Green Drakes

[uplandguide]

Here in central New York I fished the first Green Drake hatch for this season tonight. What's happening on the Genesee in Potter county. I grew up in Emporium and fished the Genny in Potter and the New York stretch in Shongo. Always my go to spot for Green Drakes when I was a kid.

How about the Delaware. Any drakes yet?

 

[drews]

Fishing the allegheny last night saw a couple drakes not quite there yet where I was

 

[uplandguide]

Just talked with another guide who works the Delaware, said they've had drakes for a week or so now. Good march browns too. I fished mostly march browns here last evening till the drakes showed up. Caught this nice brown last evening on a march brown sparkle dun #14

 

[mcwillja]

March browns are very sporadic on the upper west. I was just there wednesday to sunday. The gamelands had some too but the fish were not on them. you have to go down river to find fishable hatches of march browns and drakes.

 

[new2ff]

A great green and brown drake hatch on the Kettle Sunday evening and the spinner fall at dark was something I had never seen - amazing!

 

[sandfly]

interesting the genny runs nort so do hatches start lower down like other rivers or oppisite and start in the head waters.

 

[Maurice]

The hatch progression is largely temperature related. So its from downstream up not south to north. For instance on Penns Creek the Green drakes will start in Coburn (above the cold flows of Elk Creek) at the same time as it starts in Weikert. So it will be going upstream in two locations simultaneously.

 

[sandfly]

so your saying fishing the drakes up pine to the head waters near ny. then jump to lake onterio on the genny to fish the drakes upstream to head waters in pa ?

 

[riffleman]

uplandguide wrote:
I grew up in Emporium

Have you heard anything from your hometown regarding Drakes on the Driftwood Branch? I have a place near there and would like to get up there if I can.

 

[troutbert]

sandfly wrote:
so your saying fishing the drakes up pine to the head waters near ny. then jump to lake onterio on the genny to fish the drakes upstream to head waters in pa ?

Stream stretches with similar water temps will have hatches about the same time.

Warmer stretches will have earlier hatches. Cooler stretches will have later hatches.

It's all about water temps.

 

[pcray1231]

so your saying fishing the drakes up pine to the head waters near ny. then jump to lake onterio on the genny to fish the drakes upstream to head waters in pa?

Yes, it can happen like that, though I don't know how the water temps of the Genny compare to upper Pine. I was thinking the upper Pine might be cooler than anywhere on the Genny, so by the time it finished on Pine, it might be over on the Genny too.

North and South only matter so far as they affect water temps. As was said, that's what matters.

Proof of that comes in the form of streams which don't fit the classic cooler to warmer temperature profile. For instance, Penns is warmer just above Coburn than just below, and indeed, above Coburn gets the drakes first. Back when it had drakes, Spring Creek was reportedly the same way, with the drakes starting above the big spring in Bellefonte before below. The Allegheny River gets em above the reservoir before it gets them at the spillway.

 

[troutbert]

pcray1231 wrote:

Back when it had drakes, Spring Creek was reportedly the same way, with the drakes starting above the big spring in Bellefonte before below.

The same pattern holds true today with the sulphurs. They start above Bellefonte earlier than below Bellefonte. Because the water is warmer above the influx of the Big Spring and Logan Branch.

I'd guess that the hatches in the headwaters of Pine and of the Genessee would have similar water temps, if you are the same distance down on similar sized water. The two locations are nearby, and the elevations would be similar.

So the temps are probably similar and the bugs would hatch at similar times. But that's just theoretical. Ask local flyfishers. Or check it out and let us know.

 

[barbless]

I predict that the Green Drakes will continue to hatch out on Penn's, the weather will be dry and the water will be mostly cleared up by this weekend, and the fishing will be terrific.

I'm confident of this prediction, because I will be working all weekend.

btw, I was at the Rapidan again last week. That water is UP. Great for the fish, not so good for fishing. Tough to get a drift in a flow that speed. Anyway, there was a pretty nice- if brief- Gray Fox hatch on a pool right before sundown, and in the midst of it I spotted the unmistakable form of one (1) Green Drake spinner aka Coffin Fly.

I wonder if they ever hatch out in any numbers up there.

 

[attackone]

hows come spring doesnt have a drake hatch anymore

 

[pennsadventures]

it was wiped out the last time it was poisoned.....i heard they tried to put some drake larva back into it but it didn't take....its ok the sulphers are just as fun on that stream!

 

[greenghost]

attackone wrote:
hows come spring doesnt have a drake hatch anymore

This excerpt from Charlie Meck's Book tells why:

(Courtesy of Charles R. Meck - Pennsylvania Trout Streams and Thier Hatches - 2nd Edition)

I was lucky to have had the opportunity to fly-fish Spring Creek in 1954, when the legendary Green Drake hatch appeared in late May. How was I to know that I had just witnessed one of the last good hatches of Green Drakes that this limestone stream would ever display? Thousands of Coffin Fly spinners that last night fell, as Green Drake duns greeted me on my first trip to this showcase of the East. Unfortunately, evil days were not far ahead.

Great crimes have been perpetrated on Spring Creek. In the late 1950s Spring received several doses of raw sewage, and many of the trout and most of the hatches vanished forever. Then in the 1960s and 1970s Spring endured addition polution - this time from chemicals like Depone and Mynex. Shortly after the last contamination the state decided to take the threatened stream off the stocking list and make it a "no-kill" stream. Guess what happened? Some of the hardier, more resilient hatches returned in abundant numbers, and the brown trout population multiplied. Now, 10 years after the last trout was stocked in the water, Spring boasta an abundant number of hefty streambred browns. Spring Creek no longer harbors the Green Drake, Brown Drake or the Yellow Drake, or for that matter many of the once-prominent hatches.

It's interesting to visit the Frost Museum at Penn State University, just five miles from Spring Creek. Here you can examine vials of mayfly species found in Pennsylvania, including the only remnants of the fabulous hatches Spring Creek once accomodated. Many of these vials house mayflies from Spring Creek before it fell prey to pollution - mayflies that will probably never return.

 

[osprey]

I'v seen green drake3s the whole way to Selingrove where penns dumps into the susQ and i imagine there were more downstream and out into the river aways.

 

[DGC]

This publication includes historical details regarding fish and macro kills in Spring Creek. Page 12 is relevant to this discussion.

The Fishery of Spring Creek: A Watershed Under Seige

 

[troutbert]

pennsadventures wrote:
it was wiped out the last time it was poisoned.....i heard they tried to put some drake larva back into it but it didn't take.

The attempted restoration is still ongoing. I got an email yesterday saying there have been a few reports of people spotting adult Green Drakes on Spring Creek recently. If anyone sees any, let us know.

 

[pcray1231]

I saw one on a Spring Creek tributary last weekend, but not on Spring itself.