There’s another emerging insect that’s raising the hackles of Pennsylvania outdoors lovers. And to see them, you don’t have to wait 17 years.
Joe Henry will tell you all about his passion for fly fishing during the spring green drake hatch. He’ll describe the sensation of standing in the center of a dense swarm, and explain how his hand-tied patterns represent the big bugs that hatch shortly before dusk in the last week of May on his favorite stream.
But don’t ask him where it is.
“In about 20 years, there are two people I’ve shared this with, and I trust them to keep their mouths shut and release the wild trout they catch there,” said the fisherman from Monroeville. “The best way to screw up a creek is to tell everyone how good it is.”
Of all the aquatic insect species that live their short adult lives hovering over rivers, streams and lakes, none carry the legend and respect of the green drake. One of the largest North American mayflies, it rises from now through mid-June in scattered parts of the state in response to temperature changes.
The bug was originally named after a duck by a fishing nun in 15th-century England. In Dame Juliana Berners classic manual, “A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle,” she used the term “drake” to describe mayfly patterns that use the upturned feathers of a male duck.
Since then, Ephemera guttulata has developed a reputation of its own. Trout, bass and other aquatic predators greedily suck them off the surface. One drake provides 10 times the protein of a smaller fly, and at more than 1 inch in length they attract bigger fish. After tying on tiny No. 20 flies on cold April mornings, fly anglers are happy to use the big Nos. 8-10 patterns that can easily be seen on the water on comfortable days around Memorial Day.
Even some hikers and bicyclists stop along streamside trails to marvel at dense swarms of green drakes. Some drivers are less pleased after driving through a hatch; the bugs smear their windshields and splatter on the cars’ grill.
Green drakes generally live in slow pools of rivers and streams with soft substrate. Mating swarms stay near to the water. Females dip their abdomens onto the surface to drop fertilized eggs. The eggs fall to the bottom and hatch into nymphs, which can molt up to 50 times over two years before emerging as adults. New adult duns are a dull green as they rise from the water late in the afternoon. Hatches can be huge, numbering in the hundreds of thousands over a single pool. Males are smaller than females, and both grow larger on more fertile streams.
The adults don’t eat, clinging for several days to branches and leaves. In a process unique to mayflies, the adults molt a second time, turning into spinners. They’re sometimes called coffin flies for their dark brown color and limited lifespans. The spinners mate, die and fall back into the water.
Unlike caddis flies, which can hatch throughout spring and summer, each population of green drakes hatches within about a two-week period at each location. For fly anglers, part of the thrill is being in the right place at the right time with the right fly for the moment.
The standard pattern calls for Nos. 8-10 hooks, yellow-green bucktail wings, a grizzly hackle, cream dubbing and a tail of dark brown bucktail. They should be fished in a free, unencumbered drift. In the fervor of a green drake feeding frenzy, selective trout can focus on a particular size or color, or be particularly suspicious of unnatural behaviors like dragging a floating fly across current..
“After years of trial and error, I started tying my green drakes with darker hackle,” said Mr. Henry. “I caught some out of the air and noticed how different they looked from what I had. This creek has the darkest green drakes I’ve ever seen. Every isolated population probably has its differences.”
In Pennsylvania, green drakes originally ranged from the western Appalachian foothills to streams flowing off the mountains’ eastern slopes. But populations are now spotty. Even among mayfly species, the green drake is particularly sensitive to pollution. Mine drainage and industrial discharge have wiped out scores of green drake strongholds. As mines are treated and factories close, the bugs are coming back in some areas, but slowly and inconsistently.
Centre County’s Spring Creek, once globally famous among anglers for its spectacular green drake hatches, lost many of its mayflies in a pollution leak. Green drakes have been the slowest to rebound.
Good populations survive in the Catskills and are more spotty in Pennsylvania’s northern tier. A hatch of No. 10-size green drakes erupts from late-May through mid-June as near as Neshannock Creek in Lawrence County.
But the mecca of Pennsylvania green drake fly fishing is a 35-mile section of the state’s biggest and longest spring-fed stream, Penn’s Creek. Anglers fished the annual hatch in the 1600s.
Today, green drake tourism is heaviest in late May. Good walk-in fishing away from the crowds can be found in spots between Coburn and Cherry Run. The state Fish and Boat Commission set up a 4-mile Catch and Release Fly Fishing Only stretch near Cherry Run to protect wild lunker brown trout that gorge on green drakes.
Mr. Henry said he’s fished the Penn’s Creek hatch, but prefers the solitude of his favorite little ecosystem. It’s a long slow pool, he said, in a small tributary about a 20-minute hike upstream from larger trout waters in The Pennsylvania Wilds. Fly anglers who discover a similar spot, he said, might find their own green drake havens.
