March Browns
By: Aaron Jasper
This is a truly exciting time of the year. The
bugs really get cranking and the trout really seem to rev themselves
up and at times they can get into to feeding frenzy.
The march brown is one of these bugs that can
spark really aggressive feeding from trout in many river and streams
in the east. A March Brown is a large tan colored mayfly that is a
little over an inch long. These large morsels make for a meal that
most trout will go out of their way for.
Fishing the Hatch
For the two weeks prior to the hatch, you can have superb fishing with the nymphs of this insect. I like to use simple nymphs like the Al Caucci’s Compara-nymph. At times we have even found the “Torrey’s” famous fox squirrel nymph works very well. I like to fish these nymphs right on the current seems as most of these nymphs are seeking slower water to inhabit before they hatch.
When you start to see the March Browns hatching
you can have really good success swinging soft hackle flies such as
the March Brown spider. Since the nymphs are swimming to softer
water near the bank to hatch a wet fly swung or actively swung will
do a great job imitating the behavior of the flies.
You can also blind fish the riffle with March Brown emergers and duns. Since these are large flies trout will sometime be very opportunistic and come up because of the large meal that they might be getting.
Don’t think that you are going to see blizzard-like hatches of these mayflies. Usually this hatch is very sporadic all day and you will see duns here and there. The real fishing during this hatch comes during the spinner fall (this is when the flies are mating and laying eggs). At times there can literally be millions of flies in the air in the evening. Some of my most memorable fishing has come during this event. The spinners are sometimes very stubborn and won’t fall until right at dark. Don’t leave the river too early. As long as you see these huge spinners in the air be sure that they will fall. Sometimes its just a waiting game.
Local Rivers that have awesome March Brown Hatches and spinner falls are as follows:
The Beaverkill in
The Willoweemoc in
The entire Delaware System in
The Lehigh River in
The Neversink in
The
Penns Creek in
There are a few of the rivers that have excellent March Brown hatches and spinner falls. These are the rivers that I have seen the best activity on.
Grab some of your favorite March Brown fly patterns and get to these river in the next few weeks. I am sure that you will not be disappointed with what you will see when the conditions are right.
For the duns and the emergers I like to use comparadun and compara emergers. I also like to use showshoe rabbit’s foot emergers. For spinners there is no better imitation than the compara spinner, but at times I have done very well with the appropriate poly winged spinner as well.