When the Quills Come: The “Gentleman” Hatches of Springtime

We have a friend, Phil, who only fishes dry flies. It doesn’t matter to Phil if he catches a fish or not, he simply likes to stay on top. Mention a favorite nymph pattern and he’s likely to give you a hard stare and heaven forbid you show him a Squirmy Wormie or a Mop Fly, he will dish out a verbal lesson (more of a rant) about fishing the dark side.

Phil is lucky enough to live in a beautiful streamside cabin on an eastern Pennsylvania freestone trout stream, so when the trout are rising, he’s living the dream. When they’re not rising he still strings up his favorite bamboo fly rod, ties on a Crackleback, his favorite attractor fly, and takes his rod for a walk. Phil is a retired three-leaf U.S. Navy admiral and is living everyone’s dream retirement. He has the luxury of being there when it’s happening. And if it’s not happening? Well, there’s always tomorrow.

Pennsylvania winters can be cold, and dry-fly fishing at that time is sparse. If you are lucky, there may be enough adult  Little Black Stoneflies to bring a fish to the surface on a warm afternoon, but that’s like winning the lottery. So Phil bides his time, takes his rod for walks, and dreams about springtime and the quills. The quills are Little Blue Quills and Quill Gordons, the first major mayfly hatches to usher in our spring trout season.  

For those among us who are interested, Paraleptophlebia adoptiva is the Latin name for the Little Blue Quill and Epeorus pleuralis for the Quill Gordon. The Blue Quill is the smaller of the two and usually imitated in its adult form with a size 16 or 18 quill-body dry fly, while the larger Quill Gordon is generally imitated on a size 14 hook. It is also is historically tied with a quill body.

Hatch Timing

The late Ernest Schwiebert once told me that Blue Quills were a gentleman’s hatch because the best hatching activity starts in the early afternoon and generally lasts three to four hours. For Ernie, there was little reason to be on the stream at first light. Unlike Phil, Ernie had no issue fishing underneath the surface but, in his opinion, the best fishing was when you could cast to a good trout sipping mayflies on the surface—especially after sleeping in, having a late breakfast, and still getting to the water in time for the hatch. And later, as the hatch faded out in late afternoon, there was plenty of time to get back to the bar to enjoy a glass of good wine and tell fishing stories.

For most of my fly-fishing life, the Blue Quills began to show up on my home stream, Fishing Creek in northeastern Pennsylvania, in early April. By the opening day of trout season (back then the season opened in mid-April) it was the hatch to count on. Now, with the warmer temperatures, the Blue Quills arrive in mid-March. Fortunately, the hatch is still strong in early April when fishing season officially opens. The problem is that many Pennsylvania trout streams are closed for fishing until April 1, and it’s a little heartbreaking to watch the tiny dun-colored mayflies float by, often with fish feeding, and not be able to fish.

Blue Quills prefer to hatch on overcast cloudy days over hot, sunny afternoons. That’s not to say that you won’t find flies or rising fish on sunny days, it’s just a fact that, like Blue-winged Olives, Little Blue Quills love cloudy afternoons. If you’re lucky to have light rain or mist, the tiny flies will need a little more time to dry their wings before leaving the water. This gives the trout a longer opportunity to feed on the duns.

This past spring, we had massive numbers of Blue Quills on the water and it truly was the best mayfly hatch of the season. Toward the middle of the hatch, the larger two-tailed Quill Gordons began to mix in with the Blue Quills.

Blue Quill nymphs, like most mayfly nymphs, are quite active just prior to the actual emergence. If you look at the body color and profile, you will find that a Pheasant-tail Nymph, tied on a size 16 or 18 heavy-wire hook, makes a perfect imitation. I want the Pheasant Tail to sink quickly, so I use a copper tungsten bead for the head on the fly.

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On the other hand, during the peak of the hatch, I often find that trout have keyed in on the emerging nymphs just below the surface and at that time I switch to an unweighted Pheasant-tail Nymph, tied on a dry-fly hook with fine wire, and tag it behind my Blue Quill dry with 8 to 10 inches of 5X tippet. This holds the Pheasant Tail just below the surface. This dry/dropper combo is deadly, especially on super selective trout.

I like easily tied flies that are durable and offer a profile that trout will feel confident in taking. My favorite dun imitation has a Compara-dun-style wing tied with gray Hi-Vis all-purpose Antron fibers from L&L Products. The tail is a few strands of brown Hi-Vis to imitate a trailing shuck, and the body is a gray synthetic peacock quill followed with a thorax of gray dubbing. I soak the wing in Water Shed and dry it for 24 hours before fishing it. Water Shed from Hareline Dubbin is a permanent water repellent that keeps flies high and dry.

Blue Quill spinners from duns hatched the previous day often show up late in the afternoon on calm, windless days and may be mixed with hatching duns.

You can often find fish that will take both the dun or the spinner, or a selective fish that prefers one over the other. Spinners are easy to imitate and, as with the duns, I use a spentwing of light gray or white Hi-Vis wing material, a few fibers of a dun colored Spey hackle for the tail, and a reddish-brown tightly dubbed body figure-eighted around the wing. The quill-like body on the insect is, in my opinion, more of an olive gray and I could never understand why a wood duck wing was so popular on Quill Gordon dry-fly patterns. It sure looks gray on the natural to me.

For the Quill Gordon nymph, I like a darker beadhead Hare’s-ear Nymph tied on a size 14 heavy-wire nymph hook. I have friends who continue to use a standard Quill Gordon wet fly that they swing on a tight line across currents with success before and during the hatch. This pattern and technique have been around forever, and the early authors often wrote about swinging flies in this manner.

For the dun, I prefer to stay with the gray Hi-Vis wing tied Compara-dun style, an olive synthetic peacock quill body, a thorax of grayish brown dubbing wrapped around the wing, and a few strands of brown Hi-Vis for the tail. For the spinners, in late afternoons and early evenings, I rely on the same spinner that I use for the Blue Quill but tied on a light-wire dry-fly hook, in a size 14.

When the larger Quill Gordons show up mixed with the Blue Quills, one would expect the trout to quickly switch to the larger flies, and some do, taking whatever comes along in their feeding lane. But beware, the fish don’t always switch to the bigger flies.

I have fished the famous Green Drake hatch on Penns Creek, and experienced times when I was catching nice trout on a big size 10 fly. Then, almost at dark with still a lot of Green Drake duns on the water, the trout switched to small size 18 Sulphurs. Go figure!

Pay careful attention to what insect the fish are keying in on when there are a couple different types on the water. Contrary to what we might think, it’s not always the larger fly. Often, the fish prefer smaller flies when there are more of them.

As a guide, I am always happy to use whatever works to get my clients into fish, but it’s more fun when fish are feeding on or near the surface. Then the game becomes a visual challenge where matching the hatch is the first step, but just as important is presentation.

If we have a number of fish feeding and can target a good trout, the game is on. Once we determine if the fish is taking duns or emergers, and make the cast, and if the drift and fly are right, the odds should be in our favor.

As the Blue Quill hatch thins out, the Quill Gordons often increase in number and the fish will stay looking up. If you hit it just right, our Little Blue Quill hatch on Fishing Creek is nothing short of amazing and is often mixed with Quill Gordons. Fishing both of the early quill hatches gets our season started and is something that we all patiently await. The anticipation helps get us through the long winter months.

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Cathy and Barry Beck live in Benton, Pennsylvania, where they offer fly-fishing schools and guided fishing on Fishing Creek. For more than 40 years they have traveled the world with fly rods and cameras, documenting everything from African safaris to South American golden dorados and New Zealand rainbow trout. barryandcathybeck.com | Instagram: @barryandcathybeck