Stonefly · Hesperoperla pacifica and relatives
Golden Stone
Also called Golden stonefly, Hesperoperla.
Short answer
The golden stone is a large yellow-gold stonefly, hook size 6 to 12, that hatches just behind the salmonflies on western rivers and keeps going for weeks after they finish. It is smaller, more abundant and far longer-lasting than the salmonfly, which makes it the more useful hatch of the two.
What a golden stone is
The golden stone lives in the salmonfly's shadow and is the better bet for most anglers. It is a large stonefly — noticeably smaller than a salmonfly, but still a size 8 fly — with a yellow to gold body and tan wings, and it emerges in the same rocky freestone water in the same way, crawling out to hatch on the bank. The difference is duration: where a salmonfly hatch gives a river a week, goldens trickle on for a month or more, which means a trout that has stopped looking up for the giants will still rise for a golden well into July.
- Hook size
- Hook sizes 6 to 12
- Colour
- Yellow to golden-tan body, tan wings, dark head markings
The stages trout eat
- Nymph
- Gold-brown, flat and strong-legged. In the drift all year and one of the best searching nymphs in the West.
- Migration
- Crawls to the bank to hatch, like the salmonfly. Fish nymphs tight to the edge beforehand.
- Adult
- Blown onto the water from streamside vegetation through the late morning and afternoon.
- Egg-laying
- Females drop to the surface to lay. A twitched dry during this is often taken hard.
When does the golden stone hatch?
| When | What is happening |
|---|---|
| June | Overlapping the end of the salmonflies and usually in greater numbers. |
| July | Peak, and the most reliable big dry-fly fishing of the western summer. |
| August | Tailing off, now mixed with hoppers. A golden stone dry and a hopper are close enough to share a box. |
| Rest of the year | The nymph is always there. A golden stone nymph works in February as well as July. |
Emergence dates move with latitude, altitude and the weather of a given year. Treat these windows as a shape, not a diary, and check a local report before you travel.
Where it matters
The same western freestone rivers as the salmonfly, and usually for longer: the Madison, the Big Hole, Rock Creek, the Deschutes, the Gunnison and the South Fork of the Snake.
Fly fishing in Montana Fly fishing in Idaho Fly fishing in Oregon Fly fishing in Colorado Fly fishing in Wyoming
How to fish it
A golden stone dry is one of the great searching flies of the western summer — fish it along the bank and through broken water whether or not you have seen one, because trout remember them for weeks. Hang a nymph eighteen inches below it and you have the most generally useful rig in the Rockies. A gentle twitch imitates an egg-laying female and will convert refusals.
- Goldens last for weeks. If you miss the salmonflies, you have not missed the season.
- A stimulator with a nymph dropper is the default western summer rig for a reason.
- The nymph is a year-round fly, not a seasonal one.
Flies that imitate it
Each of these is a card in the deck, and each has a full page in Our Fly-brary.
Keep reading
- Dry fly vs nymph — which stage to fish, and when
- Why trout refuse your fly — usually the wrong stage, not the wrong pattern
- Best time of day to fly fish — the daily logic behind the table above
- Our Fly-brary — every fly in the deck, explained