A touch of Spring: Blue Wing Olive(BWO) Hatches
BWO Season is upon us!
Spring brings about lots of changes, not only do temperatures begin to warm and daylight lengthens, the bugs we have been waiting for begin to appear: Blue Wing Olives become our first major "hatches" of the year. Our winter rigs can now be changed out and built a bit heavier, making them easier to manage. The seasons change can also bring about some of the best dry fly fishing you can encounter on days where bugs pop and fish gorge on some of the first major food sources for the year.
Chasing blue wing hatches can be extremely fun and lead to some of the most exciting dry fly fishing of the year, as fish confidently eat these delicious morsels floating overhead. The water in Spring can appear to boil as these bugs begin their journey to the surface and fish greedily chomp them down. These hatches can last from a half hour to a few hours depending on conditions. Keep an eye out for cloud cover, rising humidity and barometric changes are key triggers for BWO hatches. When conditions allow, the hatches can be elongated throughout the late morning into midday. Keep in mind, BWO's are prevalent in almost all of our river systems and tailwaters.
Fishing the entire life cycle
One of the keys to fishing Blue Wing Olive hatches are variety in life stages for bugs. To truly fish a hatch from beginning to end with success, you will need to change things up as the fish change attitudes and bugs change stages. While the water is cool and things are slowly warming up, the nymphs will begin to crawl around and prepare to hatch. Obviously this causes lots of them to be washed away in current and fish take notice as these nymphs begin to hatch and move around.
Emergers
Once hatched, the bugs will begin their rise to the surface and form a wing bubble. These emerging bugs are perfect for a hungry trout to
take advantage of. When fish begin to cause boils on the water’s surface, this is
a clear indication they have begun to focus on the emergent stage of these bugs.
When this begins to occur, there are a few approaches you can take. One would be to add some type of foam wing emerger to your nymph rig from the
morning, a Sparkle Wing RS2 or a Sniper Baetis are 2 shop favorites. The
other option is to change your rig to a dry-dropper style setup. Trailing a small emerger behind a blue wing adult or cripple.
Cripples
As the hatch continues, more fish will begin to focus on
these emerging bugs and later, hopefully, the adults that land on the water. A common setup for when bugs begin to eat emergers is to run a cripple with a trailing emerger. A BWO Film Critic in size #18 or #20 followed up with a small RS2 variation can be deadly in these conditions. We can take advantage of the fish’s innate ability to preserve energy and consume calories for survival by presenting two easy meals, and life stages, at once. These two life stages are when these bugs are most vulnerable and fish will tend to feed heavily during this stage of the hatch.
Duns and Spinners
Lastly and what we all hope to see and run into during any
hatch, is fish sipping adults confidently and greedily. Little sailboats
floating and skittering along the water are a tell-tale sign that BWO adults
are descending to the water to lay eggs and continue the lifecycle.
Once they have completed this, a spinner fall can happen where adults die and land flat winged on the surface of the water for easy pickings. Watching a fish confidently rise and eat an adult BWO is something that will keep you hunting for the right conditions as Spring continues on and temperatures gradually rise early in the season.
The NEW R8 Classic, built for the job.
Be sure to swing by either shop or feel free to give us a call to check in on conditions and up to date information on bugs you should be fishing on your next adventure! We look foward to seeing you then!