Yesterday Afternoon

Got out for a couple hours yesterday afternoon. It was a cloudy, misty
afternoon and my home river has started to rise but is still clear. The
conditions that helped the firefighters control our local fire also
seemed perfect for an Olives hatch.

When I got to the river, I found lots of Olives hatching but nothing
rising for them. The river risen several inches, but it had also gotten
much colder. Although the fish weren't feeding ontop, they were
aggressively chasing the nymphs. Fishing was VERY good and many of the
takes were aggressive enough to send my indicator streaking across the
current.

I had gone to the newly opened section of river that Charlie and I
fished a couple of weeks ago. (I think that one of the Rainbows was the
same one that both Charlie caught when we were there last time) This
stretch fishes very much like the section in town fished a number of
years ago. Maybe something like I picture in New Zealand in terms of
fish population - lots of dead water with not very many fish per mile
but all of them good ones. I hooked eight fish and landed 6 - one
sixteen inches the rest over 18 with one VERY fine Brown that threw the
hook on a jump. The jumping was unusual too. Several of the Rainbows
porpoised across the top but the two Browns I hooked were the only ones
that jumped.

With the influx of a bit of extra water, the fish have just started to
move out of their Winter holes. They are still concentrated in those
areas but have spread themselves out a bit. Gonna be a fun stretch of
water.

Willi

Green, yep green, with envy. I'd love to have a "home stream" that I could
take seriously.

Just curious, when you say "olives" I assume you mean baetis, one of the
swimmer mayfly nymphs. Do you present your pattern with any "action" or
dead drift? I've always just fished a PT dead drift, ( or tried to, my
nymphing skills don't justify using the word 'skill' ) but your skitter on
top posts made me think that maybe you are working differently down below,
too G

Larry L wrote:

Green, yep green, with envy. I'd love to have a "home stream" that I could
take seriously.

Just curious, when you say "olives" I assume you mean baetis, one of the
swimmer mayfly nymphs. Do you present your pattern with any "action" or
dead drift? I've always just fished a PT dead drift, ( or tried to, my
nymphing skills don't justify using the word 'skill' ) but your skitter on
top posts made me think that maybe you are working differently down below,
too G



I'm not too up on Latin names but supposedly the "Olives" are made up of
Baetis and some other I don't remember. However, use of the two Latin
names is misleading and even the common label Olives is misleading.
Maybe small gray Mayfly might be better.

Locally they hatch out throughout most of the year in various
permutations. They range from of a size 17 down to a 26. Wing colors
range from very light to very dark gray. Body color is mainly shades of
gray with some olive and rust. So functionally, the name covers a wide
range of bugs, whether or not the scientific name is the same or not is
irrelevant, IMO.

Back to your question. Since this class of bugs is so important on my
home river, I fish it alot and use a variety of flies. How I fish it
depends on what part of the hatch the fish are concentrating on. When
there are bugs out but no surface activity, a dead drifted PT usually
works. They seem less fussy in terms of fly type, and to some degree
size, at this stage partly because they're often feeding in faster
water. If they're up in the water column or making splashy rises (this
is generally in areas of less current) a wet hackle or an RS2 emerger
type pattern works well. I generally fish them on a dropper under a dry
generally dead drifted but sometime the fish will key in on a swing.
However, a skittering fly generally doesn't work. When they feeding on
top, sometimes they key in on emergers in the film and sometimes on the
duns. You can usually see if they're taking duns by following some duns
on the surface and see if they're taken or ignored. Unless there's wind
pushing them around, they usually want a totally dead drifted fly. The
three types of flies I fish on top are CDC comparaduns, parachutes and
standard hackled dries.

Willi

"Willi" wrote

I'm not too up on Latin names but supposedly the "Olives" are made up of
Baetis and some other I don't remember. However, use of the two Latin
names is misleading and even the common label Olives is misleading.
Maybe small gray Mayfly might be better.

Locally they hatch out throughout most of the year in various
permutations. They range from of a size 17 down to a 26. Wing colors
range from very light to very dark gray. Body color is mainly shades of
gray with some olive and rust. So functionally, the name covers a wide
range of bugs, whether or not the scientific name is the same or not is
irrelevant, IMO.


I certainly don't sit around talking Latin much, and most certainly don't
use Latin to "be impressive". "PMD," for instance, is pretty universally
used to mean two species that look alike and vary only in size. I'd prefer
to say "size 18 PMD" than one of the Latin names, since my words will likely
convey my meaning simply and without resorting to silly over complication.
But, IMO, the second paragraph above is a classic example of why we "should"
use Latin, at times.

If you, or anyone else, says "blue winged olive" I'm given very little real
information. Say I want to come fish with you and you tell me to tie up
some "olives" .... without several other paragraphs to define "olive" in the
current usage I don't know what size or color, do I? But, tell me Baetis
tricaudatis is hatching and I'm much better informed .... or can be with
some research.

BTW, for years I've been urging those I know in retriever trials to
standardize the language of training, for exactly the same reason.
Communication ( having your meaning understood, if not agreed with ) depends
on using language that is universally understood, and ( as we see so often
on Usenet), the honest desire to actually communicate, as opposed to argue,
or "win."

Rex Carr and Mike Lardy are THE two field trial trainers of all time ( Rex,
now dead, was my mentor ) and they only spent 3 days together, several years
back, when Mike came out specifically to met Rex. I was the only other
person there most of that three days, and at one point they bickered for 3/4
hour over a point, before agreeing to disagree, from mutual respect. The
sadly amusing thing was that from the "outside" it was clear that they were
using the same words (push and pull) to mean different things and that lack
of standardized training language was keeping communication from happening
between two greats of the activity.

In a like manner, I think there are times when the Latin is useful .....
"caddis" includes both Hydropsyche and Glossosoma and both may be active on
the same water at the same time ..... telling me you nailed em last night on
caddis doesn't help me as much as some Latin would ( assuming we were both
accurate in our use of the scientific names )

Still Green ( a grayish, rusty shade ;-), and tied fat on a big hook ...
yours truly

Larry L wrote:



I certainly don't sit around talking Latin much, and most certainly don't
use Latin to "be impressive". "PMD," for instance, is pretty universally
used to mean two species that look alike and vary only in size. I'd prefer
to say "size 18 PMD" than one of the Latin names, since my words will likely
convey my meaning simply and without resorting to silly over complication.
But, IMO, the second paragraph above is a classic example of why we "should"
use Latin, at times.

If you, or anyone else, says "blue winged olive" I'm given very little real
information. Say I want to come fish with you and you tell me to tie up
some "olives" .... without several other paragraphs to define "olive" in the
current usage I don't know what size or color, do I? But, tell me Baetis
tricaudatis is hatching and I'm much better informed .... or can be with
some research.


I disagree. I think that Latin just needlessly complicates things and
MANY of our aquatic insect species aren't even identified and named.

I brought in a sample of a huge Mayfly that comes off at sunset in the
middle of Summer to a professor of entomology at our university. He was
unable to identify it and wasn't aware of any local species that large.
(I need to check back with him and see if he ever did identify it.

Getting back to Olives - if you wanted to know the correct size and
color etc, you would have to know a number of species and subspecies (if
they are all even recognized). I'm also guessing there is size and color
difference in different strains of the same species. WAY too complicated
for me.

My suggestion would be for example: a size 20 gray winged gray bodied
Mayfly.

Willi

Willi wrote:

My suggestion would be for example: a size 20 gray winged gray bodied
Mayfly.

If they're gray, why are they called "olives"? THAT'S confusing.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Back to your question. Since this class of bugs is so important on my
home river, I fish it alot and use a variety of flies. How I fish it
depends on what part of the hatch the fish are concentrating on. When
there are bugs out but no surface activity, a dead drifted PT usually
works. They seem less fussy in terms of fly type, and to some degree
size, at this stage partly because they're often feeding in faster
water. If they're up in the water column or making splashy rises (this
is generally in areas of less current) a wet hackle or an RS2 emerger
type pattern works well. I generally fish them on a dropper under a dry
generally dead drifted but sometime the fish will key in on a swing.
However, a skittering fly generally doesn't work. When they feeding on
top, sometimes they key in on emergers in the film and sometimes on the
duns. You can usually see if they're taking duns by following some duns
on the surface and see if they're taken or ignored. Unless there's wind
pushing them around, they usually want a totally dead drifted fly. The
three types of flies I fish on top are CDC comparaduns, parachutes and
standard hackled dries.

Willi


Thanx for the useful info I ll be using it on the Missouri any day. I
ve always been a little confused as to why they wont take a nicely
drifted fly but will then hit it as Ilet it drag looking for the next
place to cast too MT

"Mark Tinsky" wrote


Thanx for the useful info I ll be using it on the Missouri any day.



Post a report. I've only been to the Missouri one trip for 4 or 5 days and
plan to get back there. The more info I can get on the place the better.
It and the Big Horn are both places I think I could learn to love, but both
of them are a LOT of miles past a LOT of good fishin' holes when one is
coming from Arnoldifornica

( although I'm one of those guys that sometimes fails to catch many fish
because of info-overload ... I get sidetracked and stop fishing to 'just
look' pretty often ... but catching fish really isn't my main reason for
fishing, most days .... honest ;-)

says...

"Mark Tinsky" wrote

Thanx for the useful info I ll be using it on the Missouri any day.

Post a report. I've only been to the Missouri one trip for 4 or 5 days and
plan to get back there.

It sucks the farts out of dead chickens.

HTH.
--
Warren

"Willi" wrote in message
...
Got out for a couple hours yesterday afternoon. It was a cloudy, misty
afternoon and my home river has started to rise but is still clear. The
conditions that helped the firefighters control our local fire also
seemed perfect for an Olives hatch.


Nice report. I look forward to reading more as you become familiar with
this new water.

Cheers,
Bill