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Photo
by S. Schweitzer - ©2003
BWO
CRIPPLE
A
blue-winged olive cripple mayfly found on the South Platte River
in Colorado. Notice the body segmentation and chunky thorax. These
are two elements the Better-Winged Olive imitates. Also notice
on this severely crippled subject the shortened tail filaments,
the underdeveloped wings and forelegs, and the under-developed right
eye (the orange left eye is the proper form for this species of
mayfly on the South Platte River).
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A recent tying binge
left me with a few thoughts on how to tie a quicker and better blue-winged
olive mayfly for the upcoming BWO season in Colorado. I've always been
a fan of A.K. Best's theories on quill-bodied mayflies; they only make
perfect sense. Quill-bodied flies provide distinct segmentation in the
body (just like the natural) and there is no dry fly dubbing to absorb
the water and make the fly sink.
However, I am also
a fan of the KISS principle when tying. I loose too many flies to make
them each works of art and I don't have time to strip quills and tie on
delicate little feathertip wings. So off I went into the deep crevaces
of the GFF flytying lab to see what I could do with making a better BWO.
After observing many
blue-winged olive mayflies over the course of several seasons worth of
hatches across many rivers in Colorado, I collected the following observations
for myself (there's nothing new here...):
- BWO's have a chunky
thorax that is quite pronounced
- BWO's lay quite
low in the water surface
- BWO tails average
about a bodies' length, although I have seen some almost 2x long and
some as short as 1/2 the body length...let's call 1x-1.5x the average.
I tend to tie in 2x lengths and trim to the length required on stream.
So I took my observations,
the typical BWO pattern and some lessons learned from A.K. Best and experimented
in the lab. The pattern illustrated below is what resulted...a quick-to-tie
and better BWO, in my opinion. But, the fish will be the ultimate judges
of that, right?!
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Photo
by S. Schweitzer - ©2003
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Proof
Enough for Me...
I
spotted a rising trout on the South Platte River in Colorado during
a recent flyfishing trip (Shown in the picture left). I casted a
Better-Winged Olive a few times and got the trout to choose my fly
over the naturals. Below is the culprit. Notice the size 20 BWO
pattern in the lower right-hand corner.
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Photo
by S. Schweitzer - ©2003 |
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The Bill of Materials |
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The
materials for a Better-Winged Olive are simple, using only
four, plus tying thread.
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Thread
& hook
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Olive
8/0, size 16 - 22 dry fly hook
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| Tail |
3
or 4 grey or clear micro-fibettes
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| Body |
Olive
goose biot
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| Thorax |
Olive
less-absorbent dubbing material such as SLF, beaver or antron.
Avoid using camel, rabbit or some other fine, absorbent material.
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| Wings/Legs
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Grey
(dun) hackle
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Photo by S. Schweitzer - ©2003 |
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CHUNKY THORAX
A
Better-Winged Olive attempts to focus on things trout can
see by imitating the natural's chunky thorax more closely and
put less attention on things above the water surface, such as
wings.
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Step
1.
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One secret to making
the BWO ride flush in the surface film is to raise the tail just slightly
from the plane of the hook shank. Do this by building up a slight thread
bump at the tail above the hook barb. It helps to flatten the thread slightly
by twirling the bobbin counter-clockwise to undo the natural twist in
tying thread.
Read more about
thread control in this article by GFF Partner Martin Joergensen.
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A
thread bump above the hook barb helps lift the tailing fibers. The yellow
line in the inset photo details how the thread bump can lift
the tail fibers.
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Step
2.
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Tie in the micro-fibett
tail fibers (3 or 4 will do) and allow the thread bump to elevate the
tailing upwards slightly.
Try to use only 1
wrap to hold the tail fibers in place. Once they are secure, tie on a
goose biot by the pointed end.
Be sure to select
a goose biot with sufficient length. On size 16 hooks, you'll need the
longest ones available to you.
Tying Tip:
Tie the biot in so the dark straight edge is towards you. The slightly
curved edge should be away from you. This ensures the dark ridge forming
the body segmentation is on the trailing edge of your wraps, not the leading
edge.
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Tie
the tailing material on just ahead of the thread bump.
At
the same point the tailing is tied, secure in a goose biot at the tip.
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Step
3.
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Tie off the biot
and move the thread back to the 2/3rd's point on the hook shank as shown
in the picture to the right.
Apply enough dubbing
to form a chunky thorax being sure not to overdo the dubbing. Remember
that you still must wrap a hackle feather over the dubbing. Don't worry
about making the dubbing pretty.
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Be
sure to evenly space the dark biot edge ridges to get the best segmentation
possible.
Be
sure to wrap the dubbing backwards from the eye of the hook, leaving the
thread at the back of the thorax ready to tie in the hackle feather.
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Step
4.
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Strip off a few fibers
from the end of the dry fly hackle and tie in the stem across the top
of the dubbed thorax.
For a size 16, make
4-5 turns of hackle.
For a size 18, make
3-4 turns of hackle.
For a size 20 and
22, make 2-3 turns of hackle.
Tying Tip:
Consider using genetic micro-hackle that is pre-sized for the size fly
you are tying. The hackle is consistent in size and contains .many more
fibers per inch than standard neck dry fly hackle.
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 A
dubbed body makes hackling more durable by allowing the hackle stem to
seat more firmly in the dubbing.
We aren't done yet! This nearly finished dry fly will ride too high on
the water. See the next step.
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Step
5.
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Making a BWO ride
low on the water's surface is key to imitating a natural more closely.
Trim the bottom of
the hackle fibers at a slight angle backwards towards the tail, just above
the hook point. It is not wrong to also trim the fibers off even with
the hook point.
Need help with
tying off? Read how
to tie a whip-finish here.
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A
finished Better-Winged Olive rides low on the water's surface.
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Eric
Peper recently wrote me an email, adding his secret for making Better-Winged
Olives:
"Enjoyed
the article on your BWO pattern, particularly because the design is
very close to a design I worked out for BWOs and PMDs a year or so
ago -- with one exception. I add a sparse post wing of medium dun
Zelon right at the tie-in point of the thorax, and I palmer the dun
hackle over the thorax with a couple of wraps on either side of the
wing. Reason was that I "see" a shiny wing on most natural duns and
the sparse bubnch of Zelon mimics it well."
A
batch of Better-Winged Olives shows the body segmentation and heavy thorax
areas.
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Submitted June 23rd 2008
I am a rookie at fly tying but I must say that I am having a hard time seeing the difference between bwo and pmd. The bodies are both green. what am I missing?