Snipe Flies

So do you want to go on a snipe fly hunt?  Snipe flies are poorly known, but they can be quite abundant as I found out on a recent fishing trip to Montana. A brief kick sample in a riffle on the Big Hole River turned up hundreds of them.  In fact they seemed to be one of the most abundant and available insects for trout to eat.  This was further confirmed by the success of fishing a green rock worm nymph pattern in a size 12 or 10, which did a nice job of imitating the snipe fly larvae.

Snipe flies belong to the order Diptera and family Athericidae. Only two genera and four species are known in North America, but as I mentioned they can be quite abundant.  They prefer to live in riffles with a cobble bottom in cold to moderately warm streams.  The larvae are present throughout the summer and fall, so if they are present in good numbers they will be good to imitate.  Adults look a bit like a skinny house fly, and live for only a few days.  I’ve never seen one, so as far as I know they are not important to imitate.

Then next time you are on a trout stream look for these interesting and often abundant aquatic insects, and if you find them put on a green rock nymph!