Mallards Tanked Trico

Deceive the most selective, hyper-educated trout during intense seasonal collapses with Mallard's Tanked Trico, available now at the Ugly Bug Fly Shop! While standard high-riding dry flies capture most of the glory, seasoned tailwater anglers know that a massive percentage of feeding trout selectively gorge on drowned spinner insects rolling through the sub-surface drift. Masterfully tied to mimic a waterlogged, sunken adult midge, this technical pattern features a dense, streamlined underbody engineered to rapidly break the water column's surface tension and sink directly into the feeding lane. Highlighting a precise black-and-white segmented body architecture and translucent, splayed micro-wings, it perfectly matches the profile of a spent spinner. It functions flawlessly as a trailing fly dropped below a high-buoyant terrestrial attractor, or fished standalone on a technical high-stick nymphing string.

High-altitude late summer mornings right here in Casper mean dealing with our legendary, intense Trico spinner falls. From July through September, millions of these tiny black insects blanket the air over the Grey Reef stretch of the North Platte River. When the morning sun hits the canyon walls and the cloud of bugs hits the water, our giant resident rainbow and brown trout will position themselves in the glassy tailwater flats to sip spinners. When fish refuse to lock onto your standard dry flies, they are almost always targeting drowned midges moving just a few inches below the surface film. Mallard's Tanked Trico in size 20 or 22 is our top secret weapon for this highly frustrating window. Tie this bug exactly 18 inches below an unsinkable Montana Fly Company Foam Beetle using a long, stealthy section of 6X fluorocarbon tippet. The heavy foam dry anchors your visual tracking in the bright glare, while the sunken Trico rolls naturally through the surface film—triggering subtle, confident sips from massive holding trout.