BirdTrout
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Adult Cranefly
A dry fly, tied #10–16, carried year round. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — April–June and September–October.
- #10–16Hook size
- dry flyType
- AllSeason
- 1Hatch matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 5 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
Each of these is the same hatch record the app's own panel reads, so a pattern recommended on a river card in the app is recommended for one of the insects below.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | Standard dry-fly hook, sizes 10–16 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Tan 8/0 |
| Body | Tan or grey dubbing, slim |
| Legs | Knotted pheasant-tail fibres, trailing |
| Hackle | Grizzly, sparse |
| Wing | Light dun hackle tips, optional |
When to fish it
Skittered across the surface on the bank side on spring and autumn evenings. Drag is the presentation, not the mistake.
Carried all year. The insects it matches are active april–june and september–october, in water from 40°F to 65°F.
Target species
- Trout
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Au Sable River northern lower Michigan · July mean 72.1°F
- Catawba River the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Jackson River the Virginia mountains · July mean 66.3°F
- Muskegon River northern lower Michigan · July mean 71.0°F
- Escanaba River the Upper Peninsula · July mean 68.3°F
- Saint Croix River northern Wisconsin · July mean 77.2°F
- Smith River the Virginia mountains · July mean 51.9°F
- Tygart Valley River the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.6°F
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Aaron Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Aaron Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Aarons Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.2°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Adams (Catskill) dry fly · #12–20 — The original. Rides higher than the parachute in broken water.
- Adult Damsel dry fly · #10–14 — Blue or olive extended body on a foam post. For midsummer afternoons on slow weedy water.
- Blue Quill dry fly · #16–18 — Small dark mayfly dun. Spring Blue Quills and fall Mahoganies are the same fly.
- Brown Drake dry fly · #10–12 — Dusk in early June on Michigan and Wisconsin sand-bottom rivers.
- Brown Drake Spinner dry fly · #10–12 — Spent wings, dead drift, in the dark.