Spring Blue Quills
Watching this amazing event can add another dimension to your fly-fishing experience. Fishing spinners at midday can be productive if the spinner activity takes place when the hatching is sparse. If there is a heavy hatch of Paraleptophlebia duns, or caddis, or Hendricksons, the fish will usually ignore the Paralep spinners.
Spinner falls occur progressively later in the day as the hatches wane until some of the heaviest spinner flights occur in late afternoon or near dusk. During this time, the density may cause prolific and selective feeding.
Look for “sip” riseforms—subtle, almost imperceptible rings. Trout make these when they leisurely tip up to suck in the vulnerable spinners. They know there is no hurry to feed—the dying spinners are not going anywhere.
Don’t be fooled by the riseform’s small size. More than once I’ve been surprised when I hooked trout of trophy proportions while casting to a tiny sip rise.
My favorite pattern is the #16-#18 Compara-spinner. It has a dark red-brown dubbed body, pontoon tails, and a pale dun hackled wing trimmed top and bottom. A light grizzly hackle mixed in with the light dun is even better, or you can use just a light grizzly hackle. Spinners with poly-yarn or Z-lon wings are also effective. These are commonly called Rusty Spinners.
When you locate streams with good populations of Blue Quill spinners, be sure to list them in your “little black book.” They can provide some of the best dry-fly fishing of the spring season.
Presenting Blue Quills
Blue Quill nymph, emerger, dun, and spinner patterns must be presented absolutely drag-free, especially on smooth, clear pools, flats, and gentle riffles. A slack-line reach cast, quartering downstream, is the most effective cast to use to eliminate drag and microdrag (drag that you can’t see, but the trout can). The cast also puts the fly over the trout before the leader or line.
Use 2- to 3-foot, 5X or 6X tippets for #16 and #18 imitations. The light tippet helps combat drag. A 10-foot leader, including the tippet, is sufficient if you drop the fly and line on the water gently and make a proper drag-free presentation. Lighter 2- to 5-weight lines make more delicate presentations than heavier outfits.
Wading the edges of pools, flats, and runs and making longer casts can help you catch more fish. Don’t wade into the midst of feeding fish or push a wake to the fish; doing so puts all but the small fish down.
On small streams with tight quarters, you may have to cast upstream. Although you can wade closer to a trout when approaching it from behind, you must be careful not to “line” the fish by putting the leader or fly line over it and spooking it. Curve and reach casts can prevent lining the fish, and they combat drag. You must also mend line when necessary to maintain complete control of your fly and line as it drifts. If you don’t, you will get too much slack and miss most strikes, or tighten the line and cause drag.
Al Caucci is author of five fly-fishing books, including Hatches II, and owner of the Delaware River Club Resort and Al Caucci Flyfishing on the West Branch (www.mayfly.com). He lives in Tannersville, Pennsylvania.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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