Latvian brownies – how are they?
Typical Latvian
Its getting better and better! During the last 3 years our trout stream population have increased in numbers, at least in rivers where I love to fish. Of course, there are no scientific evidence and these are only my observations, but if you constantly land more trout than year before with the same fishing techniques and tactics, this is the only logical explanation one can give. And the best time to judge how many trout are in the particular river stretch is during the mayfly time! One, two or , wow, even more fish in the same corner quietly picking up mayflies in a drift, is just what a dryfly fishermen can dream about.
Kristaps on the move
And if you know the spots where to go you can find several such a places in a same day. During the May and June I landed and released four trout from one particular spot, and these where above average size. So what does it tells? At least that there are some trout left, so lets hope that next year it will be even better!
This one is fat...
A bit of flies, rise and techniques… Mohican mayfly is well known and established pattern in this game, but during the last years I have found that slight modifications from old Oli originals, are necessary, to improve the fishability of this fly. First I’m using microfibets instead of deer hair in the tail part – fibbets are translucent and not so bulky as deer hair. Also I replace deer hair in the wing part with polyyarn or more often CDC – that is best dry fly wing material for me. And finally more important, for the big flies, I’m not using capes for hackle anymore. I think than natural mayfly legs are much thicker than cape feather can imitate, and more important, it does not give enough stability support for your fly. Instead of capes I brush and make a legs from deer hair – it looks much more realistic and gives more support to your lovely mayfly. I hope I will find a time and give the illustration how to tie such a fly in the near future!
Feeding lie
Many of us tend to think, that trout rise is aggressive an noisy. Yeehhh, there is such a happy moments, but more often you can detect the rise only just by a little movement on the water. And usually its not so obvious! That’s the reason why I’m working more with my eyes than fly rod most of the times. At the very beginning of dryfly season, in the May, water was a bit muddy in our rivers, but in the same time there was a plenty of mayflies around. What does it means for the trout? It means – adaptation… During this period mainly I found trout rising in a shallow water or very close (5-10 cm) to bank. There is some logic‘s behind such a behaviour, because water was too muddy for usual feeding lies and trout addapted accordingly. In one of the pictures (feeding lie) you will see the particular trout feeding lie on the other side of the river just 20cm next to the bank. Isnt it adaptation? So, we must be cautious…
So full with may flies - almost like cod!
Last but not the least… I was trying to full one nice browny with already approved fly, but even after 10 perfect dead drifts she (I noticed sex a bit later…) refused to take. Then I changed a tactics and presented my mayfly with pendulum parachute – uuuupppppssss, the fish was on! After just one cast… It seems that it was not possible for trout to abandon such a landing of a hudge „mayfly aircraft“. To make long story short I must say that actually presentation produced the take, not only the fly! And few days later same technique produced another trout. And you not what? These are the most breath taking moments we all are after, when trout atacts your fly immediately after the presentation. So, you better be prepared!
Here its only catch and release!
Tags: Brown trout, Mayfly
