Ojio River Mayfly ID

[curtrein]

Hey guys:
What kind of mayfly is this? We live along the Ohio River near Pittsburgh and caught this guy on Friday. I'm thinking it's some kind of drake.

 

[curtrein]

http://i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g380/curtrein/c04e4366.jpg

 

[ryguyfi]

That's the famed HEX. I saw a small one while walking into breakfast today. I figured they'd be off any day now.


http://www.troutnut.com/common-name/47/Hexes

 

[Chaz]

Yeah it's a hex.

 

[GreenWeenie]

I saw a small one while walking into breakfast today.

I've never seen a small hex - a hex is a hex and they are large.

 

[ryguyfi]

GreenWeenie wrote:

I saw a small one while walking into breakfast today.

I've never seen a small hex - a hex is a hex and they are large.

Let me rephrase... a "smaller" one. Probably a size 8. Could have been a yellow drake but didn't pick it up to completely ID it.

 

[GreenWeenie]

The yellow hex from front legs to tip of tails is about 4” long. The bodies and wings are probably around 1.75” long and the tails 2” long. They are one HUGE mayfly.

If you ever get a chance to fish a hex hatch do so – it is an experience you will never forget. There literally can be tens of thousands of these things in a 100 foot section of stream, especially when the peak emergence coincides with the spinner fall. Make sure you wear a long sleeve shirt that fits snug around the collar unless you don’t mind 4” long mayflies falling and flying under your shirt and crawling around on you.

Hexapalooza 2012 is just around the corner on some streams.

 

[turkey]

Green,
My experience has been that the males are noticeably smaller than the females. The females for the most part are quite large.

I, like Ryguy, saw smaller ones this week and for a minute i thought they were yellow drakes...but the tails werent right. The next night i saw the females and i knew they were Hexes.

 

[Greenweenie1]

Turkey, maybe you are right but i have been fishing the hex hatch for 35 years and compared side by side the males may be slightly smaller but not more than maybe 1/4 inch in body length. It is not a size 4 to a size 10. There is no mistaking a hex hatch as either sex competely dwarfs all other mayflies. And I've seen two different colored strains on the same river where one definitely looked like a brown drake on steroids and the other looked more like a mottled sulfur on steroids but they were both yellow hex and both the same size - incredibly huge.

 

[Greenweenie1]

Turkey, maybe you are right but i have been fishing the hex hatch for 35 years and compared side by side the males may be slightly smaller but not more than maybe 1/4 inch in body length. It is not a size 4 to a size 10. There is no mistaking a hex hatch as either sex competely dwarfs all other mayflies. And I've seen two different colored strains on the same river where one definitely looked like a brown drake on steroids and the other looked more like a mottled sulfur on steroids but they were both yellow hex and both the same size - incredibly huge.