NOAH'S DRAKES

| By Seamus on 6/13/2022 1:01:00 PM | Views (262)

( Like manna from heaven a gray drake spinner lands on us. After a brutally hot and drought filled summer of 2021, our Gray Drake/Siphlonurus hatch disappeared mysteriously-but they are back to our surprise and joy. Client and Montana Trout Bum magnifique:John Gryzbek, prepares his Bamboo rod for action to spinner rises)

It's amazing how nature and what was the old normal is now the new bizarre and unusual. Nature is an amazing force that kicks our ass and embarrasses us. Just when you think you have a good understanding of it, it marvels and baffles you. 2021 was a brutal year on our Michigan and Midwest rivers. We had one of the worst sustained droughts in a century, after one of the heaviest rain filled flooding years of 2020 that flooded entire Michigan towns like Midland, broke dams and destroyed crops and fields. Such bizarre weather extremes are the new normal with climate change. Mayfly hatches like moisture/humidity, cool air and water. Those were next to impossible things to find in the dry and hot drought conditions that stifled Midwestern rivers. But unfortunately to our immediate gratification "streaming now and in the moment " culture, we could barely remember what happened yesterday, let alone a year ago.To mayflies having extreme dry and hot weather are catastrophic concepts. The catastrophe happened.

( For 30 years having named my guide service the Gray Drake we have had blizzard hatches of Siphlonurus mayflies for 6 to 7 weeks in May and June. The earth stood still in 2022 when literally not a bug was found on our lights we monitor at night and mornings. Spinner falls on the river were non-existent. It was true amazement and despair all at once.)

Certain mayflies like Siphlonurus, Leptophlebia and even Isonychia are shoreline emergers. They thus migrate to shore and backwater sloughs and swamps on the river's shorelines as nymphs and hatch by crawling up on vegetation, woody debris and rocks in the middle of the night to emerge. Once there they climb into the trees and molt into spinners to return the following evenings and mornings to spin, couple and mate, laying their eggs above the riffle's.

( Drakes in trees molting into spinners)

( Here the "Bug Doctor": guide and entomological master Johnny Miller wandered the swampline shorelines of Michigan's Muskegon River, night after night in search of a the elusive gray drake dun adult whose image and sight of was extremely rare even for entomologist's to trace except for western versions that tend to emerge often from the water. Here is one of the rare adult dun gray drake images in the world. Miller set up aquaria and spent the night listening to heavy metal and photographing the rare hidden world of this phantom hatch as noted Michigan fly fishing icon and Orvis fly shop owner Dick Pobst labeled them in one of his many articles for Fly Fisherman Magazine. He had a 100.00 reward out for anyone that would find an adult. Miller answered to his challenge and won it! Notice the nymph crawling up on the stick and hatching. Siphlonurus drake nymphs are rapid swimmers and swam around like tiny minnows along the shoreline, which confused Miller as he was scooping and seining for drake nymphs- he thought they were tiny fry and pinhead minnows!)

( Entire riverbeds drying-up in 2021. Also the lack of good care by our Hydro-company controlling the dam's tailwaters is a disaster to put it mildly. That stalking Heron amongst the many was responsible for wiping out many trout sadly and their numbers are alarming growing and protected)

( What a door looked like in the morning during heavy drake activity in normal years)