Hunter Phillips

The Green Drake “trout candy”: A Magnificent Insect

To speak to the magnitude of importance and appreciation of this stream born insect I will quote Hatches II

“"To many afflicted Eastern fishermen, the 'Green Drake Hatch' is as irresistable and habit-forming as black jack, whiskey, or easy women."

In late May or early June the Green Drake nymph(Ephemera guttulata)  makes his way to the surface of the water and in comparison to other mayflies emerges from his shuck very quickly. But they tend to be clumsy when they try to dry their wings and fly from the water. This fluttering around and their large size are the reason they are so well known among fishermen. They are also pretty well distributed and only require small segments of silt in their cool clean streams to reproduce. Dry river, west of Harrisonburg has a phenomenal hatch.

These large green mayflies often hatch after a warm day on a spring afternoon synchronously where the males swarm above the streams and the females, which tend to be larger fly through the swarm and the males will grab onto them with their long front legs to mate. After mating the females fly down to the surface of the water and lay their eggs  under the water. They have then completed their mission and fall onto the surface and die. This stage is also imitated by fly fisherman.

Their nymphs live mostly in slower moving water in comparison to other mayflies as they are burrowers and live in silt and muddy stream beds. They can live for multiple years under the water and the adult life stage is only about 1% of their overall lives. Colder temperatures as the warm day trigger them to emerge and during these hatches trout will specifically target these insects and fishermen who are not “matching the hatch” will not have many takes.

http://www.flyfishusa.com/flies/02-green-drake.htm

If you want to watch some fishing videos with the green drake or see more imitation flies that’s a good link