....................... .................... ...Fly Fishing Yellowstone National Park |
05/11/12 New KISS Bug Series - Part 17 The Blue-Winged Olives: Spinners Some anglers consider the spinner of little or no importance, not having seen spinner falls of Blue-winged Olives in great numbers. Others fish them successfully. Spinner falls depends greatly upon the specific water involved but is directly comparable in size to the hatch. We have found them both ways - to provide some excellent fishing and when they trout wouldn't seem to want to respond to the spinners. The female Blue-winged Olive spinners deposit their eggs two or maybe even three different ways. They deposit them on the surface; crawl down rocks and plant stems to deposit them; or dive and deposit them on objects below the surface of the water. This probably varies as to species and may vary depending on the type of water and time of the year. I don't think anyone has pinpointed the particular method these mayflies use as to species for certain. We think most trout eat the spent Blue-winged Olive spinners drifting in the surface skim. Normally the spinner fall occurs anywhere from mid-afternoon up until the time it's completely dark. The early season spinner falls tend to occur earlier in the day than the late season spinner falls. In smooth flowing water, you may be able to spot the trout sipping the spinners from the surface of the water. In rough, fast flowing water, this is just about impossible. Normally, if the Olives are crawling down objects to deposit their eggs, they do so in shallower, calm water. You would probably not be able to spot the trout taking the spinners below the surface; however, there's always the possibility the trout are taking the spent spinners that have collected in the eddies and along the banks in calm pockets of water. If you are fishing the Perfect Fly Blue-winged Olive spinner, a spent imitation, you are probably going to need to use a long, light leader and tippet. A ten or twelve-foot long combined leader and 6X tippet would be a typical setup for this. As mentioned above, all in all, in Yellowstone waters, we have had mixed results from the Blue-winged Olive spinner falls depending on the time of year, the particular species of Blue-winged Olive and the type of water we fished. Spinner falls from the late season hatches have brought us better results than the early season hatches. This may only be due to the fact the afternoons are much longer and the weather is usually more stable than it is in the early season. In smooth water, we have watched large trout sipping the spinners from the surface when they ignored our imitations. Every once in a while, we were able to hook one of the larger fish, but most of the time we ended up with a smaller size rainbow on the line. Catching spinner sipping trout in the fast moving but smooth, slick water isn't easy. It requires an good presentation and a very good imitation of the spinners. Our Perfect Fly is the best imitation of the naturals we have ever seen. We have caught trout using wet imitations of spinners but we are not positive that the trout took the fly for a Blue-winged Olive spinner. They could have been opportunistically feeding trout. The smaller sizes of Blue winged Olive spinners are very difficult to see, especially in low light conditions. This may account for the fact that many anglers think the spinner fall of Little Olives is not very important. You can rig to imitate the spinner as a dropper behind near the surface of a more visible dry fly. This is helpful in seeing the small flies. Let the trail and error method determine which method you use. |
Blue-winged Olives: |