Sucker Spawn Flies for Early Season Trout

Though these patterns got their start on steelhead streams, a Times Herald-Record columnist notes that flies imitating sucker spawn can work on virtually any water with a population of suckers, even Catskill streams. “Here’s what [guide Ron] Bierstine has to say about this peculiar but effective fly pattern: ‘It was created to imitate sucker spawn in the inland streams which trout feed upon,’ he said. ‘It’s perhaps the ultimate egg pattern. A small, soft, silhouetted fly that looks snotty in the water, not hard and unnatural. Drifts well and traps small air bubbles.'”