[Mike Barrio]

( This is a back up post - originally posted by Ian Fraser-Stables )

I'm getting very excited to try Mike's Smallstream line in earnest soon. It's the #6 that you guys recommended I try on my Sintrix #5 as I found the GT90 #5 needed a lot of line out to load it properly. So initially I have field trialled it with a bit of fluff and I have to say it's delightful.  I've booked a beat on the upper Test for early May and another further down for late may, both beats have different characteristics.

Now this may sound like a very daft question, but do you guys have a Mayfly season where you are? 

[Mike Barrio]

( This is a back up post - originally posted by Hamish Young )

Across the Highlands, where there are lime outcrops, we tend to get mayflies. Assynt notably, seen some hatches that keepers on the Test would be jealous of 

[Mike Barrio]

( This is a back up post - originally posted by John Wastle )

One aspect of mayfly hatches in Scotland is they tend to start later and go on for longer than the Southern rivers.  From late May/early June and running through to mid July. I have heard of hatches into August in the far north. Their range and numbers seems to have increased in my lifetime.

I love my mayfly fishing and from late May hope to be fishing in hatches on an English chalkstream, a couple of very good highland lochs and a lowland rainbow fishery.

The latter, Lake of Menteith has a decent mayfly hatch in certain areas most years and is fairly consistent to the end of June and sometimes beyond.  I can get there in less than an hour so it is easily the most accessible  for me.

[Mike Barrio]

( This is a back up post - originally posted by Ian Fraser-Stables )

Thanks chaps.

Indeed the chalk streams around here are pretty special and absolutely crystal clear but, the wild brownies don't grow very big so they are all stocked with 1.5-2lb fish for the pot. Any wild brownies caught have to be released, they are usually not more than 1/2lb.

A few years ago we travelled up to Scotland to see the houses in which my father lived and stopped at Loch Ness. I was lucky enough to get a few hours in on the Loch shore where my father taught me to fish. I was amazed at how aggressive even the small brownies are up there, literally jumping out of the water at my fly. 

[Mike Barrio]

( This is a back up post - originally posted by Terry Coging )

There were good hatches of Mayfly in the Assynt region late May early June last year.
I'll be back there later next month, hoping for the same. It was nice to see good hatches of big Sedges on L Borralan as well.

[Al Greig]

I was once in a boat on Loch Tay, in awful weather, in the midst of an absolutely biblical proper Mayfly hatch, Mike. Not a fin stirred the surface!

[Steven Kidd]

The limestone lochs of Caithness are great for a mayfly hatch, ....mid to late June.

Steven