It is sulphur mayfly time on the mountain trout streams and the trout feed heavily upon them. Normally the duns start coming off late in the afternoon and the spinners return an hour before dark. This time can vary from stream to stream so stay alert. For example, one of my favorite streams produces the duns and spinners all in the last half hour of the day. Even though the trout don’t see the naturals early in the day they know them well by this time and I catch many trout by fishing the Murray’s Sulphur Dry 16 and Shenk’s Sulphur Dry 16 all day. If I spot feeding trout I go one on one with them. If there are few rising trout I just fish all of the good feeding stations—the lips and corners of the pools always hold large trout now.
Now let’s look at some of the refinements which are helpful when fishing the sulphur hatch on large trout streams, tailwaters, and spring creeks. The trout in these streams are more difficult to catch than those in mountain streams because these trout are better fed. Basically these trout are very wary and they are very demanding that our flies drift naturally just like a real sulphur.
In order to compensate for their wary nature I often use a hand and knees approach and I’m very careful not to false cast over the pool I’m fishing. If I need to lengthen my line or false cast to dry my fly I do this well to the side of the pool.
To assure I get a natural drift with my dry sulphurs I carefully read the currents around the trout I spot rising. This tells me where I need to position myself in order to cast across the desirable currents to get a good drift. Also I decide if I need to use a slack line cast in order for my fly to ride to the trout just like a real sulphur. I like puddle cast for this but a curve cast, reach cast and Lazy S cast are all good. I also drop down to a size 18 in both Shenk’s Sulphur Dry and Murray’s Sulphur Dry.
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