Gray Drake mayfly hatch is almost here!...come experience this amazing big brownie dry fly nirvana

| By Seamus on 3/20/2020 1:00:50 AM | Views (630)

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 2019 (May/June) 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!