[Kevin McPherson]

Spotted this today, Yellow May I think, but I am sure someone can advise. What patterns are used for these on the Don, any suggestions? 🤙

[Mike Barrio]

Hi Kevin

Sorry, I didn't reply yesterday, as there are plenty of folk on here that are better at this kind of stuff than me.

Yep, looks like a Yellow May, although you should be wary of my thoughts - as I'm more of a 'wee yellow beastie with an upright wing' sort of fly fisher 

Whatever is hatching, I tend to look at their size and profile first, and then I'll look for a reasonably close colour. I'm a pretty laid back suggestive fly fisher, entomology has never been my forte I'm afraid, but that works for me.

Have you checked out Sandy's Don help pages via the Sitemap? I think he has got this one down as a Badger & Yellow, but I suspect he might be fishing one of his CDC Spiders instead nowadays.
See https://www.fishingthefly.co.uk/river-don-trout-tactics.html and https://www.fishingthefly.co.uk/river-don-trout-flies.html

Cheers
Mike

[Kevin McPherson]

Cheers Mike
I’ll have a review and Drop Sandy a line

[Sandy Nelson]

Definitely a Yellow May.

Badger and yellow is the traditional Don dry for this one. I do like a tups indispensable though and have a variation of my plume tip in tups colours.
It’s one of those flies that the fish will mostly ignore but sometimes they will feed heavily on it and to the exclusion of all else so I always keep 3 or 4 in the box.

There’s been yellow evening duns coming off too in certain places , they are a bit darker and more orangeish and have 3 tails instead of 2. It’s a very short hatch window of a couple of weeks, where the yellow mays hatch for several months. Same flies should work for either.

[Kevin McPherson]

Cheers Sandy I’ll  tie up a few when I get home , and get some materials for your style 🤙