8. These nymphs can be fished on an indicator dead-drift leader system or a high-stick rig.

Dry Fly Imitations

Imitations of adult Golden Stones all combine realistic and suggestive elements. Some have a little more of one or the other, and some have a little less. When selecting an adult Golden Stone pattern, floatability is a major criterion. The more suggestive patterns tend to float better than patterns that tend toward realism. Many recent suggestive patterns are tied with foam bodies, including the Rogue Foam Golden Stone. The foam, in combination with deer and elk hair, keeps the fly high and dry. My own variation on the classic Bullethead pattern, Lance’s Bullethead Golden Stone, floats well because it is tied with less bulky materials. That said, you can improve the fly’s ability to float by pretreating the fly after it is tied with a floatant designed for that purpose, and then later applying your favorite floatant when at the stream.

Also helpful are the desiccant/hydrophobic powders that help a waterlogged fly float again.

Fishing the Golden Stone adult dry fly is simple. I use a 9-foot leader tapered to a 3X tippet. I like stiff leaders that have an aggressive taper. They allow you to turn over a big dry fly such as a Golden Stone in the wind and let you cast into pocket water and large holes with ease and control. Many fly fishers try to make a delicate presentation with Golden Stone dries. Instead, think “Splat!” Because the Golden Stone is a large bug that doesn’t fly well, it hits the water hard, and so should your fly. This will get a fish’s attention.

Tying for the Opener and Beyond

When I was a teenager, I participated in the Chico Area Fly Fishers’ annual season opener at Hat Creek. The club would give everyone a ribbon to wear during the fish-out so the other members would know one another. We also had potluck dinners and told tales around the fire in the evenings. It was a wonderful experience.

Weeks before the Hat Creek opener, we would get together and tie the flies needed for the event. Every week we would tie a different fly. The list included Bird’s Nest Nymphs, Hare’s Ear Nymphs, Goddard Caddis dry flies, and of course Golden Stonefly imitations. The pattern we tied to imitate the nymph was the Golden Stone Burlap Nymph, and for the adult, we tied a large Bullethead Golden Stone. The Golden Stone Burlap Nymph is just a large soft hackle, with a burlap body, that has the right color and movement. Both these patterns continue to attract hits from trout.

These days, I tie my own version of the Bullethead Golden Stone, and for a simple nymph I find the Rubberlegs Golden Stone Nymph works very well because, like the Golden Stone Burlap Nymph of my youth, it looks good from all directions and angles.

When tying these flies, use good hooks, good materials, and take your time to make a well-constructed fly. There is nothing worse than having a fly come apart, especially when the fish want to eat it. The same goes if you are buying flies: make sure the flies are tied well, on good hooks, and with solid materials.