As the mayfly season arrives, few moments in fly fishing carry quite the same sense of anticipation. Anglers wait all year for those magical weeks when trout turn their attention skyward and the rivers come alive.
We’ve brought together a selection of favourite mayfly patterns from four friends of Orvis UK who know the hatch intimately: Charles Jardine, Don Stazicker, Nigel Nunn and Olly, Orvis Stockbridge store manager. From emergers and cripples to classic adult patterns, their choices reflect the different stages, movements and opportunities that make mayfly fishing so special. Here are just a few of their top picks…
Charles Jardine’s Mayfly Choices
For Charles Jardine, the mayfly season is “nature’s magic” - as much about the spectacle as the fishing itself.
• Pete Buckey’s Love Child: “It really is a great pattern in the good old John Goddard / Neil Patterson’s Nevamis style of buzz and surface ebullience.”
• Jardine’s Mayfly Emerger: “Soft landing, good footprint and just a rather different aspect to cheer up a trout that has been shell-shocked by the usual offerings.”
Don Stazicker’s Mayfly Choices
When recommending his choices, Don said, “The violence of a trout taking a Mayfly can be heart-stopping. The Mayfly is floating serenely down the river, then BAMMM! It's gone. I could watch that forever.”
• Proctors Active Mayfly Emerger: “A slight twitch of the fly causes the marabou shuck to move attractively.”
• Mayfly Crippled: “An excellent casualty dun, it's left the shuck and then come to grief, easy pickings for the trout.”
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Nigel Nunn’s Mayfly Choices
For Nigel Nunn, mayfly is “a chance to both participate in and celebrate a natural spectacle.” Nigel has a collection of Mayflies available on our website, all hand-tied in Kent by himself. Here are just two from his collection:
• Shaggy UV Mayfly Loop Emerger: “First tied for Orvis as a test pattern and started taking fish straight away. Based on that performance this Loop Emerger now has a permanent place amongst my mayfly patterns.”
• Yellow Pheasant Tail: “Another pattern from the Southwest that’s now fished all over the world. With its distinctive Pickwickian shape it’s hard for the fish to miss."
Olly Newberry’s Mayfly Choices
Olly, our Stockbridge Store Manager, describes the hatch as “the most eagerly anticipated event in the fly angler’s calendar.”
• Lewis Mayfly Emerger: “A new emerger pattern for the upcoming season, yet there is no reason why this little beauty would not tempt the most cautious of trout… survival of the fittest, and trout are basically underwater predators, and all predators will take the soft/easy target and this fly fits the bill perfectly: ‘a vulnerable emerging insect’… yum!”
• Mohican Mayfly: “It’s all erupting, the sun is setting low and you need that true Mayfly representation of the adult insect… the Mayflies are everywhere, as well as the ravenous trout… this is the fly.”
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Whatever your preferred pattern, the mayfly season remains one of the highlights of the fly fishing year, a brief window when rivers, trout and anglers all seem to move to the same rhythm.
Or, as Charles Jardine puts it: “Don’t fish so hard that you do not soak in the natural wonder of the time of year and nature all around you.”
Wishing you a great season from Orvis UK!