Trico Duns
By A.K. BEST

Fishing a #12 Green Drake is a lot of fun in several ways. You can use a heavier tippet, trout love them (the flies), you can easily see them (again, the flies), and casting accuracy isn't all that critical. But I think the most fun I can have fly-fishing is casting a #22 Trico dun on 18 feet of leader with a 40-inch 7X tippet. Everything about the cast and the presentation must be perfect. Accuracy is crucial because the trout won't move two inches to either side to eat something that small. Considering that the duns come off beginning a little before dawn, you won't have as much competition from other anglers, since most fly fishers seem to think the Trico spinner fall that occurs later is it. The Trico hatch lasts for many weeks in most parts of the country and seems to attract every trout in the stream. Often, there is a Baetis hatch once or twice during the same day, and the little Trico Dun is a close-enough match that changing flies isn't always necessary.


My favorite Trico recipe is as follows:

Hook: Your favorite loop-eye or up-eye hook, size 18 to 22
Thread: White 6/0 or 8/0 for tying in tail and body; black 6/0 or 8/0 for tying in thorax, wings and hackle
Tail: Stiff white spade hackle fibers, splayed
Body: Stripped and dyed, pale-green rooster neck-hackle quill
Thorax: Two turns of lightly dubbed fine black dryfly dubbing
Wings: Pair of white hen hackle tips, one size larger than normal
Hackle: Basic black is traditional; try cream and take only three or four turns of hackle

Tying notes:
Begin with white thread; the diameter of the quill is small enough that black thread will "glow" through the thin quill and change its color. Change to black thread just before dubbing the thorax.

Use no more than five or six tailing fibers, which should be a little longer than the entire hook.

The quill body should end at mid-shank to save room for two turns of black dubbing (the thorax).

Remember that the wings on a Trico are taller and wider than those of many other flies of the same size.

That’s it.—A.K.