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Terrestrials
Mon 8th February, 2010
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Terrestrials are the group of creepy crawlies that don’t intentionally have an aquatic stage in their life-cycle. However these land based insects sometimes end up in the river in reasonable numbers and trout will feed on them. Terrestrials include species like cicadas, beetles, spiders, crickets, vine hoppers, ants, bees, wasps, houseflies, moths and butterflies. As far as Tongariro anglers are concerned cicadas, vine hoppers and beetles would probably be the groups of most interest.
The latter begin to appear around October and continue hatching through until February. Brown beetles show up first followed by the green variety. Trout caught by boat anglers on the lake can be stuffed with them. But both sinking and dry imitations will work well on the river and rainbow and brown trout will take this fly. I’m not really sure what percentage of a trout’s diet consists of terrestrial insects. But because of the thriving caddis and mayfly population in the Tongariro
I would guess at much less than ten percent.
Most of them tend to appear in the warmer months when the fish are already beginning to look up for their food. Early in the year Tongariro "regulars" await the appearance of the Cicada and if sufficient numbers of them turn up in the river trout will readily include them on their menu. Depending on the hatch the surface action can quite literally be explosive for weeks.
So worth carrying a few terrestrial imitations in your fly-box.
See you out there
Mike |
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