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The Springtime (finally!) Hatches
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The spent spinners, floating flush in the water, are also much less noticeable than the obvious duns with their upright wings. Expect spinner activity of subvaria an hour or two after the end of the hatch, and don't expect hours of activity--the spinner fall may be done in less than an hour. An old pattern for the male spinner is known as the Beaverkill; the Lady Beaverkill is similar, but tied with an egg mass.
In addition to the "traditional" imitations, Caucci and Nastasi in their book Hatches II recommend their Compara-nymph, Compara-dun, and Compara-spinner or hair-wing patterns. These are tied without the traditional wound hackle to imitate the legs, and with deer hair to imitate the wings. Their effectiveness is proven.
As the subvaria hatch wanes, two slightly smaller species of Ephemerella, known as E. invaria and rotunda, take over. These two species are so similar in appearance and activity times that the fisherman can ignore any fine differences between them.
They begin emerging about three to four weeks after the start of the subvaria hatches. Duns are both smaller (#14-16) and lighter in color than subvaria, but the fishing they offer can be just as outstanding. Their lighter color (dun imitations are tied with light olive brown dubbing) gives them the common name Light Hendrickson. They join subvaria in producing amazing numbers of individuals in a stream: a single square foot of gravel in Michigan's Au Sable River yielded over 1,200 nymphs of invaria and subvaria. Multiply that by the number of square feet of gravel in a stream, and you can get an idea of how a hatch can cover the water with duns and bring amazing numbers of trout up to feed near the surface.
Light Hendrickson hatches also start later in the afternoon, usually around 4 p.m., and may continue until dusk. Fishing them is similar to fishing to subvaria: first use a nymph, then an emerger, and finally a dun imitation.
As the spring days of May warm to early summer days of June, the Light Hendrickson hatches are replaced by the still smaller and lighter E. dorothea or Pale Evening Dun, Sulfur Dun, or Little Marryatt. Excellent color plates in Caucci and Nastasi show the progression from dark to light body coloration as one goes from subvaria to rotunda/invaria to dorothea.
The Sulfur Dun is aptly named, with its yellow legs and body. This calls for a dun imitation tied with yellow thread and pale yellow dubbing on a #16 or even #18 hook. Yes, dorothea is considerably smaller than the other three upper Midwest spring Ephemerella species. Expect "normal" hatch activity to occur from about 7 p.m. to dusk, but remember that cooler weather may lead to a longer emergence starting two or three hours earlier.
E. dorothea spinner falls usually occur over riffles towards dusk, and the spent spinners may be joined by the waning spinner falls of the larger and darker invaria/rotunda species. Be observant to exactly what's on the water--here's where a small net to sample the surface could pay for itself many times over. Trying to pick a floating spinner off the surface with one's fingers is all but impossible--invest in a net, even if it's simply a 3" x 6" scrap of window screen.
Finally, expect the unexpected. After the wonderful fishing I had that May day last year, I expectantly returned the following afternoon for an encore. Same stretch of stream, slightly cooler weather, and only two fish landed in over two hours of fishing. Sometimes this trout/insect thing can be humbling. Why there were no Hendrickson duns on the water and hence no fish rising will remain a mystery. And equally mysterious, at least at first, was the lack of success with the "proper" Hendrickson imitation. Only after a frustrating quarter hour of refusals of my Dark Hendrickson did I notice the smaller caddisflies flying upstream at the water surface, and a switch to an Elk Hair Caddis immediately turned the afternoon around.
Fickle, only partly predictable, and ever challenging--but that's what makes fly fishing all so enjoyable. If everything were all straightforward and predictable, would it really be so much fun?
Dean Hansen's writings on entomology appear in every issue of Midwest Fly Fishing magazine. This article appeared in 1997.
By Dean Hansen
It was a beautiful day in mid-May, and last year's Wisconsin trout season was less than two weeks old. "Meet me at the footbridge at 2:30--Hendrickson duns should be on the water by then," I said.
The confidence in my voice masked a slight apprehension--I was hoping to show a retired engineer and his wife that this stretch of stream held trout and that mayfly hatches were predictable and reliable.
I got there 15 minutes early and, not seeing any rises, tried an Elk Hair Caddis. I landed a couple of browns in the half hour before my friends showed up. By then there were a few Hendricksons or Ephemerella subvaria, duns on the surface, and trout were rising sporadically. I cast to a run upstream and landed a fish almost immediately. Feeding activity increased rapidly, and we stopped counting rises and strikes after 10 or 15 minutes--the stream, which had shown no trout activity at 2:30, was now alive with fish taking insects on the surface.
I was relieved as well as happy that my confidence in that queen of early mayfly hatches was well founded. It was simply classic dry fly fishing at its best: duns on the surface at a predictable time of year and time of day, and trout lured from their deep cover to fall to a proper imitation on the water's surface.
Trout fishermen looked forward to the Hendrickson hatch even before Roy Steenrod created an imitation of the female dun of E. subvaria in 1916 and named it in honor of Albert Hendrickson, a Catskill fisherman of Theodore Gordon's era. While some smaller Baetis mayflies may appear on the water sooner than does subvaria, the Hendrickson has a lot going for it.
The Hendrickson dun is fair sized (hook #12 or 14); hatches are abundant, widespread, and predictable; the weather'sbecoming decent by the time it arrives, and hatching activity lasts for three weeks or even longer on the same stretch of stream.
Trout fishermen, too, can be a bit smug: they beat the entomologists to recognizing subvaria. It wasn't until 1925 scientific literature described the species, long after uncounted imitations of the species had fooled uncounted trout. Entomologists have recognized the mayfly genus Ephemerella since 1862. As the number of described species grew to over 80, recent authors have "split" the old Ephemerella into several smaller, more workable units. Former "species groups" or subgenera are now regarded as full genera, and names like Serratella or Drunella refer to a genus with a more narrowly defined set of characters than the old catch-all Ephemerella.
To Midwest fly fishers, four species of Ephemerella give early, fishable hatches. These are E. subvaria, called the Hendrickson or Dark Hendrickson; E. invaria and rotunda, the Light Hendrickson; and E. dorothea, the Pale Evening Dun or Sulfur. E. subvaria appears first; in fact, the hatch may be half over by the traditional early May opener in Wisconsin. Now that there is an early, catch-and-release season, subvaria rises in importance, and anglers in that state can meet and fish the Hendrickson hatch in its entirety.
Expect Hendrickson duns on the water as early as April 20 in southern Michigan and Wisconsin and southeast Minnesota streams, although the start of the hatch may lag by three weeks in the northern part of Michigan and Wisconsin. My experience has been to expect duns on the water after 2 p.m., but this could vary with air (and hence water) temperature and cloud cover. Get on the stream by 1 p.m. and use a nymph imitation until the hatch starts.
E. subvaria duns show a distinct gender difference: females are larger, and the underside of the abdomen is described as "dark pinkish tan." The appropriate imitation of the female dun is the Dark Hendrickson, size #12-14. The male dun is slightly smaller (#14) and has a reddish color underneath; the traditional imitation for the male dun is the Red Quill.
While duns are making an obvious appearance on the water surface, however, remember that the nymph is struggling to the surface and beginning to escape from its nymphal shuck while still several inches under water. An appropriate emerger pattern, fished in or just below the surface, could prove far more effective than a surface dry fly. Spinner falls of subvaria may be more fickle than the emergences.
| Two Hendrickson patterns | |
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Hendrickson Beadhead
nymph |
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Slant-wing dun imitation tied by
Carl Schmidt of LaCrosse, WI |
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copyright Midwest Fly Fishing Magazine 1999
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