Baetis or Blue Winged Olives

Recommended Flies:

Nymphs: Pheasant Tail, Copper John

Emergers: RS2

Adults: Adams or Parachute Adams

Picking Confidence Patterns:

BWOs can be imitated with your standard mayfly patters, in  sizes 16 to 24 hook

Blue winged olives (BWOs) or baetis as they are often call, are a year round hatch of small mayflies. They hatch as small as a size 24 or 26 in early spring and progress in size to a size 16 in late spring before runoff. In most rivers that you will fish in the area, runoff is about the time the other insect hatches begin to be more important that the BWOs. As summer turns into fall, they regains there importance as the dominate hatch and begin to shrink in size from larger 16, back down to the 22 and 24 range as winter starts. They often prefer cooler weather and cloudy days can often produce a prolific hatch that brings even the biggest fish in the stream to the surface. BWOs can inhabit high elevation streams that other insects cannot. So the higher you go, the more important they become. In the very high elevations, only midges and BWOs are present. So when hiking the back country, make sure to have you BWO imitations handy year round.

BWOs are part of the swimming group of mayflies and can often be found darting around the stream. Because they engage in this behavior, they are always found in the drift. So when the other more predominate hatches have stopped for the day, or haven’t started yet, your favorite BWO pattern may be just the ticket to tighten your line during some of the slower periods of the day.

A BWO nymph kindly holding still long enough for me to take a picture before swimming away!