Blue winged Olives

[Chaz]

For what it's worth someone in another post stated there is no Blue winged Olive mayfly. I'm here to tell you I have twice fished over Blue winged Olive hatches, once on Big Pine at Black Walnut Bottom, and once on a NE PA brook trout stream. I believe the species was cornutta, but they may have been another mayfly which I'm not familiar with. Anyway the flies were a size 14 and olive bodied with dun wings, a classic Blue Winged Olive. The Lackawaxen River also has this hatch, or it did at one time, and I know of a couple of anglers that have fished it. I've also fished the spinnerfall.
As for Baetis, while everyone calls them BWO's many of them are not olive bodied flies. The Baetis genus of mayflies is a large group and they range in color from rusty orange to dark olive.

 

[Maurice]

Chaz,

About 15 years ago when I was new to this bug chasing. My brother and I stayed at Ole Bull and fished Kettle in April. We came across a #14 large mayfly with slate grey wings and a green/olive body with grey tails (2). I tied a dozen that night at the camp and the next night we didn't see them. Or the next. So I had these HUGE bwo's in my box ever since. On two occassions since then I've seen them. Once on a trib to Muddy and once last year at the Gunpowder. That fly was the exact match to the natural there...and I did pretty good after fishing a sulfur for over an hour to slurping trout with no luck.

I believe this is the fly that Big John was seeing on Kettle too.

Maurice

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear Maurice,

Did the flies you saw on Kettle look like this one? If so they may have been Quill Gordon's since they often have an olive cast.

You can read more about this bug and the discussion here. Go to message board, they flyfishing and then look for the post, "Bug help."

http://www.flyfishersparadise.com/

Personally I think the bug was a big BWO like the cornuta but since everyone else said it was a Quill Gordon I decided not to argue. I've seen the size 14 BWO's on Spring Creek and Fishing Creek in April before the Hendrickson's start.

The Quill Gordon's I saw in NY State were easily a size 12 and maybe even a size 10 and this fly looks like it's a 14 or so.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[bigjohn58]

Yup thats the fly I believe I saw on Kettle Creek. They are done hatching from what I saw but the Red Quills/hendricksons are coming off now along with the caddises. I think a larger BWO would fit the bill for that fly.

 

[Maurice]

Tim and John...

Thats the bug..why is no one disturbed that this bug looks nothing like the immitation that Theo Gordon inspired with his Quill Gordon fly.

That is Blue (grey) Winged Olive (body). Maybe we have another insect genus merge like the Grey Fox / March Brown.

Tim, I had been watching that discussion and thats the first time I looked at the bug on Trout Nut.

So I guess the question for me is...when is the earliest March Browns come off? because the bug in my pic is an early April fly.

I think we had this discussion last year...maybe Jack was right..we should throw all our QGs away and replace them with large BWO's

maurice

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear Maurice,

As I understand it, Quill Gordon's are one of the least pollution tolerant mayflies. You have to have excellent water quality to have QG's.

The ones I remember seeing in NY were almost black and grey in color and to imitate them you really had to tie the fly with a quill body to make it appear as heavily segmented as the natural. When you held a natural in your hand it clearly looked like it was striped, and Theodore Gordon's Catskill style fly with the wood duck wing was the only fly that came close to imitating it.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[Wulff-Man]

Chaz, I don't know if you were referring to my post when you said that someone posted that there are no Blue Wing Olives, but I said that there were no species that are called BWOs, just fly patterns that are known as BWOs. There certainly are BWO fly patterns, that imitate any number of species that have olive bodys and slate colored wings. I have also seen #14 BWOs on the Brodhead, and they may have been Cornuttas.

Just today on the Manatawny there was a fairly good hatch of a meaty #14 or larger brown mayfly. It was the color of powdered chocolate, and the color was about the same on its back and belly. The wings were also about the same color, maybe a little slate, and I don't think they were mottled. Before this discussion I may have thought it was a Quill Gordon, but now I don't know. It's too early for March Browns I think.

 

[sandfly]

gordon was imitating the spinner more than the dun when he invented the quill gordon..

 

[sandfly]

for the gordons i use this...

 

[Bamboozle]

Whatever it was it wasn't an Ephemerella cornuta if it is the natural fly Tim pictured.

Ephemerella cornuta has three tails UNLIKE Tim's picture. Most Ephemerellidae species have three tails.

Epeorus pluralis, AKA Quill Gordon has two tails as does Tim's critter.

There also is a much lighter version which is Epeorus vitrea that can be very light; dull yellow/olive to reddish orange in the female. They DO hatch in North Central and Northeast PA sometimes hatching at the same time as the smaller Empherella dorthea, (AKA Sulphurs) which can make for confusing fly choices.

When that happens I fish my size 12 or 14 Quill Gordon imitation 'cause the fish seem to prefer the fatter vitrea's even though there are lots more Sulphurs on the water.

But heck; I only study the Entomology because I don't golf and I have the extra time. I REALLY don't worry about it much when I fish. Heck, I don't even turn over rocks anymore.

Bottom line: I don't worry about species versus pattern name; I just tie the same pattern in different sizes and colors combinations and when a fly hatches; I just pick out the one that most closely matches.

 

[Chaz]

The pattern posted by Tim M is what I use, and I also use the spinners for same at the apporpriate times. The nymphs are least likely to be working during a hatch but will work during the day before the hatch comes off. Quill Gordons will behatching from now until about May 15, the large BWO's don't hatch until Mid June or later.
The Epeorus vitrea is a pink chaill by common name and hatches in mid to late May. It looks like a sulphur, but has 2 tails instead of 3. The Hendrickson or Red Quill whichever you call them have 3 tails as do sulphurs. I hate to say it but Al Cucci's book explains it all.

 

[troutbert]

Trying to identify the natural insects by working backwards from the Catskill patterns isn't the best approach!

 

[vcregular]

Here is a pic of a QG from central Pa. Two tails, smokie wings. Also, they do tend to have some olive. I think the tails are also somewhat banded. That other thread which shows a mottled wing mayfly - that fly is actually a march brown. March brown wings also tend to ride at more of a 45 angle.

 

[Chaz]

For what it's worth, I use the same pattern for Hendricksons, Quill Gordons and Blue Quills, the only difference in the patterns I use is the hook size. 12 for Hendricksons, 14 for Gordons, and 18 for Blue Quills.

 

[bigjohn58]

I read articles before that stated that the traditional Quill Gordon dry fly is not even close to representing the natural. Maybe on some streams they come off as the traditiona dry fly but where I've seen them they are no where near that color. The Quill Gordons on Kettle were definitely more olive in color with the slate wings almost indentical to what vcregular posted from what I remember. I don't really care anymore though since they seem to be done coming off and the Red Quills/Hendrecksons are comnig off now in good numbers along with the caddises which I've found to be useless this year.