If you haven't been at the vice preparing for the early season hatches you'll need to read this from Matt Eastham and get tying, ready for the arrival of the Large Dark Olives.
Spring approaches and with it, some of the most enjoyable fishing of the whole year. After months of dredging the riverbed with an arsenal of tungsten weighted grayling bugs, what better sight could there be on a chilly March day, than a surface littered with so many steel grey olive duns....and eager trout rising to eat them? It's always special moment for me; the realisation that our invertebrates and trout have survived the winter unscathed. They always do of course, but still it comes as a revelation after such a long period when the river has often appeared devoid of life, and with the knowledge that the best of the flyfishing year is just around the corner, I always set forth in March with a spring in my step and endless possibilities in mind.
The little insect which plays so big a part in getting this annual festival started is of course Baetis rhodani, the Large Dark Olive (LDO). A firm favourite amongst river trouters, it is a fly which hatches to a greater or lesser extent the whole year round, but which is most commonly associated with the first knockings of the fledgling season. Given a mild February, there is every chance that come opening day on 15th March, the LDOs will have been trickling off daily for some time and already the trout are prepared to move onto spring feeding lies. Indeed those anglers who choose to pursue grayling right through the winter may well have benefited from this phenomenon, capitalising on mild days when even a sparse hatch can bring a few fish to the surface right through January and February.
Conversely, when - as it did in 2013 - winter holds the country in its grip well into the start of the trout season, early trout fishing may feel not unlike those midwinter days when no olives emerge at all, and the river seems lifeless. But given 'normal' weather patterns and a little knowledge of how to put himself in the right place at the right time, the angler can set out with reasonable hope of finding some dry fly sport at some point during the day.
Large Dark Olives are in some ways predictable, but in others, entirely unpredictable. I love fishing the spring hatches because, for about the only time in the trout fisher's calendar, we know exactly what time we need to be at the river. There is no sleep lost wondering if we arrived too late for sport, or that by choosing to leave we might miss the mother of all hatches. LDOs hatch during the middle part of the day: there are no surprise morning emergences, no late spinner falls of interest; it's a lunchtime job and that's all there is to it. Provided we are at the river by 11am and stick it out until 4pm at the absolute latest, we can be certain that we have fished during 'trout opening hours'. Predicable eh? Well not exactly......
If timing is the easy bit, location often proves more problematic. LDOs are legendary in their tendency to hatch very locally. And by that I mean, one angler might be enjoying a field day whilst his friend in the next pool up sees barely a fly on the water. There is no straightforward solution to this as I've found to my cost many times. Midday passes with no sign of sport and there is always that niggling worry that elsewhere on the river the fish are going bananas amidst a mass emergence. So do we stay put at our favourite spot which has produced in similar conditions so many times in the past.....or do we head off and do some searching? Stick or twist? With the clock ticking, it's a dilemma which can reduce the previously calm angler to a nervous wreck.
Some might be content to fish the water regardless of invertebrate movement, and that's fine. However, if it's dry fly sport you are after then I suggest that the best tact is to keep mobile and slowly walk the bank, paying particular attention for signs of impending action. A couple of minutes spent scanning each pool for the distinctive sailing boat profile of resting duns, or listening for the telltale slurp of a rising trout, is time well spent and by covering a decent amount of water during the peak feeding hours (usually midday until 2pm), there's a fair chance of dropping on some surface sport eventually.
It is also worth mentioning that sometimes, a steady trickle of olives can tempt the trout into a far more concerted feeding spree than an apparent blizzard hatch. Why this should be so is largely a matter of air temperature. In early spring, we can be faced with weather as diverse as snow flurries, right through to balmy sunshine and temperatures in the high teens. In colder conditions, it is not unusual to see even a small flurry of LDO bring a number of fish up on the rise. This is because the flies find it difficult to get off the water quickly - in the cool, moist air, their newly emerged wings take an age to dry out and harden sufficiently to allow them to get airborne. In such instances it is not unusual to observe trout hard on the feed amongst the stranded unfortunates, with something approaching a 100% olive mortality rate......manna from heaven for the dry fly enthusiast! There may not be many insects on the water, but they are sitting ducks and the trout know this, sidling about, picking them off at will.
The opposite can prove frustrating. Warm sunny weather can cause a virtual explosion of LDOs from the pool head riffles. Of course, these conditions allow the flies to get up and away almost instantly and with a cloud of dancing duns about their heads, many anglers ask the question - with such a big hatch, how come nothing is rising? It is a better bet to fish spiders or nymphs in such instances; the trout will not waste energy trying to close down duns in the few seconds between their emergence and flight....but you can safely bet they are hawking about sub surface, taking the ascending nymphs on their journey up from the river bed.
Presenting a dun or emerger imitation in a spring olive hatch is usually a pretty straightforward affair. After a long winter, the fish jump on these early opportunities to recover some condition and there is no better time to catch a large wild brownie off-guard and feeding hard in a surprisingly accessible spot. The trout tend to take up station on foam lanes in the decelerating water not far below the top of the pool - an ideal station from which to ambush the olives which usually emerge from the brisk riffles at the head. This busy water allows the angler to get into position undetected with relative ease; and provided a suitable imitation is delivered with minimal drag, exciting early season sport is likely to result. Fish at this time of year don't always require the same degree of subtlety in presentation as they do later in the summer, and whilst I personally favour hand built tapered leaders of between 14-16' these days, it's perfectly reasonable to expect to catch your share of fish on one of the many 9' tapered copolymer jobs, readily available in the shops. Adding 18" of tippet in the 0.12 to 0.14mm range is all that's required.
So to imitations: fly choice at this time of year need not be a complicated affair and I tend to rely on just a couple of patterns to cover emerger and dun stages. Very popular still, are the 'plume tip' style duns with seemingly every angler having a variation on the successful formula of 'tail whisks-slim body-cdc plume wing'. I am no different, but I tend to reserve this style of fly for smaller sizes and trickier summer fishing. Spring fishing can be hectic at times and with plenty of rising fish to target, and often in quite popply water, I find the high maintenance nature of cdc based patterns an unnecessary bind for the most part. The following four imitations have stood me in good stead over the years, being easy to tie, robust, and absolutely deadly when Baetis rhodani decides to put in an appearance. Why not give them a go on your own rivers this coming spring?
Pearly butt bloa
Traditional north country spiders can be deadly in the early stages of any hatch. Tied wisp-thin and with minimal fuss, they are designed to fish in the uppermost water layers and when allowed to gently swing across the current below the angler's position, the hackle fibres 'zip up' along the hook shank and do an admirable job in imitating ascending ephemerid nymphs. If sitting on your hands waiting for a rise is not your cup of tea, then searching with spiders can be a very effective way of covering likely water in the period leading up to peak feeding activity and can give a good early warning of where any surface sport may be about to occur. When it comes to imitating early season olives, there is no better spider pattern than the waterhen bloa. This contemporary update comes courtesy of Paul Procter and adds a short butt of pearly tinsel to the traditional tying, undeniably giving it a bit of something extra.
Hook: Partridge Classic Spider #14
Butt: UTC mirage tinsel
Thread: yellow Pearsalls silk, lightly dubbed with mole fur
Hackle: Moorhen marginal covert feather - two turns maximum
LDO para-emerger
A simple para-hackled fly tied on a curved emerger hook. Key to the success of this pattern is selection of a hackle with a slightly longer barb length than might normally be used, then tying in with just a couple of turns. The result is a sparse, leggy looking beast which appeals to trout far more than a more heavily dressed 'Klinkhamer' style fly. It does a fantastic job of tempting emerger-feeding brownies, and is rarely refused even when the fish have switched on to the fully emerged duns.
Hook: Varivas 2200 #14
Thread: Sheer 14/0, cinnamon
Rib: Hends body quill or Pearsalls silk
Dubbing: blend of Masterclass shades 1 and 2
Post: Aerodry wing
Hackle: dark dun cock
LDO Jingler
A Scottish pattern which is fast gaining popularity south of the border. I was first introduced to this fly a couple of years ago by a Glaswegian friend and I have to admit that upon first sight I dismissed it as an untidy looking mess of a fly, and something of a step backwards in fly design, sporting as it does a traditional fully-collared hackle. It proved to be an absolute revelation though, for reasons I still haven't really sussed. It doesn't matter how or where you fish this fly - slow water, fast water, up, across, down, dry or wet - it will become trout food very quickly. The key point in its tying is to strive for a bushy, messy appearance, probably more so than my versions below to be honest. Tie the partridge in 'back to front' with the concave edge facing over the hook eye, and then stroke all the hackle fibres forwards before fishing.....and prepare for exciting results.
Hook: Partridge SLD #14
Thread: Sheer 14/0 cinnamon
Tails: coq de Lyon
Body: Hends body quill, or just plain tying thread
Hackles: grey partridge in front of ginger cock
Snowshoe hare emerger
I suppose this is my alternative to the aforementioned cdc plume tip. It's a 'no-hackle' imitation which gets reserved for those times when the fish inexplicably refuse more conventional offerings. It comes in very handy towards the end of a hatch when the frequency of rises begins to tail off and trout can be observed quartering around the slack eddies, picking off the last few cripples and stranded duns. Snowshoe hare isn't the easiest stuff to tie with and it took me a few years to arrive at this incarnation which uses the fur spun in a dubbing loop rather than tied in as a bunch. It is worth the effort though - fish seem to pick this fly out of the surface film so nonchalantly, as if they have absolutely no suspicion whatsoever.....and unlike cdc, it doesn't require regular dips into the dessicant powder to revive.
Hook: Varivas 2200 #14
Thread: Sheer 14/0 cinnamon
Rib: Hends body quill or Pearsalls silk
Dubbing: blend of Masterclass shades 1 and 2
Wing: dun snowshoe hare, spun in a dubbing loop
Matt Eastham is a fly fishing obsessive who has spent the last fifteen years pestering the wild trout and grayling of northern England. He is author of the popular North Country Angler blog