BirdTrout
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White Miller
A dry fly, tied #14–18, a summer pattern. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — July–September.
- #14–18Hook size
- dry flyType
- SummerSeason
- 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 14–18 |
|---|---|
| Thread | White 8/0 |
| Body | Cream dubbing |
| Wing | White deer hair or pale elk |
| Hackle | Cream, palmered |
When to fish it
Midsummer evenings on driftless and lower-peninsula water. Start before the swarm is visible; much of the eating happens on the pupa beforehand.
A summer pattern. The insects it matches are active july–september, in water from 60°F to 74°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
- 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
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Abitosse Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 72.0°F
- Acme Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern Wisconsin · July mean 66.2°F
- Addis Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 61.9°F
- Adventure Creek the Upper Peninsula
- Aho Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 70.7°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Elk Hair Caddis dry fly · #12–20 — Floats forever, skates on command, works when nothing is hatching.
- White Wulff dry fly · #10–14 — For the August White Fly, and visible in the last five minutes of light.
- Adams (Catskill) dry fly · #12–20 — The original. Rides higher than the parachute in broken water.
- Adult Cranefly dry fly · #10–16 — Long trailing legs, sparse hackle, skittered rather than drifted. Autumn and spring evenings on the bank side.
- Adult Damsel dry fly · #10–14 — Blue or olive extended body on a foam post. For midsummer afternoons on slow weedy water.