The mayfly species Maccaffertium vicarium, commonly known to fly anglers as the March Brown, makes its appearance on the local rivers sometime in April and provides one of the more exciting hatches of the season. With some help from a friend who’s no stranger to the annual March Brown hatch, I tied up several comparadun patterns in size 14. We took a ride down to the river one afternoon and sure enough, the March Browns were coming off the water and the fish were nailing them!
We parked by the side of the stream, rigged up quick and got out on the river. Several quick casts toward some rising fish in slower water and I had my first strike. Splash! Snap! Swoosh! “Shoot!” I broke the fly off on the first bite! But the fish were eating and I had about half a dozen comparaduns in the box so I tied another on. Splash! Snap! Swoosh! “Dang!”. Broke off again! It was my first time this spring fishing solely with dry flies. After using hard hook sets all spring to catch fish on nymphs, it was going to take a little adjusting to set the hook without breaking my leader! I got it figured out before long, though, and quickly brought in a nice chunky little brown.
The fish kept rising and we were hammering them on the comparadun flies we’d tied up, but eventually all but one of those pretty little flies had either broken off in trout mouths or were caught in the trees or lost in the rocks. The hatch slowed down and so did we. A couple of hours on the river and a dozen or so nice trout later, we returned to the truck with big smiles. We’d hit our first March Brown hatch of the year, and it sure wouldn’t be the last!
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