The Light Cahill mayfly is heavy on the East coast from late April through May. We enjoy this hatch while fishing the native brook trout streams in the Shenandoah National Park in the spring. Its cousin is heavy in the Rockies. In the Smoky Mountains it is several weeks earlier and in New York it is several week later. A friend of mine discovered that when the nymphs came off the stream bottom, they would drift exceptionally long distances just below the stream surface before they would pop their wings to fly off the stream. These emerging nymphs were vulnerable and the trout fed heavily upon them. He fished a cahill nymph upstream dead drift all the way through the hatch no matter how many duns were on the surface. Needless to say, he always caught many more trout than the rest of us.
- Light Cahill Dry size 14, 16
- Spirit of Pittsford Mill Dry size 14, 16
- Light Cahill Nymph size 14, 16
- Pheasant Tail Nymph size 14, 16
For more hatch charts, see my book Trout Fishing in the Shenandoah National Park.
Our Mountain Trout Fly Assortment matches most of the mayfly hatches that occur in the East in the spring.