BirdTrout
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Fish Eggs (Other)
Other, hatching October–January and April, active in water between 33 and 60°F, and imitated at #10–16. Recorded from the Wisconsin driftless and northern Wisconsin, where 1611 Wisconsin rivers on this site carry a page.
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- #10–16Hook size
- 33–60°FWater, active
- Oct–Jan · AprPeak months
- 1Life stage fished
What it is
Other · Other · adult
Loose single eggs and drifting clusters, translucent orange through pale pink and cream depending on species and how long they have been in the water.
Loose eggs in the drift below spawning salmon, steelhead and suckers. It is a seasonal food and a real one on Great Lakes tributaries; it is also the food most often fished over fish that are themselves spawning, which is a decision the angler should make on purpose.
When it hatches
Peak is October–January and April. The pale months either side are the shoulder — the app widens a peak by one month in each direction and recommends the bug there, and no further: that widening is bounded so that a bug peaking in May is never offered in August.
peak shoulder not recommended
Water conditions
The band is a water temperature, not an air temperature, and it is the range in which this insect is worth fishing — for a mayfly that is the emergence window; for a scud or a midge it is simply the range trout will still eat one in.
Active from 33°F to 60°F. On this map that is cold, cold-transitional water — the band crosses 1 of the three break the river colours use. Breaks at 58, 64 and 70°F.
Stages
What the insect is doing, and what that means for what you tie on.
| Stage | What it is |
|---|---|
| adult | Comes off the redds of spawning salmon, steelhead, trout and suckers and drifts along the bottom. A real and seasonal food on Great Lakes tributaries. It also puts the angler over spawning fish, which is a choice worth making deliberately rather than by accident. |
Matching flies
3 patterns in this book imitate the Fish Eggs, across its stages. Which one to tie on follows the stage the water temperature says it is in — the app makes that call on a live reading; this page lists the whole set.
- Egg Fly nymph · #10–16 — Behind spawning salmon and steelhead in fall and spring. Not a hatch — a food source.
- Squirmy Wormy nymph · #8–14 — The San Juan with movement. For coloured, pushy water.
- Sucker Spawn nymph · #10–16 — Looped angora yarn, cream or pale pink. A cluster rather than a single egg, and the fly for tributary water in spring.
Where to find it right now
The rivers with a page here that sit in this insect's regions, with a USGS gauge reporting water temperature. This list is re-ranked against the reading each gauge is sending now and today's date, so it is live — the fallback below it, if the readings do not arrive, is each river's measured July mean.
- Basteen Creek northern Wisconsin
- Beaver Creek northern Wisconsin
- Blake Creek northern Wisconsin
- Bonita Creek northern Wisconsin
- Casco Creek northern Wisconsin
- Chickney Creek northern Wisconsin
- Cunningham Creek northern Wisconsin
- Devils River northern Wisconsin
- East Twin River northern Wisconsin
- Embarrass River northern Wisconsin
Regional presence
Regions, not collection records. This insect is recorded from the coarse regions below; nobody has surveyed which named river it has been caught on, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
- northern lower Michigan MI
- southern lower Michigan MI
- the Upper Peninsula MI
- the Wisconsin driftless WI
- northern Wisconsin WI
Rivers in these regions with a page here
- Saint Croix River
- Adams Creek
- Alder Creek
- Alder Creek
- Allen Creek
- Allen Creek
- Allen Creek
- Allen Creek
- Allenton Creek
- Allequash Creek
- Alvin Creek
- Amo Creek
- Anderson Creek
- Annis Creek
- Apple Branch
- Apple Creek
- Apple River
- Arkansaw Creek
- Armstrong Creek
- Armstrong Creek
- Arnold Creek
- Ash Creek
- Auburn Lake Creek
- Augustine Creek
- and 1587 more
Related hatches
Same family, or overlapping this one's calendar on the same water.
- Cranefly Tipula spp. · Other · April–June and September–October
- Water Boatman Corixidae · Other · September–November
- Aquatic Worm Oligochaeta · Other · all year
- Damselfly Zygoptera · Other · all year
- Dragonfly Anisoptera · Other · all year