Who knows their MayFlies?

TimJ

TimJ

Well-known member
Is this a Hexagenia limbata? We don't have the huge gobs of these like some places farther east but I saw this one while gardening this evening. First one I've seen this summer. Use to get covered with them when I did more night catfishing.

0625091924.jpg


Pretty bug.

Tim
 
You are right Gomez, Hexagenia Limbata.
The nymph lives in muddy bottom lakes and slow rivers.
Some areas call them Green Drakes.
Trout and Smallmouth candy.
None here yet, but any day now we'll be seeing them up here in the Adirondacks.
The big rainbows on Lk. Placid slurp them up with abandon around the 4th of July and a week or so afterward.
 
They are cool mayflies aren't they! It's the prime hatch in the northern lower pen of Michigan right now. All the hexheads are around Grayling chasing the hatch. The big blanket one I saw down here was almost 3 weeks ago.
 
Jay A.- 3 weeks ago they were probably the real Green Drakes, Ephemera guttulata. They are kind of the river version of Hexagenial l.. I bet they're was a river nearby.
If not, they were early Hex's.
Definetly bugs.

Bill Stahl/Bunkouse Guide Service
 
No...they were Hexes. We get them very early here. It was at the tail end of the drakes. By the way I'm a fly fishing guide.

www.anglinoutdoors.com
 
Last edited:
Also, very few of our streams in Indiana have decent hex hatch. Nothing like Wisconsin or Michigan for sure. The lakes do though, especially the one I'm referring to which thawed this spring 3 weeks before the other lakes in the area. The bass spawned a full month earlier than other lakes. Now get this, there will be a second hex hatch sometime this summer on this lake. I can't figure it out personally. It's as if there are two seperate generations of hexes for some reason. If I was a bettin' man I'd say they are seperate sub-species. I can guarantee they aren't drakes though.
 
We don't get Hex's until next week or so. The Green Drakes came and went on the rivers already. Early June. Better hatches than normal this year.
I guide up here in the Adirondacks until the end of August, then Alaska for Sept/Oct Steelheading. Gotta kill time somehow before duck season.
I guide a little for ducks/geese/brant/sea-ducks in L.I.,N.Y., S. N.E., Lk Champlain, and St. Lawrence R.
Bill Stahl
 
I've read that good hex hatches can indicate good water quality. Is this true? The couple rivers that I've seen hatches on are not waters I would call pristine, I don't eat fish from these waters and I'll eat almost anything.
Maybe the water is better then I think?

Tim
 
I've read that good hex hatches can indicate good water quality. Is this true? The couple rivers that I've seen hatches on are not waters I would call pristine, I don't eat fish from these waters and I'll eat almost anything.
Maybe the water is better then I think?

Tim
Click to expand...

Tim,
Most definitely, Mayflies indicate clean water. We've got a place on Lake St. Clair (Anchor Bay) and we get tons of Mayflies..........I believe 5 different species at this point from small to the big Hex. That typically begins around the 2nd week of June...sometimes earlier.
We always have a Bay Rama Festival in New Baltimore around this weekend and it's been renamed "The Fish Fly Festival".
A huge pumper fire truck runs down main street and power washes all the businesses & sidewalks off and down the drain or you couldn't stand the city.
Lou
 
I've been to my sisters slip at Mac & Ray's twice in the middle of a Lake St Clair mayfly hatch. Quite impressive!!!
 
I've been to my sisters slip at Mac & Ray's twice in the middle of a Lake St Clair mayfly hatch. Quite impressive!!!
Click to expand...

It gets so heavy that the fish gorge themselves on them and fishing pretty much fizzles out for a while.
I was heading down 23-Mile Road a couple years ago, going from the lake house to home and ran into a blizzard hatch from the Salt River (by the golf course) and you couldn't see across the river to the cars coming. It blocked out the windshield and clogged the radiator. After the "mass attack", I was able to get the windshield scraped, get to a gas station and get more washer fluid and wash out the front of the radiator. First blizzard hatch I'd ever seen.
Up in Big Rapids, they typically closed some bridges over the Muskegon River as the fish flies would pile up over a foot deep. No way to control a car through that slimey stuff.
Lou
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top