How to Fish an Evening Green-Drake Hatch
The eastern green drake (Ephemera guttulata) provides incredible dry-fly action for those anglers willing to stay out late. Photo: Henry Ramsay
The first time I experienced an eastern green drake hatch it was just getting dark, and I had no idea what was going on. My brother and I had spent a long day floating a river in northern New York, and we hadn’t seen a whole lot of action. We were just about to reach the takeout, when I heard a loud splash.
“What the hell was that?” I looked toward the vanishing ripples and had the distinct impression that the water was covered in fluttering moths. Suddenly, it seemed like it was raining coconuts, as massive splashes of feeding fish began to erupt all around the boat. I barely had time to register what was happening when I heard my brother yell from the bow and saw his rod doubled over. We had stumbled into something truly epic, and though we were nearly at the end of the float, our night had only just begun.
Although the big bugs may hatch near the end of the day, the Main Event occurs later, when the spinners return to mate and lay eggs. Photo: Henry Ramsay
Everyman’s Bug
There are a lot of highly anticipated mayfly hatches along the East Coast, but few are more celebrated than the green drake (Ephemera guttulata). A mayfly that’s second in size only to the mighty Hexagenia, the eastern green drake is nearly half-an-inch long, making it a significant enough meal to draw the largest trout from their hiding places to feed. Drakes can hatch in unbelievable numbers, as well, creating fishing opportunities of mythic proportions.
Though the green-drake hatch is usually short, lasting about a week in most places, it’s a time of plenty where nearly every fish in the river rises to the surface to feed, causing fly anglers to flock to their local rivers to capitalize on the event. And while many of these anglers fish with nymphs and dry flies that match the short-lived dun emergence during the afternoon, those in the know wait until the sun has just begun to set to start fishing—because that’s when the real action begins.
Green drake spinners—known as “coffin flies”—provide an easy, high-protein meal, which brings even big trout to the surface. Photo courtesy Henry Ramsay
Most years, the heaviest green-drake hatches and spinner falls start during the last hour of daylight and last well into the night. After resting in streamside vegetation all day, the newly molted spinners take to the air like the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. They flutter and flap over the water in droves, only to breed and eventually die, falling to the water’s surface. These evening hatches can produce some of the best fly fishing of your life, so long as you know how, when, and where to capitalize on the bounty.
Listen to the Night
To make the most of an evening green-drake hatch, the first and most important thing is to find the right spot. Look for a long, flat, quiet pool where you’ll easily be able to spot rising fish in the dark without the commotion of broken water. In order to have plenty of room to cast and a wide field of view to both spot the bugs and the fish, choose a spot without a lot of brush around the banks or trees leaning over the water.
You need to listen closely for rises that you can’t see in the dark. Photo: Kubie Brown
Look for your prime spot in the late afternoon or early evening when you still have plenty of light. This will give you ample time to get set up without stumbling around in the dark, while also allowing you to search the surrounding bushes and trees for bugs and the water for staging fish. Once you have the ideal pool picked out, relax and wait for sunset. Usually drake spinners will begin to fly just as the last orange lines of daylight are descending over the horizon, and once the bugs start, they will keep coming until they completely fill the night sky.
Often, trout won’t begin rising until the spinners begin to fall, which can be well after dark. So if you can, choose a moonlit night to fish the hatch, since the fish don’t seem to mind the extra light with so much food around. However, even if you fish on a night when it’s too dark to see risers, you should still be able to hear them. Stay quiet and listen closely, and you’ll be able to detect the subtle splashing or even the slight sucking sounds of fish taking drakes off the surface, giving you a good direction for a cast.
Oversize patterns, such as Henry Ramsay’s DNA Spinner, offer a clear silhouette that the fish can key on. Photo: Henry Ramsay
Go Big and Fish the Unconventional
There are a lot of beautiful, intricately tied green-drake patterns that will catch you a lot of fish during the day. However, when you’re fishing an evening hatch in low light, these traditional patterns may not be enough. When there are a lot of natural insects on the water in the dark, it can be hard for both you and the fish to pick your fly out of the bunch. Therefore, it’s a good idea to think outside the box a bit and instead of matching the hatch, try fishing patterns that seem a little unconventional.
When the green-drake hatch is hot and heavy in the evening, the fish aren’t picky about the size and color of your fly. So long as it imitates the basic shape of the insects on the water, they’ll engulf it without hesitation. This means that you can use large, thickly hackled flies that ride high on the water and are one to two sizes larger than the natural bugs, making them easier to see. These can include traditional Green Drake or even Hexagenia patterns or even attractor patterns, such as the White Wulff or the Yellow Humpy. Large foam or deer-hair body flies, like the Paradrake, can be incredibly effective evening flies, as well.
During a bigg drake spinner fall, big trout like this brown aren’t the only fish eating the bugs. You might catch multiple species in a single night. Photo: Kubie Brown
If you’re not having any luck on the surface, try stripping a pair of large nymphs just under the surface. Soft-Hackle Hare’s Ears and Pheasant Tails, and even Little Black Stoneflies in sizes 8 and 10 are ideal, as they push a decent amount of water without being too obtrusive. Rig two nymphs about 8 inches apart, and retrieve them with long, slow strips. More than likely, it won’t be long before you hook-up.
Greening Up The Night
That evening in northern New York, my brother and I anchored up beside the boat launch and fished well past midnight. Beneath a full moon, the falling drakes seemed endless ,and we hooked up on nearly every cast, catching everything from big brown and brook trout, to smallmouth, creek chubs, and even a couple of walleyes. It was one of the greatest nights of fishing I had ever had and after we finally loaded the boat on the trailer, I marked the day, the spot, and the time for next year. While it was my first experience with a Green Drake hatch, I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be my last.
