To effectively fish a dry fly you have to be able to readily see it so that youcan see if a fish takes it aswell as monitor your cast for accuracy and drag.All of my dry flies have white poly wings or white polyoverwings. I feel thatwhen trout are feeding on mayflies they key on the length of the body as wellasthe overall size and color of the fly. The color should be close to thenatural but does not need to beexact.

As a mayfly floats down river the fishare looking up at it from the underside of the insect andthe verticallyposition wing is only vaguely visible to the trout if at all. A natural dun coloredwing looksgood to the fly fisher but I think the color of the wing is irrelevantto the fish. as is the tail. Many troutare caught on dun patterns with pink orchartreuse wings. The Vis-A-Dun is tied with the hackle clippedunder thehook shank so that the fish gets a good look at the body and has a whitewing so the theangler gets a good look at the fly.

When fishing a mayfly hatch I always fish a Vis-A-Dun with a Barr Emergerdropper which match the hatching mayfly and use a combinations oftechniques. First I dead drift the combo, and if no response I add a coupletwitches to the flies just before they get to the fish which can trigger a take. Ifthe fish is below me I will dead drift, twitch and if no response I will swing theflies into the rising trout and stop the drift so the emerger rises up as it gets tothe fish. I feel trout, especially heavily pressured fish scrutinize surfacepatterns before refusing or taking them whereas they will often take the sunkemerger with no hesitation.

– John Barr