I’ve spent more time working on excuses as to how things went so badly wrong for me this month than on this article, but so far, I haven’t managed to convince anyone. But I mean, who could possibly predict we’d have a whole month of, dry, beautiful warm weather in May? It’s just not British!
That said, we have had a record month of fishing, catching nearly as many fish this May than the whole of 2023. You can read all about that in our May 2025 Fishing Report. What you won’t see there is that Tom and our guests accounted for the lion’s share of those, while Matt’s minor contribution rounded out the count of 357 fish for the month.
In truth, Tom could have had a single fly in his May selection and still would have won handsomely. Mayfly patterns accounted for nearly 70% of the fish taken. Given the incredible hatches we had throughout the month, it’s not too surprising. However, with so much insect life, including multiple concurrent hatches and egg laying activity, the biggest difficulty was often trying to determine what they were feeding on, before the bite went off.
Fortunately for Matt, nymphs still got results, although not nearly to the same level. Pheasant Tail Nymphs and Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ears were the best performers and olive patterns worked on occasion, but for another month, black patterns failed to produce any significant results for us.
And so to the results. Of the 62 fish Matt caught, 44 were on the competition flies. Tom, who was miles ahead anyway, decided to add insult to injury by catching an extra 30 fish on the last day and rounded out the month with 166 fish, with 128 on competition flies.
The running score for the year as we head into June has Tom with a competition total 184 and Matt trailing with 149.
Anyway, my take away from all of this is that global warming needs to be a factor when choosing flies, and next year, realise there’s a big hint in the month’s name. Mega-May indeed!
Matt admires his best catch
Fly Selection for June
It looks like we’ll see some rain for the start of June and hopefully top up the water levels a bit. At the same time, temperatures are dropping and the weather is looking unstable which may have a detrimental effect on the fishing.
It’s almost exclusively dries in this month’s selection. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Tom has dropped his Mega-May, just as Matt has decided to go all-in on the Mays. Not sure if he’s playing playing mind games, taking pity, or most likely, just knows something I don’t.
Our rules are that we each choose 5 flies and only those flies count towards the competition. A distinct fly includes its pattern, colour, size and weight; so for the competition, a size 14 is a different fly to a 16 and a bead head is different to unweighted. We can carry across a maximum of two flies from the previous month. We’re going to mix things up a bit next month, but more about that in the next episode.
Tom’s 5 Flies for Brown Trout in June
Well! What can I say, my choice to go with the ‘dry fly’ approach in May was certainly the right choice to make (much to Matt’s disappointment).
There was such a good hatch of Mayflies throughout the whole of May which when it came to the fly of choice… of course it was the ‘Mega-May’ which is a mayfly emerger pattern. This bagged me the majority of the fish I caught throughout May and I really enjoyed sitting on the river bank having a cigarette and just waiting for a fish to rise, cast to and hook… what a BUZZ!!
What a shame that Matt had to go on holiday and leave me with the job of keeping an eye on the river 😉
The other flies in my May selection only worked on occasion. The ‘blue winged olive’ had its place along with the ‘pheasant tail Klinkhammer’ but I really struggled with the ‘black gnat’ and the ‘elk hair caddis’ which in previous years would have caught me a substantial number of fish.
The evenings were definitely the time to be out throughout the month, with the daytimes being very bright and hot. The fish didn’t seem to ‘switch on’ until after around 17.30 when the sun started to drop and temperatures fell, creating what seemed to be the perfect conditions for the hatches to begin.
I did try for a sea trout on the odd occasion but I think with the water levels being as such there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for them to make their way up through to the hotel waters, but who knows June might just be the month!
So getting to the point … my fly choices for June: I am going to carry over the ‘Elk Hair Caddis’ as I think this might prove to become valuable in my selection, maybe the hatches are later due to the conditions, who knows but that’s what I’m going with.
I’m only going to carry the one fly across from May – risky you might say, but at least it will give Matt a chance to catch up! ☺️ My other selections are going to be:
- The ‘Royal Tutor Stimulator Fly’
- ‘Olive Klink-Hammer’
- ‘Black Gold Head Pheasant Tail Nymph’
- ‘Deer Hair Emerger’
Images to follow once Tom’s back.
Matt’s 5 Flies for Brown Trout in June
So I managed to turn a 50 fish lead into trailing by 35 in the competition, and was down by 100 fish overall on the month by sticking with the nymphs a bit too long and assuming May would be wetter and colder than it was. That said, I wouldn’t swap the weather we had – or the incredible fishing! And hey, 35 fish is just one good day, at least for Tom!
There weren’t any real stand out winners in my May selection. The PTN, GRHE and olive GRHE all produced fish, and the Infallible accounted for a few on a couple of occasions. My little black nymph, that was my go to fly last year, caught a single fish, so that is getting dumped from this month’s line up, although I’ll still be carrying some in different sizes and weights in my non-competition box.
Looking back at last year’s report, it was something of a mixed bag, but dries are clearly the way to go if you can only have 5 flies. Since last year was my first season fishing dries on rivers and the total sum of my knowledge about dries would comfortably fit into a single paragraph, this month is going to be a wild-ass guess.
I’m sure that someone with more knowledge could tell you the relative values of different mayfly patterns, but I’m selecting mine purely on colour. I’m going with an olive brown, a rusty brown and pale calico Mayfly imitations, all tied in a Klinkhammer style, size 12. These match the most common colours we’re seeing on the river, but light and dark greys, olives and yellows are out there as well.
I was planning to supplement these with a sedgehog or elk wing caddis pattern to round out the dries, but decided to go with a Retirer style, as I was sold on its versatility in a Howard Croston video I came across on YouTube. I stayed as true to the recipe as I was able, but did downsize it to a 14.
Tom’s Stimulator pattern saved me on several occasions in May when nothing was showing, and I’ll carry one with me, but in the end it didn’t make the list. Instead I’ll take just one nymph. Again I’ll be carrying olive, hare’s ear and pheasant tail coloured nymphs with me, but since I only have one slot left, I’ll be going with a lightly weighted GRHE and hope it proves the right choice.
In conclusion
While June can often be one of our best months for fishing, the cooler, changeable weather has has made for a tough start. If we can follow a bit of rain with a warmer steady state, we should have a great month ahead of us. I hope we’ll see the fish switch onto the caddis at some point, but in May we had very little in that department.
If you’re fishing with us in June bring a good selection of dries and plenty of mayfly patterns in a variety of colours, but don’t overlook those times when there’s nothing showing – so something like a Stimulator to bring them up, or if you don’t mind being a cad in Tom’s eyes, a few nymphs/wets. It’ll be our secret.
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River Taw, Devon – May Fishing Report
Fly fishing report for May 2026 at The Fox & Hounds, Devon
