Maine’s outdoor sports have offered additional opportunities in my lifetime, and fly-fishing provides myriad examples. For instances, many baby-boomers such as myself routinely match insect hatches that none of us noticed in youth, and a small mayfly pops to mind – blue-winged olives (BWOs). BWO species and genera in size No. 14 through 28 hatch from May through November, and I concentrate on this aquatic bug from mid-July to September. Typical sizes in those months range from No. 18 through 24.

The colloquial name blue-winged olive describes the color scheme in the subimago (dun) stage – blue-gray wings, same color for the six legs and ditto for the three tails. The abdomen and thorax are olive, and some species are dark olive, others medium and many light olive, which match the bottom side of summer leaves. After hatching and then flying ashore, these bugs hide under foliage before the metamorphosis into imagoes (spinners) occurs.

Larvae of most BWO species and genera are dark-colored and most belong to the swimmer family, so casting – say a size 18 or 20 Pheasant Tail nymph – quartering across and downstream, letting it swing in a tight arc and then retrieving it by rolling the fly line over the fingers imitates the swimming motion. When using dry flies, a dead-drift presentation matches the natural bug. Cast it quartering upstream above a rise ring and allow it to drift freely over the rising trout. Both tactics draw strikes. BWOs offer fly rodders ultra-fun fishing, too, because small flies create excitement aplenty when tangling with trout or salmon, particular trophy salmonids.

I became aware of BWOs in the early 1970s after buying the newly published third edition of Art Flick’s “New Streamside Guide to Naturals and Their Imitations.”

In the first two seasons after reading Flick’s classic, I fished a sparsely tied size 16 BWO Variant as a dry fly for rising trout. This pattern proved easy to present properly, and it was big enough for me to set the hook easily. And it was easy for a beginning fly tier to tie a size 16 Variant, because it had just hackle with no wings.

A BWO Variant pattern always reminds me of a late morning in July 1973 by the Sheepscot River’s hatchery bridge in Palermo. During a BWO hatch, a fly fisherman staggered to the river carrying a Ballantine ale bottle. After a few pleasantries he asked about the fishing and listened to me talk about a size 20 BWO hatch.

“Fish are rising like crazy,” he said, “but I don’t see no insects.”

Numerous BWOs floated on the meniscus so I netted one.

“Gawd, fish eat that little, itty-bitty thing?”

These days, many Maine fly fishers match ubiquitous BWO hatches. Other fly rodders target emergences of Hendricksons and red quills (Ephemerella subvaria – the first pattern imitates a female and the second fly a male), slate drakes (Isonychia bicolor – a big mayfly that usually swims to shallows to hatch on the top of dry rocks, tree trunks lying in water and bridge abutments) and Hexes (Hexagenia limbata – lots of people call them green drakes, the latter far less common in Maine). These three hatches excite modern fly fishers, but in my youth people ignored them.

Bird watching follows a similar learning curve. Many of us easily identify species that flock to home feeders, and the usual songbirds at my place include black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, house finches, white-breasted nuthatches, red-breasted nuthatches, northern juncos, common redpolls, northern cardinals, brown creepers, bluejays, rose-breasted grosbeaks and a handful of warblers. To learn about birds that do not frequent home feeders requires hiking into natural habitat.

Many of us stumble into shorebirds, and this knowledge often begins with a trip to islands off our coast to target common puffins, but razorbills and terns rank as a second reason for the excursion. Terns may dive at our heads as we hike to blinds. Time spent in blinds on ledges beside the water teach us behavioral traits about these iconic Maine species.

Also, the trip to and from islands often introduces birdwatchers to pelagic species. On cruises to islands to view puffins, pelagic birds excite the birding crowd, particularly serious birders with costly binoculars.

A salient point: Modern nature lovers have more knowledge, time and money to pursue creatures that many of us did not know about in our youth, but nowadays we can’t live without them. This increased knowledge has made my life far richer during outdoor jaunts.

Ken Allen of Belgrade Lakes, a writer, editor and photographer, may be reached at

KAllyn800@yahoo.com