To answer your question Troutnut I never actually saw any fish rising or mayflies dropping on the water. The biggest swarm I walked through was on the trail about 5-6 ft off the stream.To answer your question Troutnut I never actually saw any fish rising or mayflies dropping on the water. The biggest swarm I walked through was on the trail about 5-6 ft off the stream.
Those were definitely spinners, then. Generally, mayflies in a "swarm" are almost always spinners. Frequently they aren't the "olive" color of a BWO at all. The males, especially, can often be brown/black and translucent/white.
Sometimes, spinners don't fall on the water, or the trout don't respond when they do (especially for small spinners like Baetids, and in relatively small numbers compared to the size of the stream). So it's not surprising you had more luck with attractor flies.
It can work both ways. I was on a stream in Idaho about week ago under conditions that seemed classic for attractor flies... very little hatching, bright sunny midday, etc. A much bigger trout than what I'd been catching came out to look at my attractor fly but snubbed it. Then I noticed it was rising in a dark spot along the bank every so often. However, it wasn't interested in a couple different attractors. Then I saw there were some tiiiiiiny little Baetid duns coming off (around size 24). I tied on a decent imitation, made a cast I was proud of, and hooked the fish. Matching the hatch was the ticket in one of the last situations you would expect.
Of course, other times, there's an obvious hatch coming off but an attention-grabbing attractor is what you need instead.