Three River Mayfly Hatches you don’t want to miss

By Rune Andre Stokkebekk, Guideline HQ Norway

In Scandinavia and UK, the rivers are now starting to get in shape and spring flood is culminating. From mid-June and onwards to mid-July there are especially 3 different mayflies hatching that you certainly don’t want to miss if you fancy good dry fly action. All of these have in common that they hatch in the surface, which means possibility of good dry fly action both on floating nymphs, emergers, cripples and duns. And they are also the ones that regularly bring up the better fish.

Baetis Rhodani

The Rhodani is the first mayfly that hatch in almost any river across Europe and it’s certainly the one that gives the first really good and steady dry fly fishing. Size of this fly differs from a size 14 down to 18. Color varies from grey-olive to darker olive. In UK these are called Large Dark Olives. The Rhodani, like the other two flies presented, likes air with high humidity, rain and cloudy. Trout will take nymphs just below the surface, the emerging dun and duns.

Seratella Ignita (previous Ephemerella)

The ignita is the little brother of the Aroni, and normally the size ranges from 16-18. Just like the Aroni this fly likes to sit high on the surface, and smaller flies generally fish better. A size 18 is the go-to size. Ignita is called BWO (Blue Winged Olive) and you can see why when the fly sits on the water. The wings are large for their size and has a distinct shine of steelie blue color when freshly emerged. Smaller dark brown nymphs in dark brown size 16 is needed, as well as a couple variant duns. Also, don’t be afraid to put a cripple emerger on too, even when trout does not seem to focus on them, these flies tend to fish well.

Gear you might need

A good box for the flies are mandatory and the WP Swing Leaf is just perfect for a good variation of flies with different height and volume. On the deep side you can have duns up to size 12 without crushing the wings and on the opposite side on the leaf flies in size 16-20 will fit good. The shallow side is perfect for nymphs, emergers and other “flat” flies like spent spinners.

A good leader setup is very important as trout is suspicious and surely will be scared in many places if they spot your line or feel the impact of it on the water. The longer leader you can manage, the better it is. When fishing in medium to large rivers a 18-20ft leader is almost mandatory. Our Power Strike leaders are made to lengthen and deliver supreme turnover that lets us add all the tippet you need to avoid to spook the trout. My favourite setup is the 4x 12ft version and on this I put a tippet ring, then a piece of 4x Egor on say 50cm to which I attach the tippet of 5x (1,2-1,6m). If I need to use 6x tippet I shorten the 5x piece down to 40cm and add 1-1,3m 6x tippet to it. Use a triple surgeons knot to join the tippet sections.

Tiemco delivers world leading floatants and the Dry Magic can be used on any type fly, also cdc flies. Just apply very sparse and do the other parts of the fly before you put it on the cdc so that you have very little left on your index finger. The Dry Shake Brush is the best option to revitalize any cdc fiber or wing, brush lightly and it will be as good as new in a few seconds.