BirdTrout
Open the map
White Miller (Nectopsyche spp.)
Caddis, hatching July–September, active in water between 60 and 74°F, and imitated at #14–18. Recorded from northern lower Michigan, southern lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, where 1140 Michigan rivers on this site carry a page.
- #14–18Hook size
- 60–74°FWater, active
- Jul–SepPeak months
- 3Life stages fished
What it is
Caddis · Nectopsyche spp. · larva → pupa → adult
A cream-to-white caddis with pale wings folded in a tent over the body, and long pale antennae. In the evening light a swarm of them over the water is unmistakable.
A pale cream caddis that comes off in clouds on midsummer evenings and is a Wisconsin classic. It swarms over the water at last light long after the fish have stopped rising to it, so the fishable window is earlier than the spectacle suggests.
When it hatches
Peak is July–September. 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 60°F to 74°F. On this map that is cold-transitional, cool, warm water — the band crosses 2 of the three breaks 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 |
|---|---|
| larva | A case-builder in slower sandy and silty water, using sand grains and plant fragment. Rarely fished directly. |
| pupa | Rises to the surface at dusk to emerge. This is the productive stage and the one the fish are usually on before the visible swarm starts. |
| adult | Swarms in clouds at last light and after. Egg-laying females come back to the water, but much of the visible flight is above it, which is why the fishing often ends before the spectacle does. |
Matching flies
4 patterns in this book imitate the White Miller, 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.
- Elk Hair Caddis dry fly · #12–20 — Floats forever, skates on command, works when nothing is hatching.
- LaFontaine Sparkle Pupa emerger · #12–18 — The gas-bubble pupa. Fished rising through the swing, which is how caddis actually emerge.
- White Miller dry fly · #14–18 — Cream body, white wing. The midsummer evening caddis of the Wisconsin driftless and the Michigan lower peninsula.
- White Wulff dry fly · #10–14 — For the August White Fly, and visible in the last five minutes of light.
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.
- Acme Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Apple Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Bakers Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Blind Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Boardman River northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Bourne Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Brundage Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Buttermilk Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Carpenter Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
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
- southeast Minnesota MN
Rivers in these regions with a page here
- Au Sable River
- Muskegon River
- Escanaba River
- Kalamazoo River
- Abitosse Creek
- Acme Creek
- Adams Creek
- Addis Creek
- Adventure Creek
- Aho Creek
- Ahola Creek
- Alabaster Whitney Drain
- Aldridge Creek
- Allen Creek
- Alward Creek
- Amundsan Creek
- Anderson Bayou
- Anderson Creek
- Anna River
- Antler Creek
- Antrim Creek
- Apel Drain
- Apple Creek
- Arsenault Creek
- and 1116 more
Related hatches
Same family, or overlapping this one's calendar on the same water.
- Little Sister Caddis Cheumatopsyche spp. · Caddis · June–August
- Spotted / Tan Caddis Hydropsyche spp. · Caddis · May–August
- Green Sedge Rhyacophila spp. · Caddis · May–August
- Green Rock Worm / Green Weenie Rhyacophila spp. · Caddis · April–June and September–October
- October Caddis Pycnopsyche spp. · Caddis · September–October