Hexagenia

[uplandguide]

I live here in central New York, grew up in Emporium,PA. We have a few streams that have excellent Hex hatch/spinner fall now thru to early Sept. I can't ever remember hitting a Hex hatch in PA. Any of you hitting them now?

 

[pcray1231]

There are lots of streams in PA with good hex hatches. Especially, but not limited to western PA. But it's mostly a June-July thing, I think they're pretty well past now.

That said, hex is not a species, it's a genus, and there's several species within. And like any other genus, if you have a different species there then timing can be very different.

Pretty sure PA hex hatches are limbata and bilineata. Limbata's in early June, shortly after the drakes, might even overlap a bit. They are Green Drake sized and colored similarly, and probably frequently misidentified as Drakes. The bilineata's tend to be in the bigger, warmer rivers and are a mid July thing. Darker in color. And biblical in numbers in areas of the Ohio and Allegheny drainage, at least.

My guess is that your August emergers are the species atrocaudata. Just based on reported timing and the fact that they are known to exist in the Catskills.

 

[uplandguide]

Acually they are limbata. I have a picture of a male spinner that landed on me a couple nights ago. If I can figure out how to post it I'll show you.

Last evening I noticed for the first time this year a White Fly hatch This hatch, last year, on this stream was quite significant and I fished it well into Sept. I actually had one land on my watch face and within a minute shed it's skin going form dun to spinner in front of my eyes. Was really amazing to watch.

 

[pcray1231]

Limbata, see timing

http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010608mayflies0608p2.asp

Bilineata, again, notice date:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/326392

 

[pcray1231]

You can post pictures in two ways:

1. Attach it. To do this you use the full reply by hitting the blue button, rather than the quick reply box at the bottom. Then you hit the browse, and attach, before hitting submit. But you gotta shrink it way down. 250 k is the max file size. So use a program to shrink it to below that.

2. Upload it to a site like photobucket, and copy the link. Again, hit the blue reply button, and near the top there's a button that looks like a little head. Hit it, then paste the link and hit ok. Put in "L" to align it to the left, and then state how big you want it (I usually use 500).

I have my doubts whether I could tell the difference between species with spinners anyway. In duns, Limbata's are a lot lighter colored. But in spinners, they vary so much and colors of all of them overlap. I could only guess based on size and timing. Limbata's are enormous, bigger than drakes I think. But the other ones are still pretty dang big.

 

[uplandguide]

I agree with you on the size of the limbata, these spinners are approaching 2" with the tail. The wings stand straight above their thorax and are a good inch high. I tie a comparadun to match on a size 6 hook.

 

[pcray1231]

In the hatch and entomology forum, there's a thread titled "yellow drake", and a pic of a bug taken very recently on the Susquehanna. Looks like a hex limbata to me.....

 

[Chaz]

I SE PA we have a Hex. Atrocaudata that starts in August and can go well into September, but I haven't seen any yet this year. They are huge and some of the LV streams have them as well as the Perkiomen and its West Branch.
I've also seen large mayflies on the Upper Delaware in Sept. I'm not sure but I think they were the same flies.