Nymph
Dry Fly
Blue Wing Olive Parachute
The blue-winged olive dun, with a parachute post you can still see in flat grey light.
$18.99
$1.58 per fly
Available at Amazon
- Hook size
- 16
- Imitates
- Mayfly
- Best water
- Freestone River, Spring Creek, Tailwater
- Colour
- Olive
- Pack
- 12 flies
Fishes for
Brook TroutBrown TroutRainbow Trout
How to fish it
Fishing notes
Cast upstream of a working fish and get a drag-free drift over it; BWO feeders are rhythmic, so time the cast to the rise. If it refuses twice, hang a Barr’s Emerger 18 inches behind and drift it again.
About this fly
The blue-winged olive dun, with a parachute post you can still see in flat grey light.
Blue-winged olives hatch on the worst days of the year — overcast, cold, drizzling — which is exactly when trout feed hardest and when a conventional dry fly disappears against the water. The parachute post fixes that, and the horizontal hackle drops the body flush into the film where a real dun sits.
Size 16 covers the larger spring and autumn olives. When fish refuse it, they are usually on the emerger rather than the dun — but a good drift with this fly answers that question in one cast.
Key features
- Parachute post stays visible in the flat, overcast light BWOs hatch in
- Horizontal hackle sits the body in the film, the way a real dun rides
- Size 16 matches the larger spring and autumn blue-winged olive duns
- Works as a searching dry on any water with a mayfly population
- Doubles as a visible indicator for a trailing emerger or nymph
Further reading
- Fishing the Blue-Winged Olive Hatch 5 min read
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