An Important Mayfly: The March Brown And Where To Find Info On This Blog Plus Name That Mayfly!

Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip John Gierach

Behold the March Brown, the first of the LARGE mayflies that will grace many of our central and eastern Massachusetts streams. Forget the word "March" because that is the English name given to a mayfly that appears in early spring across the "pond". This handsome critter begins to show itself in May and lingers into early July in these waters. The guy in the photo posed for this photo in early June at the Rezendes Pool on the Millers. He stayed in one spot while I fumbled for my camera - a true camera hog.

It's a big mayfly that will make it's appearance in slower water than it's earlier cousins, the Quill Gordon and the Hendrickson. Look for the edges of currents and not the fastest water. Also it's a late afternoon/evening hatch and you will see trout making lazy rises to the struggling emerging insect and then the rise for the real thing - the adult insect.

I don't go after the nymph stage with this fly. There is so much in the water at this time of year that anything will work BUT I wait to see the duns on the surface because trout will ignore anything else for this morsel. This is also when I go back to tradition and work a large (size 12/14) dry in classic dress. Count the Adams into this group. Size and colors are perfect!!

My fly is this:
Hook - 12 to 14 standard dry fly
tail - brown dyed grizzly hackle barbs
body - grey or yellow/olive dubbing
wing - grey CDC (new this year. I know it's gonna work!!)
hackle - brown dyed grizzly
( the hackle is my short-cut compromise. Instead of tying in a grizzly and a brown hackle aka Adams I make due with a brown grizzly. No grizzly hackle points for wings - they suck!!)

The color tones between the natural and the imitation are pretty close.

Now, I get tons of emails from people that have questions about different flies and different rivers. In the last month I've gotten many from people looking for soft hackle info. I respond to them all BUT if you want immediate gratification just do the following:

1. Go to the upper LEFT hand corner of my blog to the search box.

2. Type in the subject (soft hackles, dry flies, Millers River ect), hit enter and get over 8 years of posts on the chosen subject.

3 I'll still answer all the emails that I get. I love it!!!

Two mayfly photos from Dennis in S. New Hampshire. Of interest is the black Mayfly. That photo was taken in early April and my wild guess is that it's a Mahogany Dun. Any opinions??

Ken

Ken