Simple Golden Stone

Early spring and after run off are the best two times to fish this fly in my opinion, though it can be fished year round because stoneflies are in the river system usually on a three year lifecycle before exiting the water and hatching.

When snow melt begins to muck up the river, a golden stone is on my radar to be throwing constantly.  Fish begin to look for bigger meals and drifting this right along the bottom in the early season is a great way to put up a lot of numbers for the day.  I fish it as a 2 or 3 fly nymph rig with or without an indicator.  After runoff, the stones are about to hatch and they crawl to the banks.  This is a good time to throw a salmonfly on as a dry fly and drift a golden stone below because golden stones follow salmonflies in the hatch cycles.  A Dry dropper set up for the shallows makes this fly a great option in fooling trout.

I try to tie a few of these with just a gold beadhead and no wire so I can fish them shallow.  Tie black nickel heads for the flies with lead wraps and gold beadheads for flies with no lead wraps so you can tell the difference easily from your fly box.