Small Mayflies for Late Summer Fly Fishing

I just finished a customer fly order where I tied a few size 18 RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripples for small BWOs and PMDs. I tied them on some TMC 102y hooks I have in my inventory. So I thought while the materials were still on my fly tying table, I’d tie these as small as I can. I haven’t been to the river much, but know late summer fly fishing will find size 20 and 22 Blue Wing Olives hatching and trout sipping them and I want to be ready.

I rummaged around in my hook drawer and pulled out the hooks shown below; TMC 102y (left) and an Alec Jackson Soft Hackle Trout hooks (right). The hook on the left is a size 19 while the Alec Jackson is listed as size 17. I included a Daiichi 1100 size 20 hook at the bottom for comparison purposes. I’d guess these flies are in the neighborhood of size 20 and 22 if you compare them to a standard dry fly hook. The sizing from hook manufacturers has always made me shake my head. There is not much consistency at all.

Next I prepared several Mallard covert feathers to use as wings. The bobbin holder below shows where I pluck the covert feathers. They are found on the leading edge of the wing.

Several are seen in the image below around a dime. I strip off fibers on each side of the rachis, the anatomical name for a feather shaft or stem. The tips will be trimmed short and flat to create a tie-in point. They are SO SMALL and difficult to manage when attaching hackle pliers. These small feathers are delicate to begin with and the rachis is very slim and can easily break before completing one wrap. I usually an able to get two wraps of hackle around my flies.

The first image of the post are the completed flies. I tied three flies for each of the TMC 102y and Alec Jackson Soft Hackle hooks.

I hope the fish like them!

I go into more detail on the fly pattern sheet for the RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripple. And here is a link to my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel where I demonstrate how I tie the fly.

Here are more examples of the fly to imitate other Mayflies.

And I have a few other size 22 BWO imitations I carry…Almost There Baetis and In-the-Film CDC Emerger. Of course I have Improved Sparkle Duns as well.

I hope to see larger Mayflies hatching with Rainbows rising to them, but I’ll be prepared!

Enjoy…go fish!