The elegant mayflies like drakes, danicas and vulgates deserve an elegant hook for the imitations. We have for a long time had a desire for a long-shanked yet light hook for the hatch of the largest species of mayflies that can fool the most skeptical trout or grayling, and we have launched it now – the FW538 / 539 Mayfly Dry.
The Danish flytyer and fly fisherman Kaj Kirkeby has for many years practiced the mayfly fishing and fly tying of precisely these large insects. Therefore, it was obvious to team up with him, and listen to his thoughts on what the ultimate hook for mayflies like drakes, danicas and vulgates would look like. Kaj has many thoughts about both sizes but more importantly the design of the hook – so we listened and payed attention to his thoughts.
He is a big supporter of a slightly upturned point which, according to him, holds the fish better than a straight-line hook point, especially when using barbed hooks.
The thickness of the wire is also an important issue for him and therefore we have made it so fine, that even the largest imitations can still be tied thin, elegant, and stay floating for a long time for eg fishing in still-water, but still have enough strength to secure even the biggest trout without breaking or bending the hook.
Another expert in the field who has been involved in the design of the hook has been the Swedish fly-fisherman, flytyer and author Johan Klingenberg, who also has extensive experience with may-flies – and many inputs to the design of the final hook as well. And then we have had our own swedish tying-maschine Håkan Karsnäser to test the hooks…
We have chosen to manufacture the hook – like the other models in the Freshwater program – in both barbless and barbed versions, and in sizes that match the size of the various drake, Danica and vulgate specimens. Therefore, we have limited the selection only to be from 8 to 14.
