This picture is just a quick snap to illustrate the tell-tale mark of a true wild rainbow trout in the Derbyshire Wye. It's that candle flame orange on the very top edge the dorsal fin (click the image and click again for a closer look). Any rainbow trout in the Derbyshire Wye without this mark has a question mark over its origin...
This creature is a Yellow May Dun. A female, she has a drop of water at the tail end of her body because I hadn't the heart to let her stay stranded in the surface film after a rain drop had bombed her flat. She is drying off on my finger before getting on her way to take her chances. In forty two years of dry fly fishing I have never seen a fish eat one of these. Have any of you good folk ever seen fish eat a Yellow May Dun?
Regular Rod
That's a beautiful rainbow. And an interesting color on the dorsal.
ReplyDeleteThose are two great pictures if I may so myself. That rainbow looks as healthy as it gets. I have never witnessed a Yellow May Dun being eaten by a trout. Someday maybe?
ReplyDeleteI just think they are left alone by the fish. Maybe the yellow is a warning to predators to leave this fly alone?
ReplyDeleteYellow May Dun being taken by fish? - I can't be precise, but I think I've read somewhere, in the last couple of years, about a noted fly fisherman, (Neil Patterson possibly) saying the same thing, but actually popping one in his mouth and eating one, quickly spitting it out saying that they were so bitter and disgusting he understood why he'd never seen a fish actually take one.
ReplyDeleteMatthew Eastham 5 June 2011 00:14
ReplyDeleteRR,
The YMD thing is an enigma around these parts. Often totally ignored, sometimes picked out specifically amongst mediums, uprights and blue wings. why? who knows.....apparently the guys fishing the Wharfe and Ure bank on falls of the spinner at this time of year.
Considered and interesting post as always.
M