A Few Words On The Stonefly

Never underestimate the power of the stonefly.  For the weight, there is few deep fishable flies that can beat it.  Whether you drift it or drag it, a properly fished Stonefly will yield you some big trout. 
In my last few trips to the trout streams in South Carolina I have proven this concept yet again.  Color and presentation mater but when you find the right combination to the streams entomology then you are in for a day of great fishing.  Even comically large stones on small creeks can yield surprising results.
On my last trip I lost three black stones in a size #10 to deep fishing at the base of a large waterfall.  Two were lost to a submerged log and one to a large trout that took it running.  I tied on a leggy molted brown stone with no results so I tied on the only other black Stonefly I had in the box. It was a stone I bought in Montana, the land of giants, in a size I was sure would scare small children and trout alike. 
The end result was trout after trout coming to the net with a big fatty cigar of a Stonefly hooked into the corner of their small mouths.  I have thus come to the conclusion that as stoneflies are concerned, size matters little.  Get the color right and you are set.
Stonefly
Graphite on paper
September 2015