Olives....the Little Mayflies

Olives, no this is not a post about those salty mainstays of so many worldwide. Instead its about those little mayflies that so many are aware of. These flies are about from late April to September and can bring about some interesting reactions from the resident trout populations. Some of these flies can be tiny, and some not so, those are what I tie...14-16-18, and i tie the spider-soft-hackle version.

Materials are, hooks, olive silk, natural mole dubbing, and dun hen hackle.

The silk is started behind the eye and wrapped back to about the hook point or slightly beyond. Always touching turns with the silk in order to eliminate gaps.

The silk is then touched lightly with wax about an inch and a half. Then the mole is dubbed very sparse. You can now remove some if you think it maybe to much. This is about right for me.

Then the thread is wrapped forward to slightly behind the eye.

The feather is attached. I know it looks big for the size hook but your only using the smaller barbules of the feather. Two turns of the feather then it's secured with the silk,waste trimmed and whip finished.

Completed size 14 BWO spider.

Size 14 BWO spider using olive squirrel dubbing, and a somewhat fuller hackle.

A size 16 BWO spider, sparse mole dub and sparse hackle.