About Pale Morning Duns
One of the great hatches of the West, pale morning duns have everything going for them: massive numbers that trigger aggressive surface feeding; a presense on nearly all the waters of the West; fussy enough to offer a challenge, but not so difficult as to be too frustrating; and they occur during the summer months when fishing is at its most pleasant.
This small, pale-yellow mayfly of the crawler group is often referred to by its initials, PMD. Despite the name, hatches can occur in the morning, early afternoon, or evening. It's not unusual to have both morning and evening emergences on the same day. The hatch season begins as early as June and lasts as late as September, depending on the stream. This is often the dominant hatch where and when it occurs.
Trout take nymphs all day, and duns and emerging duns during the hatch. The best places are slow runs, backeddies, and under overhanging vegetation. Shortly before a hatch, dead-drift a nymph near the bottom. As the hatch begins, present a nymph near the surface or as a rising nymph. As trout begin taking duns off the surface, tie on an emerger, cripple, or dun pattern.
Because the hatch usually happens in slow, clear water you will need a thin tippet--7X on many spring creeks. You may also need to make a downstream presentation to a fish whose location you are certain of.
Entomologists used to split this species into E. inermis and E. infrequens, E. inermis being smaller but much more numerous. However, both have now been lumped into E. excrucians.
The spinner stage is almost as important as the hatching duns. Spinners are usually well matched with the classic Rusty Spinner.
Articles About Pale Morning Duns
Click headline to read entire article
Stages of the PMD Hatch Pale morning dun hatches usually go through distinct stages. Your flies and tactics are different for each stage. Greg Thomas
Put Your Flies on a Diet Many fly patterns are simply too fat. Here's some tips for keeping your flies skinny and naturaly looking. Jeff Morgan
|
