green drake emerger pattern

[powderfinger]

which is your best producer?

[Hardyreels]

I've never used an emerger pattern but would suspect a swimming nymph pattern if you can find them. As far as I know the green drake is one of the few burrowing Mayfly nymphs and emerges from the silt or substrate and pops to the surface rather quickly. Cripples may be a good bet.

Me; I usually ended up fishing a little blue Quill 18 or 20 between the big drakes and did better with the little fella than I did with my ultra realistic Drake patterns........Go figure?

Ard

[dean_mt]

Can't say that I have a best emerger pattern for the green drake, because I've never had much success with an y of them! Its kinda of a tricky hatch out here, usually coinciding with high water in June. I also think that with the really large mayflies it gets harder to create an "emerger" fly. A cripple in the style of a Quigley or just a big soft hackle is the way I go if a parachute doesn't work. I think for big bugs like green drake, that a parachute is pretty good as it is going to sit down in the water.

But what do I know, you're in PA and I'm I'm MT. It's certainly a different game.

[fysh]

Ditto on the Quigley Cripple. I love the Green Drake and PMD Quigley Cripples very much, they are a staple in my boxes.

Green Drake Cripple

Quigley Style Green Drake Emerger - YouTube

Quigley Style Green Drake Emerger - YouTube

[Hardyreels]

I should have said I was born in Pennsylvania and learned to fish there...................

Thanks for the bump John, I hadn't considered where the page says I live until I read you.

[Rip Tide]

Originally Posted by Hardyreels

Me; I usually ended up fishing a little blue Quill 18 or 20 between the big drakes and did better with the little fella than I did with my ultra realistic Drake patterns........Go figure?

That's interesting.
On the local river the green drakes hatch at the same time as what we call the alder fly (zebra caddis), a very prolific hatch.
I've often watched the big drakes float down stream unmolested while trout are literally blasting out of the water after the fast moving caddis.
Not once have I ever seen a trout take a green drake dun on this river.

Maybe the fish are scared of 'em

[dean_mt]

Originally Posted by Rip Tide

That's interesting.
On the local river the green drakes hatch at the same time as what we call the alder fly (zebra caddis), a very prolific hatch.
I've often watched the big drakes float down stream unmolested while trout are literally blasting out of the water after the fast moving caddis.
Not once have I ever seen a trout take a green drake dun on this river.

Maybe the fish are scared of 'em

Yes, a very interesting pattern is emerging here (pun fully intended). It could be one of those cases where the nymphs of the big green drake are just such easy targets that trout key on them during the early stage of emergence and gorge while the nymphs are in free drift. I did a little web-surf "research" last night after reading this thread and found another story exactly the same as yours Rip. Blanket hatches of green drakes and no rising fish.

I'm starting to feel better about me not being able to catch fish with that fly.

Back to OP. I am now thinking that floating nymph is the thing to try. Or just a good ole fashioned Green & Partridge! It's definitely worth tying a few long, slim hare's ear in a couple different colors and then make a wing case out of foam for buoyancy. I did this one for trying during the march brown / gray drake hatches here. Took a fish with it.

[silvertip8k]

I like it Dean...legs and gills are good...with some mods to colors it could be a great pattern anywhere...but just as it is would probably be good too...

[stenacron]

Interesting "east meets west" theme going on here... I'm pretty sure (given his location) that powderfinger is referring to the Green Drake as in Ephemera guttulata, and the (western) Green Drake - Drunella grandis/doddsi is a very different species of mayfly. Even the nymphs... as Ard pointed out, (eastern) Green Drakes are burrowers, while (western) Green Drakes are crawlers.

Ephemera guttulata


Drunella doddsi


Same nickname... drastically different species of mayflies.

The eastern Green Drake seems to be one of these flies that is so big and clumsy that the matching dun/emerger patterns tend to look lifeless by comparison. I know many who have been driven to the edge of fly-fishing madness by lack of success during hatches of guttulata.

[dean_mt]

And also some of us fishing the drunella, apparently. Drastically different to entomologists but maybe similar to fisherman? :-) a very big and greenish mayfly to the layman, and hard to match?

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