Been seeing some March Browns on the cricks lately and have been thinking about tying up a new fly for the hatch. A local was nice enough to stop by the house this afternoon to pose as a model.
The screen sections are 1/16" wide. The length of this particular March Brown measured just about 6/16". I was a bit surprised at the length of the tails, but I usually am when I actually get pix to study.
John
John is it just the angle of the photo or are the wings way bigger than the normal proportion charts tell us wings are? In the photo the wings look to be full length of the body plus half the tail.
Just curious how it looked from other perspectives.
I think you will find that the proportion charts are for the “average” insects and is as much for balance of the fly than to reflect an exact measurement of the insect’s body parts.
A Coffin Fly I have that was tied by the Dette’s has wings which are about 1.25 the hook shank. The tail and hackle are also longer than “normal” to ensure balance.
The photo of a March Brown below shows pretty long wings as well.
Just as I thought, you mean a very different insect when you say March Brown than what we know here as a March brown. Ours are two to three times the size of that. Usually imitated on a size 10.
Cheers,
A.
… which needs a bit of work before I would expect to fish it.
This is tied to the size of the March Brown Model as nearly as possible, not to a hook size.
The hook is a size 18 Dai-Riki 125 which is a 2X short straight eye emerger style hook.
The tails are pheasant tail fibers ( thus the PT designation ) and the furled extended body is a single strand of medium brown antron yarn.
The tag ends of the antron yarn are posted to do double duty as a wing and the post for the hackle.
The hackle is size 16 dry fly hackle done in the 9DH style, but with a couple wraps behind the post before the parachute is wrapped on the post and finished with a wrap in front of the post before tying it off. I trimmed the hackle beneath the hook shank to better represent legs and let the fly ride a bit lower.
The finished fly is about what you would tie on a standard size 16 dry fly hook.
The wing is not as accentuated as I thought it would be when I trimmed the antron, and the “legs” are not as well positioned as they will be on final product ( hopefully ). I’m thinking the wing should be posted further back and the hackle should probably be only a single wrap behind the post and a couple in front of it. Those will be the main tinkering points.
But it is a good start - especially since the pheasant tail fibers incorporated so nicely into the very slim body. That alone makes the experiment successful for me, whether I actually have a chance to fish a properly finished specimen to a March Brown hatch.
John
Somehow I missed your post. I think the camera angle may cause a bit of a distortion regarding the wing length, but I will say that when I see the March Browns on the creek it almost seems like they are “all wing.”
Without checking my photo albums for other mayflies, I do think the March Browns have longer wings, and maybe the fact they are so dark compared to some other mayfly’s wings makes them seem more prominent ??
John