Fly Fishing in the Mountain Trout Streams Blog- Murray’s Fly Shop
The Epeorus pleuralis mayfly nymphs are very active in the mountain trout streams now. Some of the duns are hatching. Many of these nymphs move to the lower sections of the riffles just before hatch as they reach their full size. There are more of these mayflies in most mountain streams than any other mayfly. This is a great time to fish the Mr. Rapidan Bead Head Nymph size 14. This fly matches the naturals.
I fish these pools first by positioning myself below the lower lip of the pool. I then fish my nymph upstream dead drift. In order to help detect these strikes, I use Murray’s Trout Nymph 9 foot 5X Leader. The built in Murray’s Fly Shop Indicators quickly alert me to the trout’s take. They do not keep the nymph from sinking deeply. In long pools I carefully wade up into the pool so I can fish all the way up to the riffles.
When I teach this technique in my “On The Stream Trout Schools”, I stress the important of keeping a tight line from the line hand all the way down to the nymph in order to detect these strikes.The easiest way to achieve this is to remove the excess slack line in the air with my line hand on the presentation cast. Then strip the nymph back downstream at the rate the current is pushing it.