At last - it’s the merry month of May, often referred to as “the sweetest month”.

The earth is humming with new life: the birds seem to be singing a little more melodiously, the landscape adorned with a multiplying tapestry of colorful blooms, the days are getting longer, and temperatures are beginning to warm. It’s now wild turkey season, and lots of fly hatches have been seen on our rivers and streams!

This first weekend of May brought much to celebrate - the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday evening, one of the most thrilling we’ve seen - when Golden Tempo, who was dead-last for much of the race, but ridden brilliantly by Jockey Jose Ortiz, surged ahead and to the outside on the far turn with just a quarter mile left to win the race, and earn his trainer, 44-year-old Cherie DeVaux, the honor of becoming the first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby.

It was also the weekend of “Litter Pluck,” sponsored by Livingston Manor Renaissance, that saw many residents and visitors out along Livingston Manor’s roads, rivers and streams picking up litter and helping to beautify the area. And over at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center, a group of Veterans and First Responders were taught how to cast a fly rod, then given the opportunity to fish the Willowemoc’s waters.

All of our rivers and streams have been stocked, and trout fishers were found up and down stream throughout our region; it was nice to see so many anglers out again, with a good number of out-of-state cars as well as residents in the DEC’s Fisherman Parking Areas.

Fly hatches have been fairly steady over the past week, some in the mornings and a greater number in the afternoons, with tremendous numbers of flies noted on Friday and into the weekend, despite the return to chilly water temperatures back down in the 40s. Fly hatches included a variety, from Blue Quills to Hendricksons to Grannom Caddis; however for the most part, the trout were not actively rising to feed off the surface (much to the disappointment of many dry-fly fishers) but were rather taking wet flies and nymphs below. This is probably due to the cooler water temperatures, as well as the activity stage of the flies under the surface.

Unlike mayflies, such as Hendricksons (Ephemerella subvaria) which transform from egg to nymph to adult and lack a pupal stage, Caddis flies undergo a complete metamorphosis, from larva to pupa to adult. The larvae of the Caddis fly are worm-like and live on the stream bottom, usually inside protective cases made of rocks or twigs, where they feed off the bottom. 

They metamorphose into the pupa stage when the larva leaves the home case, developing wing pads and legs to enable it to swim upwards to the surface. Their bodies are actually smaller and more refined in the pupa stage, and as free-swimming creatures, they are vulnerable ‘targets’ to the trout. Tom Mason, expert fly-tier and fly-fisherman theorized that when the Grannom Caddis are about as they have been the past week and a half, the trout are focused on the wiggling caddis pupae below the surface and will feed heavily on them, rather than rising to flies on the surface, especially when water temperatures are below 50 degrees.

I asked Tom what he would use to catch trout during these conditions, which caused great frustration, in that finally there were lots of flies on the water but no rising fish, as I and two other gentlemen fishing near me could attest. Tom was kind enough to not only tell me what he uses with success under these conditions but offered to show me how to tie the fly he created with his friend Bill some years ago. They were fishing the White River in Arkansas during a great Grannom Caddis hatch but couldn’t get a single fish to rise to a dry fly. Noticing the bright green and black pupa under the water, the two devised their own imitation, using UTC black and chartreuse wire for the body, green sparkly Prism SLF (synthetic living fiber) for the thorax, and light Hungarian partridge for the soft-hackle. They named the fly the Grannom 2-Wire Soft Hackle and said it’s a great producer during a Grannom Caddis fly hatch. The fly needs to be fished down fairly deep, and using wire for the body adds just the perfect weight, in addition to appearing segmented as the pupa does. Here’s the pattern for the fly, as tied by Tom Mason:

Grannom 2 Wire Soft Hackle:

Hook: #16 Mustad 94840 (dry fly) or #14 Daiichi 1480

Thread: Tan 70-Denier Ultra thread

Body: Chartreuse Small Ultra Wire and Black Extra-Small Ultra Wire

Thorax: Peacock SLF Prism

Wing: Light speckled Hungarian partridge

It was fun tying this fly under Tom’s expert tutelage - my first attempt at a soft-hackle fly, as well as using the colored wire for the segmented body. And I could see after finishing the fly, that it would blend in well with the ‘naturals’ found in the stream. Can’t wait to get back out on the stream and fish with it!