The fly box · No. 34 of 36
Waterhen Bloa
The large dark olive, hatching or drowned, in the cold months at either end of the season.
- Kind
- Wet
- Hook sizes
- 14–16
- Season
- Spring, autumn, winter
- For
- Trout and grayling
- At the vice
- A moderate tie
The dressing
| Hook | Light-wire wet fly hook, barbless, sizes 14–16 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Yellow silk, well waxed so that it darkens toward olive |
| Tail | None |
| Body | The yellow silk, dubbed very sparsely with mole’s fur so the silk shows through as a faint mist of grey |
| Rib | None |
| Hackle | Smoky grey feather from the underside of a waterhen (moorhen) wing, taken from the under coverts, one and a half to two turns |
| Wing | None |
Tying it
- Wax the yellow silk and start it behind the eye.
- Tie in the prepared waterhen feather by its stalk, tip pointing forward over the eye.
- Wind the silk in touching turns to a point above the hook point.
- Touch a few wisps of mole’s fur onto the silk, far less than seems enough, and wind back to the hackle.
- Wind the hackle back for two turns at most and secure the tip.
- Take the silk forward through the fibres, form a small head, whip finish and varnish.
Fishing it
Large dark olives hatch around midday in March and April and again from autumn into winter, often in short flurries. Be on the water then, with this spider on a 5X (0.15 mm) or 6X (0.13 mm) tippet, and fish it upstream into the riffles and the steady water just below them. Let it drift freely an inch or two down, raising the rod to keep pace. When the hatch thins out, a slow swing across the tail of the pool will still find fish that are looking upward.
Where it comes from
Bloa is a North Country dialect word for a cold, bluish grey, the colour of the feather that gives this Yorkshire Dales spider its name. Yellow silk is touched with so little mole’s fur that the silk shows through, and when wet the two blend into a dusky olive very close to the body of the natural fly.