"Thanks for the continued updates! I wouldn't fish nearly as much if it wasn't for your blog." comment on 9/5
The Blue Wing Olive
The BWO is with us all season long but its prime stage is on those cool, cloudy September and October afternoons on rivers like the Millers and the EB. 20 years ago it seemed to be a rarity to see this hatch on the Millers. Now it's a daily event from mid September onward and if the weather stays good (no flooding rain) it will go right into November.
Where To Find Them
Fish the riffles at the head of pools. That's the neighborhood for this fly and that's where the trout will be. Think of the riffles at Erving Center/Arch Street on the Millers or that sexy riffle at the head of Les's Pool on the EB. Every stream has these locations and you know where they are.
What To Fish
Way to much emphasis is placed on the dry fly when working these insects. The pre-emergence stage is just as important. My top emerger the last few years has been nothing but a starling and olive soft hackle (what else) from size 16 through 18. I fish this fly upstream or on the swing until the rising fish REALLY begin to appear. Then my dry emerger goes on. Read Bob Wyatt's book What Trout Want to get the idea. I shy away from those dainty parachute flies for something that can be whipped up in mass and actually is the most representative of the BWO. Sizes 16 through 18 work the best on the above mentioned rivers.
The Swift
Believe it or not but the Swift release was increased on Tuesday from 50 to 130 cfs. Now, I can hear the round of applause celebrating this event but I like 50 cfs!!! When they up the flow it puts the trout down for a few days. Surface action was slow but I managed 2 sipping bows above the Duck Pond and then a brown at the Y Pool. The water temperature was 56 degrees at 5pm and wet wading felt REAL GOOD!!!
The EB
The Millers
Read the comments on this blog for the last two weeks. Some say that it's all smallies and fallfish and others say that browns are in play. I'll say that the rainbows are still with us and when this damn heat finally breaks we will have even better fishing. The flow, as I write, is at 267 cfs = PERFECT!
Ken
10 comments:
I'm one that prefer's the higher flow, who wants to fish a river doesn't move?
50 is way too low and slow.
Speaking of which whens the completion date on the pipeline to the hatchery? Looking forward to the increased flow below the pipe.
Try a Wyatt's Dirty Duster for a simple BWO Emerger. DO like your taper on those Soft Hackles. Can't wait for cooler temps!
Josh,
I have much more success on the Swift on the surface or below the surface at 50 cfs or below. If you are a nympher you will have some problems. What do you mean "who wants to fish a river that doesn't move?"
The pipeline to the hatchery was completed last Nov/Dec. I guess you didn't notice!!!! Did you ACTUALLY think that the flow would increase?????????? Do your homework before you try to post again!!!
Ken
Ken,
Another great post from an experienced angler. It amazes me how much of a bond I feel with you even though we live on opposite sides of our nation, fish different types of water, and have different preferences for the areas we fish.
Your last post was on the mark about fishing may fly duns and the type of fly to use.
Although I love reading blogs by anglers from all over the place and especially enjoy following the learning process of younger anglers like Rowan Lytle who’s passion and excitement comes through in every sentence, I sometimes find myself yelling into the screen on my computer “Why don’t you crack a book and study our sport” (not talking about you Rowan). So many of the questions posed and struggled with by the blogosphere, many by anglers who have decades of experience under their belt have been answered over 100 years ago.
My point, tying Parachute mayfly duns is a complete waste of time! As I see it there are only two reasons to tie a parachute mayfly dun, to learn a new technique or to practice skills to perfect the tiers craft. Okay, okay, I'm not talking about the Klinkhamer Special, which I consider more of an emerger or cripple (no tails and an abdomen that penetrates the surface).
The main reason I hear for the use of parachute style flies is that the body (thorax) of the fly rests on the water and triggers the strike. There are so many problems with this idea, and they have been talked about for over 120 years. Some anglers think that a standard hackled fly holds the body off of the water and therefore the fish cannot see the body through the water and trigger a strike. As if legs coming out of the base of the wings is better when all mayflies legs are attached below the carapace sections of the thorax. That’s just me nitpicking. Halford, Dunne, Bergman, Gill, Marinaro, Goddard and Clarke, LaFontaine, and dozens of others have written at length about trout vision and what the trout actually sees and what triggers the strike.
What most dry fly anglers fail to realize is that everything the fish sees outside of its window through the surface is a reflection of the bottom (mirror) of the stream bed and what’s floating in the water column. They do not see the body of a mayfly dun until it enters the trouts window. The significance of this is that on flat water the first part of a mayfly dun the trout sees is the top of the wing, that is the trigger.
The following illustration from John Dunne’s book “Sunshine and the Dry Fly” (1922) illustrates this clearly. 1922! Halford wrote and illustrated the same thing in the late 19th century. Yet many anglers still think that the fish sees the body first and it triggers a strike. Ughhhh........
This next picture, figure 32 from “The Trout and the Fly” (Goddard and Clark, 1980) illustrates this even better.
Figure 26 from the same book illustrates what the world really looks like to a fish below the surface. Now go back to the previous Figure 32 and look at the wing appearing in that area of vision.
Figure 31, again from Goddard and Clarke is added just for those of us who like to calculate. This illustration shows just how wide (narrow?) that window is against how far down in the water column the trout has set itself up for feeding. I find it interesting that a trout one foot below the surface cannot see anything through the surface until it is 13 1/2” in front of its eyeball. It can see the wing of a mayfly dun a foot or so before that. When one starts calculating in the speed of the current it becomes apparent how little time a trout has to make up his mind whether it is something good to eat, or not. Hence we have trout stomachs that contain small twigs, conifer needles, etc. What a marvelous quarry has been provided for us to share our sport with.
Phil,
Sorry but I had to truncate your email due to the length. This platform will not allow a response of that length BUT it should!! It is one of the best responses that I have witnessed on this blog and not because I agree with the body of it. Thank you!!!
Ken
I love Phil's post and will have to study it more. If I may weigh in, I think there a few variables here. I mostly fish Bondsville which is catch and keep, though I release them all. Numbers of fish dwindle as the season progresses for obvious reasons. A trout connected with this time of year gives me great satisfaction knowing it has been in the river for a good while.
That said I have had great top water action at times with Catskill type dry flies and parachute flies. If I saw a rise and put the fly into the zone, I got a take. Same with an elk hair caddis. As the season wears on however, the refusals come and then I come to realize the trout aren't hitting everything thrown into their zone anymore.
Point is, I thing we are casting to different trout as the season wears on. The early stocked ones that hit those Catskills and parachutes are mostly gone or more educated and have survived. Lately I have only long distance released a few trout in the zone where I fish, but don't really mind, though one I hooked I wish I could have got a picture of. Big brown.
I love reading this blog! The knowledge that comes from it is great and everyone that comments always has good information to pass along
I love these kind of discussions, and they happen a lot on this blog, so thank you, Ken! In Fly Fishing Outside the Box (a book I can't recommend enough... very much in the Datus Proper and Bob Wyatt tradition) Peter Hayes puts forth a good theory for why a lot of traditional (dun) patterns are effective. He believes they catch trout primarily because they DON'T function as they were designed. Instead of floating high on hackle points and tails, as they are designed to do, the flies end up getting waterlogged, sink into the film, and accidentally imitate emergers instead of high floating duns. This would have been particularly true back in the day when hackle was of "lower" quality... not as stiff and water resistant. I think one of the reasons (maybe the only reason) emergers are often more effective than duns is that they are visible to the trout from much farther away, given that they break through the surface mirror. Clarke and Goddard do an excellent analysis of the "window" in the surface mirror, but then they spend a lot of time worrying about wings and having high-floating flies become visible in the fish's window a moment earlier. Seems to me the the right approach is usually to focus on a fly that rides in the film, below the mirror, that is visible to the fish from much farther away.
Brendan,
All good points. I seldom ever see an adult mayfly taken off the surface by a trout BUT I always see rise forms. I believe it's the emerger, stuck in the surface film, that they are after.
Ken
I occasionally see fish eat duns, particularly when they are fluttering and struggling on the surface, which sometimes seems to attract the attention of the trout. It is very rare to find a fish that eats a dun that wouldn't also eat an emerger. I can imagine a situation where a trout might feed "selectively" on duns (tail end of a large pool, such that most of the bugs have already emerged by the time they float over the fish), but I still think an emerger would be my first choice of fly.
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