The March Brown - Appearing On A Water Near You.
The Future of Fly Fishing?
With all of this recent talk of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it will take over the world, I thought I would bring Barbless Flies Towers into the 21st century and an Amazon Alexa in the office - Jack is very amused when I start arguing with it - to be fair, it's not too bad at answering any question I throw at it - but I can't see it standing in a stream casting a size 18 Griffith's Gnat to a selectively rising wild fish any day soon - it would need a long extension lead!
Please Note: The above image was generated using AI.
As you may imagine, writing (and planning) these emails take up quite a bit of time, having written the bulk of this email I wondered what our other artificial friend - we'll call him Claude - thought.
TL;DR - Too Long; Didn't Read
I know that some of you are pressed for time and save our emails to read later in the day, by this time our flies are sometimes sold out (I get lots of emails from customers pointing this out to me).
I've put this section at the beginning, so you can grab your flies now - and save reading my musings for later, safe in the knowledge that you have already secured your 'Match The Hatch' fly selection or individual March Brown flies.
This email is all about the March Brown, an insect which the fish will switch on to throughout April. In this email, we are launching our March Brown imitations and March Brown 'Match The Hatch' Box - a boxed selection of 15 flies, 3 of each of the five main stages of a March Brown hatch. All the patterns are tied using the very best quality materials on AHREX & VMC hooks:
We also give you access to all the hatch information, pattern information and watercraft, specific to the March Brown - all this for only £26.50.
As some of you may know, I'm a bit of an IT geek - so this type of AI is right up my street (I worked all over the world in the IT industry for 30 years, specialising in databases and analytics). I'm quite an analytical person and like nothing better than digging into technology to find out exactly how it works, which is one of the reasons I got the fly fishing bug because I see every trip to the river as trying to 'crack the code' for that specific day - there's always something to try and solve - be it the correct style of fly to use, the dynamics of the leader or the best presentation based on the river conditions.
Every day is a school day!
But back to our artificial friend 'Claude' ...
As this email is all about the March Brown (an insect which will be hatching about now on a stream/river near you), I thought I would give 'Claude' a go and see how they compare.
I asked 'Claude' to:
"Write me an email all about the March Brown insect hatches in the UK from a fly fishing perspective."
and here's the result ...
I think you will agree, it's not too bad an effort, considering that is only about a third of the response, it was generated in about 2 seconds flat and to my knowledge the nearest any AI has been to the river bank is when my Alexa passed over the local stream in the back of a DPD van.
So you can imagine my surprise when I asked our Alexa this question:
Me: "Alexa, what's the day after April Fools Day called?"
and she replied with:
Alexa: "Glad you asked Richard, It's called March Brown Day*"
I reckon that she had been listening in to the conversation between myself and Jack earlier in the day when we were discussing it!
(* In the spirit of openness, the above conversation did not actually happen, when I asked Alexa what the day after April Fool's Day was called, she replied with "it's the 2nd of April Richard"
So to celebrate this 'entirely made up' March Brown Day I want to give you a little detail on the March Brown and let you see a few imitations you should consider using, should you come across any on your own bank side visits this April.
The March Brown
With the Trout season now in full swing across the UK, fly anglers (or fishers as 'Claude' calls them) thoughts switch to Trout.
The first insect which pops up on the fly angler's radar is the aptly named March Brown:
The March Brown (Rhithrogena germanica) is a member of the Heptageniidae family - The Heptageniidae are a family of mayflies with over 500 described species. These flies are generally rather small with two long tails. The wings are usually clear with dark prominent veins. We will learn more about the Heptageniidae family through the season, as they make up the majority of flies the angler is predominantly interested in.
Where To Find Them
March Browns are more commonly found on the larger rocky rivers in the north of England; and throughout Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
March Browns seem to prefer rocky or stony river beds with faster flowing water.
When To Find Them
The March Brown hatch usually starts in the first two weeks of March and will continue until the end of April.
During March and April, hatches usually occur around midday and can last for up to three hours, with major bursts of activity only lasting around 15 minutes (have your flies ready before you enter the water!).
What To Look For
March Browns are generally pretty easy to spot (especially in early March & April - as they are generally the only up-winged fly you will encounter on the river). Later, on in April, it is often confused for the Large Brook Dun, they are both very similar with the same imitations used for both.
The key distinguishing feature of the March Brown is a dark mark in the centre of their pale femur. Remember these flies only have 2 tails.
Lifecycle
The March Brown starts as a nymph clinging to stones on the river bed. These stone-clinging nymphs are generally around 1.5cm long (about a size 12 or 14 hook). The nymph then rises through the water column and emerges on the surface. This is the point that trout usually take them (either just below the surface or as they emerge), don't be too quick to retrieve your fly if it starts to sink!
Unusually for one of the up-winged family of flies, trout don't seem to be interested in March Brown spinners (the dying ones on the surface at the end of the day) throughout March, it's not until we get into April that they hoover them up. From a fly fishing perspective, the stages which we must try to imitate are:
- Nymph
- Emerger
- Dun; and
- Spinner
Imitations
The most popular imitations for March Browns are any of the flies below, don't worry if you don't have these exact patterns, as anything which is in the general colour, profile and size will do.
These flies should be fished as you would any other fly, the March Brown Upright being especially buoyant with its double hackle.
The dry flies should be used as soon as you start to see the hatch appear (remember early hatches of March Brown's don't last long), this can be anytime from 12:00 until 15:00, depending upon weather conditions.
Nymph
Always keep in mind how deep and how fast the water is when nymphing in the early season, that will tell you how heavy a nymph you need to use. All you need to remember when fishing nymphs in the early season is that you need to be very near the bottom, if you're not getting snagged up every so often, you're not fishing deep enough.
Emerger
Dun
or
Spinner
Image Sources
March Brown Title Image: Courtesy of Mr D Southall (March Brown photo taken in March on the R. Irfon (Wales)) - thanks Dave.
This email is brought to you with the sole intent to spread the information around so we can all maybe learn something.
If you would like to buy any March Brown imitation flies for your early season forays, we do hope that you will consider any of our March Brown imitations from only £1.75 each (links below) - all tied with the best quality materials and hooks available (AHREX & VMC).
In fact, we are proud to say that our Artisan range of flies are the best quality commercially tied flies available anywhere in the world - we've got over 9,000 5-star reviews to prove it!
If you would like the full set - presented in a really nice box, with a link to a hidden page which describes each fly and how to get the best from it, you could always try our March Brown 'Match The Hatch' Selection - at only £26.50 they're a bargain for the quality (and information):
Tight lines.
P.S. If you would like to refer back to the content in this email, all of our insect specific emails are replicated over on our Hatch Chat blog - which can be viewed here.
