Big Mayfly Time- The light giant drakes of Summer ( and heat wave warning)

( A Hex/yellow drake/ Danica  imitation- author image and tie)

Summer's  giant drakes are one mayfly hatch period that guarantees big trout will be on the prowl for them. Besides the legendary Hexagenia/( light hex) and Rithrogena (dark hex) hatch of Michigan and the Midwest, Hexs' /giant drakes exist all over the globe and east coast were you have silty stream bottoms and fine gravel . Even on classic eastern/western freestone/cobblestone rivers, the lower silty portions of them have Hexagenia hatches, as do limeteoners and spring creeks everywhere. Big trout will pack on the weight from these hatches, and the fact that many do not fish late into the night on ice cold spring creeks since they fish well in mid-day, they often emerge without notice.

Europe's Ephemera Danica comes off a little earlier starting in May ( thus the word Mayfly). It is very similar to the Green Drake emergence cycle, but will continue its hatching throughout summer on the ice cold spring creek/chalk streams of Europe well into July. I once encountered excellent Danica hatches on the River Avon spring creek/chalk stream in Salisbury England in late July, and the big browns went ballistic for them!) For the amazing landlocked salmon/lake/sea browns of Michigan , and New England/Scandinavia/Baltic areas the Hexagenia is a big appetite arouse where the Hex nymphs comprise an amazing part of the diets of big water salmonids where found- especially in Great Lakes/Finger Lakes.

                 (What we see of the Hex hatch is only skin deep. An amazing autopsy from a  Great Lakes charter guide friend (James Chamberlin image )on northern glacial inland lake in Michigan- lake trout belly stuffed with hex nymphs)

(Hex nymph image J.G. Miller)

( massive vertical growth takes place on these lake systems with hexagenia overload- Landlocked Atlantic shown here- browns get even more glutton-like. Author image)

Here they emerge from their burrows to relocate by massive schools/pods, especially in fall and spring, and the salmonids chow-down heavily on them in deep water depths. Atlantics' , steelhead and browns, plus char binge down on them all year. Sometimes the sonar graphs of fish finders in these lakes are a blizzard cloud of them on the graph)

                                  ( I'm a big fan of the amazing foam mayfly bodies of Frosty Fly  https://frostyfly.com/. , a Slavic based company in Canada that does excellent mail-order.They come in all varieties and are insect specific ( here is Hex, Danica)- tell them I sent you. You can combine them with wings of CDC, duck feathers, Snowshoe rabbit, traditional hackle- you can custom infuse them into your creations like I do)

              ( my Nexus Hex wiggle nymph from my "Brown Trout-Atlantic Salmon Nexus" Book- author image)

                         ( light and dark Hex- sometimes a gender or species specific trait= J.G. Miller "the Bug Doctor" image)

                (Top: more traditional yellow drake/Potamanthus wiggle from my "Selectivity" book- a killer on many classic freestone and spring creeks in late summer...Below: a beautiful wild  Catskill's/Neversink brown trout of September that love to eat them in between meals of olives and beetles ( fish embodies the Salmo Nexus morphology- author images )

The other Yellow Drakes : Potamanthus, Ephemera varia and Epeorus vitreus , all emerge sporadically many times on most waters and stand out like a giant yellow flower on the water. You can be sure they will get gulped up fast by any trout due to their meaty proportions and being extremely obvious.
On the ice cold Catskill tailwaters they float for long duration's and will get extremely long compound/complex  rises from the trout, which have been used to sipping # 20's. Both Classic eastern freestoners and spring creeks have them, and they start to hatch in June, but will sporadically hatch all summer at odd times of the day- you will never know when they turn up! They are excellent indicators of good healthy freestone and spring creek water qualities.

More to come in the "Rise Forms" departmental column of my new online magazine being released this month- cheers!, stay cool, give the trout a break, and turn off all electronics in the house to save electricity- use solar chargers for your smart phones and tabs- mine is working great!
Matthew Supinski

                                       (NOTE: Please stay advised on heat wave conditions: carry a thermometer, and don't fish waters that are approaching or are over 70 F . Only fish cold limestone/subterranean spring creeks that stay ice cold year-round, alpine environment brooks ( Rockies/Appalachians etc.) also Catskill and other tailwaters around the globe that have very deep 150 plus impoundments depths for bottom draw. Michigan is loaded with subterranean spring creeks and they are the tiny creeks that you never fish because they are obscure and require the art of walking-they carry more wilds than you ever thought!, but watch out for heat stroke and carry lots of water) Usually very tiny feeder springs of tributaries of rivers will have icy conditions that hold up. But the farther you move away from spring sources, the warmer it will get. Also watch out for large thermally stressed fish in springs that have migrated there for survival, They are usually larger and darker and move lethargically- MOST WILL SURVIVE IF YOU LEAVE THEM THE F' ALONE!- best to stay inside and tie flies, READ!, yes read books (long lost art due to modern society's ADHD) until the heat breaks- you can do it!, like the commercials say "we're in this together eh!)


( for more reading and  fly tying recipes /tactics on this subject and others. Lots of  in-depth/code cracking hatch matching conundrums :

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Great Lakes , hexagenia limbata , Matt Supinski #Brown Trout-Atlantic Salmon Nexus book , Matthew Supinski new books , may fly hatches , Michigan ground zero legacy , Selectivity book

No Bugs?, Siphlonurus sunken Impressions- lethal wet swinging when no spinners fall

(my Gray Drake Super Submersible- lethal swinging when nothing is happening!- great for all banded-bodied/segmented mayflies/drakes)

How many nights or mornings ( drakes BTW spinner fall at both times) have you driven to the stream or walked down from your cabin/lodge saying... " tonight/this morning will be the one!- the hatch /spinner fall will happen and I will get my 20 inch brown for sure!..And?, the weather turned crap; too much wind, too hot or too cold, started to rain etc. With climate change's ups-and-downs  it's always something and nothing happened, or worst yet bugs came out but didn't fall- sucks right?- here is the solution.

Once the gray/green/brown drakes start to hatch and emerge will easily last for a few weeks (siphlonurus drakes on my Muskegon and Pere Marquette, East and West Coast  waters along with other Baltic/Scandinavian country hatches) and up to 4-6 weeks on cool damp springs. the selective trout get quite imprinted to barred and banded mayfly adults, spinners and the nymphs. Unlike other drakes that emerge from the surface, Gray Drakes swim to shore during dusk and thru the night to hatch on damp wooded debris and grass along the shorelines, only to come back to the rivers surface at dusk and dawn to spin/mate and lay eggs. That is when the football splash-like surface explosions occur. Drakes couple in the air and drop quickly to the surface and often leave airborne several times, thus they can be tough to grab for a trout until fully spent which sums up their robust rises.

( Early morning fat truttasaurus spinner sipper while others were still sleeping from going to bed late and fish-less, chasing the midnight spinner fall that often yields tough returns)

But many nights there are tons of "bug karma/sex synergy" of mating swarms in the air but no coupling occurs due to cold air coming in quickly, too hot and sunny etc.- its a real tough one to hit it just right! Hunting this hatch for 30 years I've come to at least 80% accuracy in my predicting this "prime-time" to be on the water, but that 20% inaccuracy is getting bigger, again with the uncertain weather patterns and water conditions of climate change that even has the bugs confused as much as us.

When the hatches are thick for weeks like on the Muskegon. the surface will be carpeted in drakes like sawdust clumps and often make imitations useless. The bigger selective trout imprint to this food form and also target the shorelines where they emerge. Also due to the density of this hatch, many spinners sink and get water logged. They become very appealing due to their sheer numbers.

When nothing is happening on the surface, my "Super Submersible" pattern will bring rod-jolting strikes in the middle of the day since it imitates the migrating nymph and sunk spinner, plus soft- hackle swingers will love to swing these.

 I use a long Thomas & Thomas 12ft /3 in./3 weight-Contact model, which lets you feel the fly and swing in an unparalleled manner through technology that didn't exist years ago, coupled with my Abel. 

Good luck! 
Matt Supinski

FLY RECIPE
Hook: Daiichi 1260
Thread: Uni-Black-3/0
Tail and Body: Nice thick Hareline Gadwell Duck feather nicely barred, planted with tail and center of feather situated flat on hook as you Palmer the black thread around the feather in a uniformed banded distance covering length and circumference around hook
Thorax: Hareline UV Peacock Ice Dub
Wing: Pearl Krystal Flash
Hackle: Hungarian Partridge
Bead: Black Tungsten 

Get more in-depth with this subject and more in my books!

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Matt Supinski Brown Trout-Atlantic Salmon Nexus book , may fly hatches , mayflies of Michigan , muskegon river fly fishing , Selectivity book , siphlonurus gray drakes

The Gray Drake mayfly hatch is here!...come experience this amazing big brownie dry fly nirvana -Also my favorite recipe!

 25 years ago we named our lodge and outfitters "Gray Drake Lodge" for a reason. The Muskegon River has one of the most dense and long lasting gray drake mayfly hatches on the planet! Only the Pere Marquette and other nearby rivers sourcing   from the same marl bog watershed have these hatches in such density. Baltic countries also have them. When we opened up our cedar lodge during the hatch in early June, the next morning the entire lodge turned gray from all the adult mayflies molting on the cedar panels and tree trunks from the previous night's hatch.

( insect images by bug master JG Miller)

( Morning and early evening spinner flights were gray blizzards last year)

( Freshly hatched gray drakes molt on the lodge and trees nearby. The Muskegon browns that take drakes can be ultra selective and have stunning colors brought on my heavy protein overloads from salmon/steelhead and sucker eggs and scuds in winter )

This spring 2020 (June when we open back up) we will be offering single/double  and small group Gray Drake Clinics. 
Our focus will be on dry fly and swinging emerging wet fly guide trips that incorporate school-like clinics on how to better understand the dynamics of this "mystery hatch", which the famous Dick Pobst once described it in an article in Fly Fisherman in the 90's. Many anglers are confused about the drakes and are usually baffled by their behavior, how the trout take them, what presentations are best and when to strike the hatch right! We will attempt to teach the the selectivity approach to mastering these hatches and a 20 inch brown on the dry fly reality!

These  larger mayflies bring up the big browns that are often elusive all year other than on the streamer. But the intricacies of the hatch and how selective browns feed on them is a cloaked mystery to many anglers.We have been studying these hatch details for two decades and would love to share them with you!

Last year (2019) we saw one of the heaviest gray drake hatches we have seen in over 15 years- it was a solid morning to dusk  spinner flight event that coated the water thick as sawdust with spinners. 2019 had a long cool and moist spring/early summer which favors the gray drake hatch cycle.

(A few fat butters from gray drake season )

The hatch cycle of Siphlonurus has been a mystery since you will never see an adult dun on the water. Thanks to the bug doctor:Johnny Miller of Catskill fame, who worked at the Gray Drake Lodge for many years, he uncovered the mystery. Honing the darkness middle of the night hours and shorelines/ swamps of the Muskegon's banks, he found the nymphs to swim like minnows and crawl up on shore in the middle of the night and hatch and fly off in the brush ( midnight till just before dawn). Johnny, as in the style of Caucci and Richards, photographed them hatching in his aquarium tanks- here are his images 

( nymph here crawling up on wet stick)

Besides the other local hallowed Pere Marquette river that has dense hatches, the Muskegon hatch is a 4 week long magnificent display of nature like no other! The Siphlonurus mayfly ( rapidus, alternatus, Quebencences ) is a true #10 sized mayfly that is perhaps one of the most elegant mayflies and has blizzard flights in both the A.M. and P.M.- most only think of dusk!

FLY PATTERNS

I have taken my gray drake patterns developed over the last two decades to new heights recently in my #browntroutatlanticsalmonnexus and #selectivity book fly patterns. Using new materials I've incorporated realism and imitative search patterns that target predator forager feeding profiles during the hatch period.  The larger selective brown's feeding can take on unique on preferences and key in intricate spinner patterns , sunken spinners and wet swinging articulated swimming  patterns. As the hatch thickens their selectivity rises and can take on "hair pulling" frustration. Our clinic trips will teach the intricacies of these patterns and how to present them.

MY FROSTY HEMINGWAY DRAKE RECIPE  (From my Nexus Book)

The realism and effectiveness of this pattern is truly remarkable! I have been perfecting gray drake patterns for over 25 years and this is beyond the best!

Thread: Light Grey

Hook: Daiichi Short Shank Dry wide-gape 1110

Tail/Body: Frosty Flies Realistic extended body Mayfly foam-Gray Drake -size Medium

https://frostyfly.com/

Thorax: Hareline Ice Dub UV Peacock

Wings: Organza Dun with Light Dun Hackle

(Here is Rich Felber's magnificent 28 inch beast of a brown taken 2019 on my Gang Bang double. Rich has been an awesome gray drake chaser for years

and is one of the fishy-ist dudes I know!- that was the biggest brown taken on the gray drake spinner fall last year!)

(Drake magic time)

A BROWN TROUT FISHERY HAS BEEN UNLEASHED

( Going a full year now with the TYPE III regs and safe to say, is working very well and the larger browns are now becoming a strong year-class)

With the new trophy 15 inch brown regulations now in place for two years and the amount of 13-17 inch browns and 20" er's we have taken on nymphs and streamers this past winter and during the early black stonefly hatch on dries, the trophy brown fishery is ready to explode on the Muskegon! 

My Final Thoughts 

This 2020 spring, as we struggle to get back and re-open our services and everyone's lives to some semblance of normal with all the Covid pain and anxiety everyone has suffered, there is hopefully exciting things to come! For those that have been blessed with survival and my condolences to those that have lost loved ones ( I lost a cousin I played with in Poland as a boy, a strong, healthy, rugby playing Doctor to this terrible thing last week I am sad to say) I pray good things will be brewing despite our hardships.It has taught me, and hopefully all of us to appreciate the things in life we have taken for granted: family, loved ones and the simple things like having another day on this amazing planet to see and witness the wild natural beauty that has been created for us. It has been a very cold spring which is ideal for the gray drake hatches to endure for great lengths of time.and intensity. Last year's hatch was the strongest we have ever witnessed in my 25 years on the Muskegon. It became a day-long event from morning until dusk, which I have never seen and lasted a good solid 4 weeks. The gray drake hatch will be the telltale sign of great things to come when every brown in the river will be poking their heads up to eat drakes on the surface.

Please still stay safe, strong and positive!...this thing is not over yet and lets not be foolish and careless in our actions!

Cheers!,

Matthew Supinski

 Call or email us for more info!

COME JOIN US!

www,graydrake.com

msupin2583@aol.com

231-250-2846

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Posted in: Brown trout-Atlantic , dry fly , gray drake lodge , may fly hatches , michigan fly fishing , muskegon fly fishing , Muskegon hatches , Nexus book , siphlonurus gray drakes

IT COULDNT BE FINER...STEELS, BIG BROWNS AND BOWS..PERFECT SPRING

Excellent water flows at 3,000 cfs...water temps at 51 F.....spring steelhead still pouring up the river- our May fish are just coming in  a month late...fat browns and bows targeting chinook fry...hatches soon to come...cool weather...after the flood ,we have been blessed with a perfect Michigan spring...all I can say is come out and enjoy it!...June will be an amazing month ...they just stocked the trout and they are 'big' when compared to normal...with the holdover fish and new arrivals the river will be trout paradise this summer...hope to see you!

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , may fly hatches , michigan fly fishing , muskegon river fly fishing , muskegon trout steelhead , trout and eagle lodge

BIG BROWNS, LEAPING CHROME STEELHEAD....AND THE RUN IS OVER?

(Cahn Tran from Chicago with a fat Muskegon brown from yesterday)

So sorry for the long delay- been a busy spring. It has been a bizarre April and March to say the least- weather up and down- water levels up and down...carzy!
 Anyways, there are still chrome steelhead coming in, the water level is at 2,238 cfs -49F and more rain coming which we need.

(Bob from Rhode Island with his first steelhead yesterday)

 The good news is the large brown trout running around on the Muskegon eating steelhead and sucker eggs and crashing Chinook salmon fry/parr. Today Larry Marsiello and Alan from New York City and I watched several large browns target the the salmon fry near shore with a ferocious appetite. Black stones are waning but still saw two fish targeting egg layers yesterday.

( Cahn Tran from Chicago with yesterday's chrome leaper!)

 Once the hatches start we are going to have amazing dry fly fishing!
 Streamer fishing has been up and down since the browns are so well fed and fat from the zillions of salmon fry.

( Alan Miller from New York city with his first steelhead)

 The run ain't over.,..you just have to work harder and be more patient. We will still get another push of fish if history has any bearing on the nature of things. There is a ton of water in Muskegon Lake that these late running steels get caught up in. Also the cold nights are keeping water temps down.

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , may fly hatches , monster brown trout , newaygo stream chinook salmon sac fry , trout and eagle

THE MAGNIFICANT STEELHEAD/SALMON RUN OF 2011.......THE "STEELHEAD QUEEN IS BACK"......PREDICTIONS FOR 2012....HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

( "the steelhead queen"...one and only original Shawn Murphy....she's back!)

( the Pantano" Hang time" continues to produce!)

Well it has been a truly remarkable fall steelhead run!.........a remarkable Pacific salmon run.......and some very, very large Atlantic salmon...........to a salmonid fly guy, Santa and Mother nature could not have been more giving!
 As I write this on Christmas Eve, I can't believe all the great images we shot this fall of big healthy steelhead, salmon and browns. Lake Michigan is doing very well with an amazing forage base of alewives, sculpins, smelt, gobies, bloater chubs, stickle-backs, perch.....just about any forage a salmonid could predate upon. With mild fall and early winter temperatures, the "window of opportunity" for migration just kept coming. Perfect water temps and levels and cloudy wet and overcast weather everyday....along with full moons made the steelhead runs just keep coming.

( like mother, like daughter!!!!....a legacy in the making. We always say that'momma she- wolf has eaten', when Shawn catches a steelhead! .........I literally have over 1,000 images of her with differnt steelhead.............eat your heart out April! )

The real big news was the return to her mastery!.............a.k.a "The original steelhead queen", Shawn Murphy put on a real show and clinic last weekend as she, daughter Lindsey and Dr. Johnny tore the Muskegon steelhead up and thru the roof! Shawn, I must say, she has been in a 4 year drought and slump with the chrome warriors. As director of University Of Michigan's Cardiology surgery center, she has been working her tail off and the steelhead karma was not flowing. But two weeks prior in early December- when John stold the show hitting double digit steels on the fly, Shawn watched, cheered, but deep down inside, her competitive spirit wanted revenge.....last weekend she got !.......and she kept racking up the numbers toll....batting 100% hook-up to land ratios. She hit big hens, big bucks....and on any fly imaginable!.... I was just getting the net and camera and was blown away by her supremacy.....you go girl!!!! Lindsey, her daughter also hit chrome hens and Johnny, at the end of the day in the driving snow , hit his second 18 lb + hen steelhead of the year at dusk in a pool looking right at the Gray Drake Lodge.

(John on a "roll" in 2011!)

So, Santa came early to Murphy having two 17/18 LB steels to his fall collection and an Atlantic salmon in the 25 lb range....that just don't happen my fellow brethren....just don't happen!
As for lake run browns, they are just arriving and I think Jan/Feb will be the months like two years ago. Our Muskegon browns are late spawners( into February) and when I landed a big male in the teens back around Valentine's day, it squirted milt all over me....I also see redds around then.

( Late February spawned out Lake-run from two years ago)

SO..............................................where do we go from here in 2012. I can say that I've never been more optimistic. The steelhead are in , and continue to come into the system....so Jan/Feb will provide excellent winter steelheading. Pictured here is what we thought was a nice colored-up buck steelhead- 7 lber or so taken last week that Murphy hit. But on closer inspection, it had very bright orange "cutt-bow" gill slits....and Eagle Lake rainbow!.....the spotting gives it away also.

( Big Eagle Lake Muskegon rainbow from last week....check out orange gills!)

( the Isonychia and Gray Drake populations continue to explode-2009 saw one of the most amazing emergence!! )

As for the trout fishery, the bubble at Croton has worked. After what was one -if not the worst- hottest summers on record, the Muskegon cooked like all the rivers with low flows. When it cooled down, we found big, "fat and healthy" browns.....they where eating caddis all summer and didn't have that "slinked out" summer survival look. There are more big resident browns around now because of that system....next spring when the black stone flies hatch should be amazing surface activity in April. The river has exploded with caddis like in years past, and our mayfly populations and biodiversity continues to climb..........we had thick trico hatches for the first time this summer! Our midge populations are on the decline as the caddis fill that competitive eco-niche they both share....that is good for the trout. Midges usually are a sign of eutrophic issues that are not always favorable to mayflies and caddis.

( "the meat locker"

 This past fall and winter, we had a blast swinging flies and it was one of the best of swinging times our clients and guides had.

Torch Lake was stocked with 22,000 Atlantics and there are plans for continued stockings each year to come up to 30,000......THANK YOU MI DNR!!!!!

SO.........once again I couldn't  be more thankful and appreciative for our world class trout, salmon and steelhead wonderland that makes Pure Michigan a salmonid paradise!

Hope everyone has a great Holiday season and we can't wait to make your fly fishing dreams come true in 2012!!!!!!!

Cheers and "Na Zdrowie"!

( THE HOLIDAY DISH!

 MEDITERRANEAN GRILLED ATLANTIC SALMON- MAKE A FRESH BASIL PESTO, SOAK THE SALMON FILLETS IN WHITE WINE AND LEMON SQUEEZED, LINGUINE WITH ROASTED RED PEPPER AND ARTICHOKE HEARTS, GRILL SALMON MED RARE, POUR BASIL PESTO OVER FILLET WITH MINCED ROASTED RED ONION AND CALAMATA SLICED OLIVES- FRESH FRENCH BAGUETTE AND BUTTER!!!!..........DELISH!!!1

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Posted in: atlantic salmon , black stones , brown trout , caddis , gray drake lodge , Great Lakes steelhead , may fly hatches , michigan fly fishing , Muskegon River steelhead , Skagit swinging , trout and eagle lodge