May 2009 Almanac
This Month: ‘No Mayflies,’ You Say
Afternoon mayfly hatches begin this month in the bottom third of the state, and fly fishing rocks, which brings up a quick digression:
Back in March, posters on fly-fishing bulletin boards in Maine were complaining that Maine had no aquatic-insect hatches.
…No hatches?
Many of us in the Pine Tree State live for spring’s afternoon hatches and time our outings to coincide with these predictable, annual events.
Hendricksons, red quills (the male version of the Hendrickson), size 14 blue-winged olives, Drunella cornuta and a few caddis species hatch on May afternoons in the lower third of the state and create winter memories. Many of us in Central and Southern Maine pine for these hatches all winter.
It gets no better than a red-quill/Hendrickson hatch on a river when the shoreline still looks drab and brown and lifeless — but the river looks alive with dimpling fish.
From July through September, this writer has fished a 10 a.m. blue-winged olive (BWO) hatch for 30 years and in October and November a 2 p.m. BWO emergence consistently for 12 years.