PDA

View Full Version : Big Hatches 5/18

rainshaker
05-22-2007, 01:08 AM
I've heard about the mayfly swarms that can be detected on radar, cause traffic jams and even traffic accidents, but this was the first time I had actually seen a hatch of any real magnitude "up close." At one point, the entire river was covered with a thin yellow film. After witnessing this event I headed for the truck to get the camera and got a few shots of the hatch as it seemed to be ending...

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t180/spencer73/fishing0507001.jpg



Surprisingly, there wasn't many fish rising to eat from the surface. But I did manage to hook two bows. One funny side bar: A couple of years ago I received a gift wrist watch with a built in "fishing alarm." It somehow uses the moon cycles to compute the optimum hours of each day to go fishing. It's more novelty than anything but wouldn't you know the fabled fishing alarm sounded as soon as I yelled "Fish on" while standing in the middle of this hatch :biggrin:

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t180/spencer73/fishing0507004.jpg


http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t180/spencer73/fishing0507009.jpg


[IMG]http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t180/spencer73/fishing0507002.jpg
ijsouth
05-22-2007, 01:40 AM
Now that's cool!
rainshaker
05-22-2007, 01:57 AM
yeah it was...

I'm sure this phenomenon occurs every year on the Little River, this just happened to be the first time I got to experience it.
DryFly1
05-22-2007, 09:57 AM
I do love a "bug party". Enveloped in a swarm of bugs on a mountian stream- what's better? Thanks for the pics...

Mark
StayLow
05-22-2007, 04:02 PM
I was driving out of the park and decided I'd stop at the Y before leaving the park...it was dusk and the Little River lokked very similar to this and the fish were going nuts. I caught 7 in about thrity minutes with probably 15 of the thirty minutes trying to tie a fly on on the dusk after breaking one off. I don't know when it started but it stopped pretty rapidly after about thirty minutes.
russ
05-22-2007, 04:10 PM
Are those yellow stoneflies or yellow mayflies? My guess is a yellow stonefly but I can't tell.
rainshaker
05-22-2007, 04:54 PM
Are those yellow stoneflies or yellow mayflies? My guess is a yellow stonefly but I can't tell


russ,

You're probably right. They came-up fast and multiplied exponentially in a few short minutes......it was CRAZY!
Jack M.
05-22-2007, 05:06 PM
russ,

I just assumed they were mayflies, you're probably right. What ever they were, they came-up fast and multiplied exponentially in a few short minutes.

It may have been both. One of the pics where you can see one of the mayflies nearly in focus reflects a long tail, which stoneflies do not have once "hatched;" on the other hand, the picture of the rock seems to suggest that the bugs are emerging by crawling out of the water, more typical of the stonefly.
rainshaker
05-22-2007, 05:22 PM
It may have been both. One of the pics where you can see one of the mayflies nearly in focus reflects a long tail, which stoneflies do not have once "hatched;" on the other hand, the picture of the rock seems to suggest that the bugs are emerging by crawling out of the water, more typical of the stonefly.



Thanks Jack for agreeing with my original statement...I could have sworn I was looking at Mayflies but obviously I'm not 100%