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Western May Flies by Hughes and Hafele

3K views 20 replies 10 participants last post by  James St. Clair 
#1 ·
I found a steal of a deal on this book at the Ellensburg fly tying expo on Saturday. Amato books was closing out both the hardbound and paperback version for $10. I got one of the remaining hardbound copies.

My last two big trips were to Yellowstone in 2014 and the Metolius/Crooked River in 2015. Both times I was looking at PMD hatches and found my knowledge lacking. Here in the basin we get little running water.

After a session with the book I find myself knowing much more about the nymph migrations patterns and dun emergences than before. Hopefully I have another Yellowstone trip in my near future.

My guess of the reason for closing out this book is the information is too specific and doesn't have a broad appeal to anglers. It must appeal to a very specific group and didn't amount to as many sales as anticipated.

Excellent book if you can get a copy and probably Amato books has the paperback version for $10.
 
#4 ·
Dave Hughes told me that both he and Rick Hafele had been disappointed with the sales of Western Mayflies, which surprised me because I would think it would find wide readership being, as it is, the only book of its kind devoted specifically to mayflies occurring from the Rockies to the Pacific coast. It is an accurate and carefully researched book, well-written without being excessively technical and it is one that I turn to frequently, not only to identify mayflies but also to understand their life histories and habits. Perhaps most folks would rather just fish a Woolly Bugger.
 
#5 ·
I'm the guy that talked to you about the book on Saturday. The reason I bought the book was PMDs and I wondered if the nymphs crawled to the stream edge rocks and hatched there or chose to rise up thru the water column and pop open. If a mayfly hatches on the stream edges it's kinda tough attracting fish by doing a version of the Leisinring lift out in the main body.
 
#7 ·
and the answer is? I mean about the nymphs rising up through the water column.

I remember fishing a popular northeast oregon tailwater. PMDs were coming off, but so were caddis and who knows what else. Refusals were obvious, so by trial and error I found something that caught fish, though I have no idea why... in other words, I am not sure what it was imitating. Fly shops had very specific patterns for various stages of PMD emergers, none of which produced any success for me on a return trip a couple of days later.

Pheasant tails seemed like a perfectly good submerged nymph.

j
 
#6 ·
We used to see some pretty phenomenal hatches of BWOs on the Yakima (not so much these days). I remember one time, on a long, smooth run (not much over knee deep the full width of the river) when there were so many Baetis hatching that there must have continuously been five or six emerging on every square foot of the water's surface. As someone noted in a recent post, there was no point trying to fish, even though lots of fish were rising, because there were just too damned many flies (perhaps one of us should have tied on a big Royal Coachman, per Lee Wulff's "strawberry shortcake" strategy). We couldn't buy a strike until the emergence tapered off and the occasional fish was able to find one of our flies.

I'm sure the book will answer any PMD questions you might have.
 
#9 ·
We used to see some pretty phenomenal hatches of BWOs on the Yakima (not so much these days). I remember one time, on a long, smooth run (not much over knee deep the full width of the river) when there were so many Baetis hatching that there must have continuously been five or six emerging on every square foot of the water's surface. As someone noted in a recent post, there was no point trying to fish, even though lots of fish were rising, because there were just too damned many flies (perhaps one of us should have tied on a big Royal Coachman, per Lee Wulff's "strawberry shortcake" strategy). We couldn't buy a strike until the emergence tapered off and the occasional fish was able to find one of our flies.
I've been there once for exactly that, maybe a decade ago. Never seen a hatch like that before. So many bugs. (And a bunch of Mahoganies thrown in.)

Also, I couldn't figure out why I was hearing cannonballs while I was rigging up. As I waded out and casted to risers, I kept hearing these giant splashes. Then mid-stream I happened to be staring at a spot where I'd seen some rises, and I happened to lock on in one specific mayfly, watched it take air, and then watched a large fish rocket straight up out of the water (vertically) and take the bug maybe a foot above the surface. It was surreal. Also a lesson in what heavy C&R does for a place... The only fish I could catch were smaller ones, and for two hours I listened to giant splashes up and down the stream as the big guys took bugs out of the air.

And, Western Mayflies is a great book. Highly recommended.
 
#8 ·
Pale morning duns usually rise to the surface to emerge. There also seem to be an unusually large number of them who, for one reason or another, seem to be unable to successfully escape from the nymphal shuck resulting in a high percentage of "cripples". Some floating emerger imitations do a good job of imitating these "stillborn", or "stuck-in-the-shuck" unfortunates.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Zen, I didn't know that... I've been misinformed :)

I did some research and we are both right. Some, but not all, Green Drakes swim to shore to hatch... so they do swim to shore, not crawl as does a stonefly.

Generally speaking, it swims to shore and crawls out onto dry ground for the metamorphosis from nymph to dun.

This fact explains why I've always been told that they swim to hatch and not crawl... but I certainly didn't know that some of them swim to shore to crawl out and hatch. That's a new one for me!
 
#18 · (Edited)
Unlike the gray drake, the green drake (Drunella grandis) does not swim ashore to emerge, it does however move from the fast waters where it normally lives (the nymph is a crawler, well-adapted to clinging to smooth rocks in fast water) to slower waters (usually closer to the shoreline) before swimming or floating to the surface. Many of our coastal streams have good populations of lesser green drakes mostly represented by Drunella flavilinia ("flav"). As large as 14 or even 12, these mayflies can emerge in moderately fast, deep water from August into October.

Arthropod Insect Finger Pest Thumb


I imitate it with a parachute dun or a Quigley-style cripple, using an olive-dyed biot for the body, which I think gives a pretty good impression of the olive and yellow segmentation of the natural.

Plant Insect Arthropod Flowering plant Terrestrial plant
 

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#19 ·
Zen, I didn't know that... I've been misinformed :)

I did some research and we are both right. Some, but not all, Green Drakes swim to shore to hatch... so they do swim to shore, not crawl as does a stonefly.

Generally speaking, it swims to shore and crawls out onto dry ground for the metamorphosis from nymph to dun.

This fact explains why I've always been told that they swim to hatch and not crawl... but I certainly didn't know that some of them swim to shore to crawl out and hatch. That's a new one for me!
Hmmm...wonder if they "swim" on dry rocks too???
Of course they "crawl". :p:D
I was on the NU last Sept. and seen Grey Drakes shucks all over the rocks...they are a "big" morsel for a trout!!
 
#20 ·
Yes, gray drakes (Siphlonurus sp.) do crawl ashore to emerge (although some may emerge in extremely shallow water, usually only inches deep). For emergence they favor such shallow water with an abundance of grass, reeds and rocks which enable them to easily crawl out of the water prior to emerging from the nymphal shuck. Green drakes (Drunella sp.), on the other hand, can emerge either below or on the water's surface, swimming or floating to the surface to emerge. Although green drakes can spend most of their lives in relatively fast water (they are crawlers, well-adapted to moving across the smooth surface of stones) they also occur in quieter waters and they do crawl to quieter, nearshore waters, usually a foot or so deep, in order to begin the emergence process. This is true of the greater (D. grandis, D, doddsi) and the lesser (D. flavilinia, D. coloradensis, etc,) green drakes. All of the green drakes tend to float a long distance before being able to leave the surface; there also seem to be a large number of stillborn or crippled emergers, making emerger (like the Quigley Cripple) patterns very effective.
 
#21 ·
Ameletus sp. (another mayfly) also crawls out of the water and emerge just above the water line. During a hatch you can see their shucks on rocks a few inches above the water line, similar to seeing stonefly shucks. Apparently, though, and I believe as noted in Hughes' and Hafele's book, they are rarely found near the water in the dun stage. I think they gave this hatch a low score because of this, as they seem to be mostly available as nymph's, less as spinners, and rarely as duns. We have a decent hatch on the Upper Yakima of these in late March and early April, and quite a few of our mountain creeks on the east side have them as well, although they usually hatch in May and June, when the water is high, the creeks are closed, or a combination of those two.
 
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