Fly fishing in April is great for anyone that enjoys dry fly fishing. During the early part of the month there are still good Eperous pleuralis mayfly hatches. The Blue Quill is on almost the whole month. The March Brown mayfly is on the last three weeks of the month. I match these two hatches with Mr. Rapidan Parachute Dry size 14 and the Blue Quill Dry size 16. These hatches are so good you normally can fish to rising trout or simply fish the water if you prefer.
There are two situations that occur in April I need to tell you about. Many of the March Brown Nymphs make a mini migration from the center of the streams to the shallows along the banks to hatch. Often you will see the trouts movement along the banks as the they feed on the nymphs. Fishing dry flies to these fish is usually not as effective as fishing a March Brown Nymph size 14 or by fishing a Mr. Rapidan Parachute size 14 with a Mr. Rapidan Soft Hackle Brown size 14 below it. This is what we call fishing a dry and a dropper.
The Blue Quill duns can be slow to fly from the stream on cold days and are shunted to back eddies where they struggle to dry their wings. The trout move in below them and feed heavily on them in this condition.
Bass Fly Fishing
Every year I see more and more crayfish in our smallmouth rivers. The Murray’s Crayfish in olive or brown is perfect to use. The depth of the water governs the technique I use to fish my crayfish. Where there are cobblestone stream bottoms over water from a foot to three feet deep I like to wade or float down the river 40-50 feet out in the river from the river bank. I cast my crayfish in close to the bank and crawl it out over the stream bottom by stripping it 3 inches every 6 seconds. This makes it look like a real crayfish scurrying from boulder to boulder. Listen to my podcast for more techniques and tips.
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