MProvo hatch on 4/24

[ryandote]

I highly doubt anybody else was up there today, as I only saw 3 cars all day. Hopefully somebody will stil have some insight, as I am admittedley a Noob.

I started around 8:30AM and caught a few fish on a few different midges...nothing consistent. I was supposed to be back home to fix something for my wife, but a hatch started just as I was leaving. I have absolutely no clue what the hatch was, and I'm hoping to find out. I remember this same bug, about the same time of year, maybe three years ago that stumped me silly, too.

I was expecting a BWO, and it was shaped like a BWO. But it didn't seem to be colored like I was expecting. Just a soft gray everywhere, obviously segmented thorax(?) because of the darker lines. The wings were the same color, not quite light but not quite dark. Anyway, I threw everything I had in my box, including about 4 different brands of BWO, and every other mayfly I had. These ranged in size from 16 to 24.

More than once I saw fish come and take a VERY close look, and then fade back to the bottom. I'm not surprised, though, because I didn't feel like my imitations matched the actuals very well. For all the real bugs, it was a solid take. No sipping or nibbling, I think, because I saw their dorsal fins.

Any ideas as to what bug this was? BWO? Some kind of mutant from Krypton?

Edit: It started up right around 12:30, and was still going when I left at 2:30 (not getting a single hit on any dries, mind you)

[fulano]

It was most definatley BWO that time of day. There are some Caddis this time of year but the two cannot really be confused and if you were seeing them actually floating on the surface, they were most definately mayflies (BWO).

If you were seeing dorsal fins the fish were probably taking emergers. If you were fishing with typical BWO dry patterns like parachutes or thorax patterns they were not on those. That or you needed to go down a size. An 18 is the biggest BWO I would fish on the middle and the same pattern that wasn't working will sometimes start working if you go down to a 20 or 22.

A killer fly during this hatch is the Barr emerger (about a size 18 for this time of year works great). This fly can be fished as a nymph on the bottom, fished in the middle of the water column, or fished right in the film. You will want to trail it behind a more visible fly for surface fishing as it will be very hard to see, but the fish will take this fly nearly every time rather than the more visible.

[cheech]

Fulano tal speaks truth even though he's a Heber inbred.


Were you fishing flat (slow) water? If so, the fish are much more inclined to look and take their time to decide. If you fish the riffles, the fish have much less time to decide, so if they come up to gander they will most likely end up staying to eat.

[nativecutt]

Grab some last chance cripples and your problems are solved.

[ryandote]

Thanks for the tips, guys. So it was a BWO even with that coloring, huh? Makes me wonder why it's called a BWO....j/k.

I definitely was fishing slow, flat water - I'll have to think about that next time I'm matching a hatch and give the riffles a whirl.

Barr emergers and last chance cripples - got it. I'm going to try again tomorrow or friday, so wish me luck.



By the way, seeing dorsal fins tells me that they were taking emergers because it means the fish were angling to take bugs out of the film, right? If they had been going for duns (? or whatever it is that dries it's wings) they could have been blasting out of the water? What would "sipping" indicate?

Also, a "cripple" is just a screwed-up looking fly, right? I don't have the skill to tie, so can I buy cripples at the fly shop? The idea behind a cripple is that trout won't pass up such an easy meal, right.

Thanks again.

[jonescort]

Parks has some nice looking patterns for BWO and they are right on the way up the canyon. GOOD LUCK

[JayMorr]

Ryan,

Extend your tippit out and go smaller if you weren't throwin 6 or 7x and try a 12-15ft leader. ;) Most often than not it is the presentation and not necissarily your pattern. A lot of times just making small corrections as the ones I just mentioned will put you into fish. Your pattern could be just fine.

Also noting what Fulano mentioned, the fish could have been keying in on the emergers.


or just not being able to throw a decent left-reach mend could be the issue like in my case.

JayMorr

[Tyson]

Blue wing olive is just a generic term fisherman use to describe many different species. If you want to identify the mayfly you are going to have to collect some and do some homework.

[nightfish]

I was expecting a BWO, and it was shaped like a BWO. But it didn't seem to be colored like I was expecting. Just a soft gray everywhere...

Just curious, but were you wearing sunglasses when looking at the bug color or were you seeing them with your naked eye? It's a remote possibility, but if you saw them as gray with your naked eye, you may be a carrier of the Asper gene. This genome group is known to imitate every mayfly hatch with a Parachute Adams. if you are an XY carrier, you may feel the urge to use the para-adams during caddis and stonefly hatches as well.

[ryandote]

Just curious, but were you wearing sunglasses when looking at the bug color or were you seeing them with your naked eye? It's a remote possibility, but if you saw them as gray with your naked eye, you may be a carrier of the Asper gene. This genome group is known to imitate every mayfly hatch with a Parachute Adams. if you are an XY carrier, you may feel the urge to use the para-adams during caddis and stonefly hatches as well.



I just bought some polarized glasses, but I didn't have them with me. The Asper gene? Is that x-linked recessive, like color-blindness? Because my mother is a carrier for blue-green colorblindness, and since that is x-linked, I should have the colorblind phenotype. However, I've been tested and could identify almost all the color schemes for the vision test, so the opthalmologist said I have a y-chromosome translocation that fixes it, or something like that. That's crazy it could be affecting my flyfishing!

I guess if you couldn't see colors you'd think that a Parachute Adams looked like everything! I never thought about that. I think a Caddis is different shaped, though, right?

[fulano]

By the way, seeing dorsal fins tells me that they were taking emergers because it means the fish were angling to take bugs out of the film, right? If they had been going for duns (? or whatever it is that dries it's wings) they could have been blasting out of the water? What would "sipping" indicate?

Also, a "cripple" is just a screwed-up looking fly, right? I don't have the skill to tie, so can I buy cripples at the fly shop? The idea behind a cripple is that trout won't pass up such an easy meal, right.

Thanks again.

It's not quite that simple regarding identifying the types of rises, but generally if a fish is taking insects in the film like emergers and spinners you tend to see dorsal fins rather than just noses poking up through the surface. There are not hard and fast rules.

Cripple's are patterns designed to imitate an insect that didn't quite make it out of the nymphal shuck when trying to emerge. There a number of commercial cripple patterns. Some cripple patterns can also immitate emergers. For example, I think a quigley cripple not only looks like a bug that got stuck in the hatch process, but it also looks like a hatching bug at that point that it is struggling out of the shuck with it's wings forward.

[fulano]

Fulano tal speaks truth even though he's a Heber inbred.


People from Venerial calling Heber folks inbred? That's rich.
I'm gonna have to get on step ladder and kick your ass, Cheech!

[wiscoy]

I was on the middle Provo April 27-29 and found the same mayfly you described - small all gray body and wing around size 18-20. Found good success using a size 18 muskrat gray bodied wet fly in the morning; switched to a grey size 20 RS2 as the hatch started and fished wet; once the hatch was in full swing changed to a size 20 Parachute Adams and used the RS2 as a trailer fished as an emerger in the film. Using this approach caught about a dozen fish on Saturday and Sunday. Probably would have done better, but when we got the high temperatures on Sunday fish seemed to get more selective.

Wiscoy

[Taxon]

ryandote-

Any ideas as to what bug this was? BWO? Some kind of mutant from Krypton?

There are many genera of Baetid mayflies in Utah known by the common name of Blue Winged Olive or BWO. Among them in the size range you describe would be Acentrella (2 species), Acerpenna (1) species, Apobaetis (1) species, Baetis (4) species, Camelobaetidius (1) species, Centroptilum (3) species, Diphetor (1) species, Fallceon (1) species, and Pseudocloeon (2) species, and perhaps others. These Baetid species are problematic to differentiate, even by professional entomologists, other than through examination of a male imago (spinner) under the microscope.