Stonefly · Isoperla and relatives
Yellow Sally
Also called Little yellow stonefly, Sally.
Short answer
The yellow sally is a small bright yellow stonefly, hook size 12 to 16, that hatches through the summer on freestone streams across the country. It is far less famous than the big stoneflies and far easier to fish, because trout take it confidently in broken water without much inspection.
What a yellow sally is
Little yellow stoneflies are the summer stonefly nobody plans a trip around and everybody should carry. They are small — size 14 is typical — brilliantly yellow, often with a red or orange spot at the base of the abdomen, and they hatch steadily through the warm months on rocky streams from the Appalachians to the Rockies. Because they are small and common rather than large and brief, trout treat them as ordinary food rather than an event, which is exactly what makes them useful: a yellow sally fished through pocket water in July gets taken without the long inspection a big attractor invites.
- Hook size
- Hook sizes 12 to 16
- Colour
- Bright yellow body, often with a red egg sac; pale yellow wings
The stages trout eat
- Nymph
- Small, slim and pale gold, living in fast gravel. A small pheasant tail covers it adequately.
- Adult
- Hatches on the bank like all stoneflies, then returns to the water to lay. The stage that matters.
- Egg-laying
- Females with a red egg sac drop to the surface. A red hot spot on the fly is not decoration.
When does the yellow sally hatch?
| When | What is happening |
|---|---|
| June | First emergences as the water warms and the runoff clears. |
| July – August | Peak. Daily activity through the middle of the day in pocket water and riffles. |
| September | Tapering, overlapping with terrestrials. A sally and a beetle cover most of a September afternoon. |
| Rest of the year | Nothing on top. The nymph is present but rarely imitated specifically. |
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
Freestone streams everywhere: the southern Appalachians, the Driftless coulees, New England hill streams and the whole Rocky Mountain West. The North Carolina, South Carolina and western state pages all name it.
Fly fishing in North Carolina Fly fishing in South Carolina Fly fishing in Colorado Fly fishing in Montana Fly fishing in West Virginia
How to fish it
Treat it as a searching dry. Fish it upstream through riffles and pocket water with a short line and a lot of casts, and do not wait to see the natural. In the heat of the day, drop a small beadhead eighteen inches below it. The red egg sac matters more than anglers expect — a fly with a red butt genuinely outfishes one without on egg-laying afternoons.
- Fish it blind through pocket water. You do not need to see the hatch.
- The red egg sac is functional, not decorative. Carry flies that have one.
- Small and yellow beats large and clever on a bright July afternoon.
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