BWO

Maine has some very dominant hatches and is your bread and butter for catching fish on rivers and ponds. The first hatch I want to talk about is most likely the first big hatch you will encounter. The information I’ll being giving you is from my own experiences and may not be  scientific. I hope to give you some basic knowledge and ideas for flies to try when on the water.

BWO stands for blue wing olive. They typically hatch when there is low light and it is damp, cool and rainy out. I have used flies from a size 22 to a size 16. I try to keep my flies pretty simple. For my dry fly I tie a light dunn color olive body, light dunn wing and hackle. The emerger is the same but no hackle and cdc wing and for the nymph you can use several different flies. I like Barr’s BWO emerger, cdc bwo emerger, flash back pheasant tail and olive copper John. I feel matching the size when matching the hatch, may be more important than matching the exact color.

Here are three hatches I have encounter:

Several years ago when guiding for monster Maine brook trout, I experienced something that I had never experienced before. I had my client throwing big buggy dries and the fish either hammered the fly or just put it’s nose on it. He missed every fish that crashed his fly.  When I guide I watch everything that’s going on and I could see fish flashing (when fish eats it often turns sideways, exposing itself, flashing). It was a low light, cloudy, misty rainy day, so I tied on a Barrs emerger BWO off the bend of his dry. I tied it directly to the bend of the big fly using a improved clinch knot. I had him fish the dry as he normally would but use it as his indicator.  This would help him to know when a fish ate his nymph below. This was only his second year fly fishing so this was the perfect way to lend a helping hand.  His first drift with the new set up brought him a beautiful 21” brook trout.

Another time while guiding, the caddis hatch was on and fish were rising all around us.  My clients were catching and missing fish on caddis dries left and right and just like that, the fish stopped eating their flies.  We could see them eating dries but like a light switch they stopped feeding on caddis and turned their attention to something we couldn’t see. I tried a BWO emerger and they hooked up immediately but it was too dark by then and the hatch stopped. What was interesting about that hatch was that it was a clear evening without rain so I didn’t initially think BWO.  I believe it was the drop in air temperature that triggered the hatch.

A few years ago on memorial weekend I was fishing with my son. We were having an ok day catching trout and salmon on nymphs. It was a sunny but cool day, nice for Maine in May. I didn’t really expect a hatch, it seemed too cold and water temps hadn’t warmed up yet. Around 2pm we dropped into one of the last pools and I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Salmon were flying out of the water and I couldn’t see a hatch.  I grabbed my fish tank net and let water flow through it and found small blue winged olive mayflies. I quickly tied on a dry and we immediately caught fish.  I lost count on how many fish and doubles we had. I even had a couple leap into boat when I hooked them close.

I hope these experiences give you something to think about and lend a hand when fishing the next hatch.  I hope to see you on the water!