Yellow May and the Last Cast
June 17, 2025
Michael Olesen’s Yellow May and the Last Cast I usually associate Yellow May with spring and as a kind of prelude to the mayfly season,
I usually associate Yellow May with spring and as a kind of prelude to the mayfly season, but I’ve often found it helpful to remind myself that there are plenty of Yellow Mays in mid-June, long after the mayflies have stopped hatching in large numbers. The beautiful sulphur-yellow mayfly can still keep the fish active when the number of Danica mayflies is dwindling.
I usually associate Yellow May with spring and as a kind of prelude to the mayfly season, but I’ve often found it helpful to remind myself that there are plenty of Yellow Mays in mid-June, long after the mayflies have stopped hatching in large numbers. The beautiful sulphur-yellow mayfly can still keep the fish active when the number of Danica mayflies is dwindling.
I just made a small trip to my little stream, where the trout were eagerly feeding on the beautiful yellow mayflies, which were hatching in decent numbers, steadily throughout the day. There was hardly a fly that passed by without getting noticed. I managed to hook and land three nice trout on my home-tied Yellow May imitation, with only a sparse yellow hackle and a light, airy CDC wing, before I got into a little trouble. It was a rather large grayling that gave me a hard time. It rolled backward, sideways, and in every direction when it took my fly. Under normal circumstances, I enjoy a challenge—but this was a bit much. The grayling got a break, my nerves got a break, and most importantly, I took a moment to reflect while I walked around and checked out a few other hotspots along the stream.
Briefly about “The Feather Mechanic II: Beyond the Pattern”
A look into the feature of the Luna Mayfly in Gordon van der Spuy’s new book. What Michael’s thoughts were going into this, and places on the web where the book can be bought will also be mentioned here.
See more from Gordon van der Spuy on his socials and website.
You can find a copy of “The Feather Mechanic II: Beyond the Pattern” on www.themissionflymag.com
Explore flytying from my vise at different levels of difficulty and learn ways to make them with easy step by step guides and simple illustrations. Explore a variety of flies and a passion for fly tying.
When I finally returned to my grayling, it was still active, and I noticed that there were now Danica spinners among the insects it was inhaling. I tied on a Danica spinner to the end of my leader, hoping for a better hook-up and a more fortunate outcome. But, as luck would have it, the beautiful grayling completely lost interest, and there I stood on the riverbank, with all my skills and no results to show for them. I stood for quite a while, staring at the glassy and far too quied surface on the strean. “Enough is enough,” I thought—just as I heard a fish rise right behind me, near some bushes, where I only had the option to cast downstream.
I pulled 3–4 meters of line off my reel. Crouching, I made a single blind cast, hoping the fish hadn’t noticed me. Luckily, it took the fly on the first try. A gentle lift of the rod and line did the trick. The fish practically hooked itself, as they often do with downstream presentations. You usually only get one shot with casts like that.
I played the fish for a while, though I have no idea how long. Time becomes a strange thing when the fishing gets intense. It was a trout—and what a specimen. It had been a long time since I’d seen such stunning red spots. And just as I stood there in the stream, in my waders, with water a little over my knees, admiring the catch in the net, that annoying and cheeky grayling kept rising to Yellow Mays on the surface—just three meters in front of me. But never mind.
Se flere billeder fra turen nedenfor
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