Fly Fishing - Mayflies

Mayflies - Fly Fishing Guide
to Imitating Aquatic Insects

*Learn how to identify mayflies
*Determine the stage of the hatch
*Learn how to imitate their behavior
*How, when and where they hatch
*Identify Clinger, crawler, burrower & swimming nymphs

The objective is to assist you in identifying which aquatic insects the trout are feeding on, selecting an imitation that matches it and presenting the imitation in such a
manner as to fool the trout into thinking it is the real thing.

...M901S Isonychia bicolor or Slate Drake Spinner

By far the most imitated species of aquatic insect is the mayfly. You will see the order “Ephemeroptera” a big word meaning, “short-lived winged insect”- (ephemero-
meaning short lived) and (ptera-meaning winged). In the United States there are several hundred species of them.
When mayflies are hatching and trout are rising, it is a fly fishers dream that came true. Day in and day out, however, this is not the case. To begin with, in the U. S.,
with few exceptions, mayflies only hatch between the months of March and November and this long period of time occurs only in the southernmost areas of the U.S.
where trout waters exist. On most streams, the majority of the hatches occur during the months of May, June and July. When hatches do occur, many of them only
last for a short period of time, a few days or less in many cases. During the hatch mayfly duns may emerge for only an hour or two and not return to the water as a
spinner until dark or even well into the night in some cases. So all things considered, on any given stream or lake, trout are only feeding on hatching mayfly duns or
spinners a very small percentage of time. When they do, you want to be ready for them.

Click to see a list of mayflies covered

These are just a few still images captured from our
digital videos of some mayflies. The purpose is to show
you pictures of what your flies should represent. They
cannot possibly show what our DVDs show because
the DVDs show the video of the flies in real life from
numerous angles.
If you simply tie on a fly without any idea of what the
trout may be interested in and hope for the best, you
are counting on pure luck for success. If you do not
know where and how to present the fly to imitate the
real deal, then you are in worse shape, even though
you may occasionally succeed.