Northwest Fishing Reports

Do they even sell helgramites here in WA..???
would be nice if they did .. They are the best panfish bait you will ever find.. Perch and gills will hit the smallest peace of that insect.. They are a seasonal bait and you end up paying for them but you cannot beat them for catching fish ... If anyone has ever fished with them you would know what I mean..

I was told that they were the same things as maggots. Is this true?

gpc wrote:I was told that they were the same things as maggots. Is this true?

I looked them up and found out that it's the larva stage of the dobsonflies (I think), so it's kind of close to a maggot. In the sense that it's simular. But it sure doesnt look like a maggot. There's more pictures of different species here.

I tried to find out if they even have these flys here, but no luck. Wikipedia has a small article on them but doesn't talk about where to find them.

No they are not maggots.. They are baby dragonflys. in the larva stage they live in the water at this stage..; They move about by squirting water out the backside. But they also have all their legs already..they are 1-2 inchs in length... they really are an awesome bait if you can find them..

They definitely are maggots. What an ugly looking thing LOL. I have never seen one before in the wild or at a bait shop. I think its berkely that does make an artificial hellagramite, but they come in a bunch of different colors and are only about 1/2 an inch. Looks nothing like the real thing. But yeah those things are scary looking LOL

LOL Ok if you want to say maggot fine but they do not look like maggots to me .. I agree with the scarey part as well they are little monsters thats for sure .. They can cling to you pretty good with their legs .. But well worth the trouble ..Nows the time I normaly get them.. So I was just wondering if they could be aquired here.. But it does not look....

martekk42 wrote:LOL Ok if you want to say maggot fine but they do not look like maggots to me .. I agree with the scarey part as well they are little monsters thats for sure .. They can cling to you pretty good with their legs .. But well worth the trouble ..Nows the time I normaly get them.. So I was just wondering if they could be aquired here.. But it does not look....

What do you mean by get them? Like buying them, or finding them? I am always trying to try something new. But like I said I have never seen them around here before. I know cabelas sells worms, minnows, maggots, wax worms etc. in huge numbers for a pretty decent price, but I dont think they have hellagramites. What kind of fish do you catch with these things?

You name it you can probaly catch it on helgramites.. I have caught pike walleye on them even.. But I use them mainly for perch, Bluegill , crappie. In the summer in Wi ..perch cannot resist them and neither can gills ..ect .. From what I know they live in the water till they molt into dragon flys.. they are caught and sold in WI.. From ponds marshy areas ect.. I know they are here as well since there are dragonflys here...
So I dought you can order them off line since it would be hard for them to survive.. But hey you never know ..
They work so well for us LOL we even tried to freeze them for winter fishing .. But of course that did not work..
Maybe someone else who reads the post will know whyat I am talking about as well and be more helpfull to you as well as me ...

Mikey is correct. They are the larval stage of the Dobsonfly. I stumbled on this great website for the bug lovers:

www.whatsthatbug.com/dobs_2.html

Many years ago when I fished North Silver Lake in Medical Lake, we used to buy hellgramites from Bill Butler at the resort on the lake. Butlers Boathouse has been gone for many years now. I think then Bill was getting them from local kids that would gather them.
You might try contacting the Mardon Resort on the Potholes (www.mardonresort.com). If they don't have them, they may know where to get them. Good Luck!

And you are right, helgramites are killer bait!! Just don't let the little buggers latch on to your finger!

I doubt mar don resort has them. I have been fishing there for almost 2 decades and I have only seen eathworms, night crawlers, maggots, leaches, and shrimp one summer they even sold little tubs of perch meat. But I am goin there this weekend so hopefully they can piont me in the right direction..... or maybe they just picked up a new product, that would be pretty sweet

kewl well thats a lead.. if antone does find them let me know if they can be shipped please .. They are a killer bait and worth the time if I can get ahold of some ...

martekk42 wrote:kewl well thats a lead.. if antone does find them let me know if they can be shipped please .. They are a killer bait and worth the time if I can get ahold of some ...

I know Joes had something that I hadn't seen before. Something more than the typical worms/maggots/mealworms/shrimp bait. I might have to stop off and see what they do have.

[quote="martekk42"] No they are not maggots.. They are baby dragonflys. in the larva stage they live in the water at this stage..]

they are NOT baby dragonfly. - different mouthparts as well. Both pretty disgusting looking and good bait. Watch out for their mouths!

Why not catch your own? I was fishing and found a couple in the bellies of the crappie I caught and seeing your post here I googled around... On another website it said to take some wire mesh near fast running water and turn over the rocks which they hide around and the current will push them into the mesh. I think I might try this if I still have extra mesh from when my screen door was replaced.

When I was a kid we used big chunks of tree bark for Traps.
We would place the traps in the tulies and grass beds and around old trees in South Silver lake in Spokane county. The bugs crawl up into the spaces of the bark and hide in there. We would check the traps every other day or so and just shake them off into a bucket.
We sold them all around Medical lake including Butlers Boathouse.
Thanks for the memories Marc,LOL.

My expereince with helgrammites was back in New Jersey. I used to fnd them under rocks in some rivers. the fish would not leave them alone! Smallmouth bass and trout in the river would just swoop them up. trouble was I couldn't find very many and the tackle shops did not sell them.

they do work great. i've found them in and around weeds in the smaller ponds and lakes i fish the best place were i saw the most would probably be lake lenore, theres a reason those cutts get big in that lake. the problem i had using them was i would keep them in a vile in a pocket so when they got hot they died. i believe they would be kept in a container used for leeches. i certainly would buy them if they were readily available. <')//<

Boy! You guys got me thinking about a fly pattern for the little buggers. Several years back I tied up a pattern that was very realistic and was very effective. One of the problems that I ran into was that it would not hold up to the savage strikes it would attract. The other problem was that it was very time consuming to tie.
Does anyone know of a pattern that imitates a helgramite that is effective and has a durable material?

sorry i mistakened the hellgramite for the dragonfly nymph, hellgrammites are dobson fly larva. both work great, hellgrammites are found mostly in rivers and streams live as larva for about 3 yrs and can get up to over 3" long.

I am not a fly fisher but it seems to me that the Woolybugger was patterned from a Hellgramite.