Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna?

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Cold
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2009/05/24 01:12:59 (permalink)

Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna?

Anyone hear of this? i have never heard of anyone talking about them, but I saw a mayfly there that I think may have been a green drake. I have (poor) pics on my phone that I'll eventually post, but it was a large (~1") creamy white body with a black thorax and heavily mottled wings with a greenish cast.
#1

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    dano
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/05/24 07:53:42 (permalink)
    Sounds like a green drake. If you get a nice cool drizzly day in the next few days, you could have decent early or all day fishing.
    It usually takes more than a few drakes to get the fish keyed on them.
    I'd also carry the brown drake and sulphurs & spinner patterns.
     YOu should get a hold of Green Weenie. He knows the hatches there.
    #2
    tank7791
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/05/24 11:06:05 (permalink)
    I saw this on my window is that a green drake?
     
     

     

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    #3
    dano
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/05/24 11:37:04 (permalink)
    No. Drakes are very big.
    2 tails??  That may be a typical yellow quill/ light cahill species. 
    #4
    Cold
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/05/24 12:02:39 (permalink)
    Here's the pics. Sorry about the poor image quality.







    So what do ya think? Drake?
    #5
    dano
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/05/24 12:19:04 (permalink)
    Yessir 
    They live in the silt and come out awhile before hatching.
    try a green drake wiggle nymph.
    Hope you get a good hatch. Brown Drakes,too. 
    #6
    Cold
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/05/24 13:42:34 (permalink)
    This one was a loner, the only one that big I've ever seen (aside from one night fishing the Allegheny river, when the hex hatch could be measured in inches (of dead bugs, all over everything). This spring I've seen quite a few stones and mayflies in the hanna, but I'm too slow to actually catch them. I havent seen any floating downstream, just in flight.

    Also found myself in the midst of a heavy hatch of caddis, below Conemaugh Dam, of all places. So many of them were around they were coming out of my hat and vest even after I was in the car! Of course the lightest tackle I had with me was a #2 extra wide gap worm hook.

    I'll have to be on the lookout for more drakes though, now that I know they're there. It just made me feel good that I made a correct bug ID!
    #7
    Green Weenie
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/05/24 21:32:06 (permalink)
    Yes, the Loyalhanna has a Green Drake hatch.  Not a big hatch but it is a hatch. They are currently on the upper end of the stream and should be around the delayed harvest area this week.  I have seen them as far down as Legion Keener Park in Latrobe.  You are also going to see a lot of sulphers and dortheas in the next few days.

    fly fish....save a worms life
    #8
    Cold
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/01 10:18:22 (permalink)
    Thanks guys. I've been out 2 or 3 nights this past week in search of the green drakes. They stood me up the first two nights, but last night I did manage to see about a half-dozen coffin flies laying their eggs up on Mill. No major hatch or anything, but it was cool seeing the big girls out. They were out around 5-6pm, though, not late night. If we get some light rain in the next few days I'll be back out, hoping to see em. What am I looking for in terms of prime drake habitat? I saw that dun in a fairly shallow, wide, slow section, and the spinners were over a deeper pool between riffles in a smaller, faster moving piece of water...fairly different locales, but maybe that's the way it works.
    #9
    dano
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/01 11:38:36 (permalink)
    The Green Drake nymph inhabit silty pools where they burrow and form U-shaped tunnels. They swim up to the surface to emerge. They use a strong wiggling motion to swim upward and that usually gets the trouts attention. If they happen to drift into the riffles, they kinda freeze up and stop wiggling until they hit slower water again where they again attempt to emerge.
     Coffins fly upstream and lay eggs in the fast water.
    Once in awhile, we get a decent drake hatch here in NW PA.
    The better local hatches I've seen have been on cool and rainy late afternoons. Those type of days keep the bugs floating on the surface for a longer period of time before they take flight. On some of the streams I fish, the drakes are much darker than what you usually see on PA water, such as Penns Creek.
     
    #10
    Cold
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/04 10:53:20 (permalink)
    Well, I've been up on Mill Creek every evening since Sunday.

    Haven't hit a drake "hatch", per se, but I did manage to spot a single dun, and about a half-dozen coffin flies. I thought last night would be perfect, with the rain and cool weather, but while it brought out all kinds of sulphurs, slate drakes, and BWOs, the green drakes remain elusive. Is it getting too late for them now? I've been staying on the water till it was too dark to see them, even if they were out.
    #11
    duncsdad
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/04 13:16:27 (permalink)
    Don't get over enthralled with Green Drakes.  Typically they don't live up to the hype.

    Duncsdad

    Everything I say can be fully substantiated by my own opinion
    #12
    LigonierA1
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/10 11:40:49 (permalink)
    Cold,
    I'm suprised I haven't run into ya, I've been on Mill alot these past few weeks as well chasing the drakes.  As duncsdad says, they rarely live up to the hype.  However, when you hit it right, it's worth it. 
     
    Anyway Mill is desperate for some water, thank goodness what's there is cold.  I hear more and more about hatches on the Loyalhanna and always see a afew mayflies but nothing even resembling a hatch.  Even the sulphurs that GW mentions are extremely spotty.  FWIW, I did see a few Lt Cahills last evening when I was on it near Latrobe trying to find a few smallies without success.  One crappie, of all the odd things to catch in a riffle....
    #13
    Cold
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/10 11:55:02 (permalink)
    LA1,

    I'm sure we'll meet at some point. I normally fish portions of Mill where I dont see another soul until I get back to a road, or, as was the case a few days ago, until I follow the stream right into a few backyards. On that note...I've gotten very leery about fishing an area like that after a bad experience on Elk where I got chased off land that wasn't really marked as private. Basically, I'd rather just not fish it than take a chance at making hard feelings. This time, however, I saw a guy in a yard who smiled and waved, so I stuck around till dark, then left the way I came.

    I primarily fish no farther downstream than the causeway, with 90% of my fishing at or above the DHALO. Hatch wise, I hit a pretty decent hatch of sulphurs up there a few weeks ago, and slate drakes have been consistent on Mill, and to a lesser extent, Loyalhanna, until just this week. Did okay during the hatch (but even better during the spinnerfall at dusk) with a #14 parachute adams (which I tie with a moose mane tail, slightly longer than the pattern calls for, at first because it was easier to tie, then, because it outproduced the ones I tied with hackle tails).

    Finally, funny you should mention crappie in riffles...I did the same thing in the Conemaugh a month or so back. Nice fish at about 13-14".
    #14
    tank7791
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/12 08:42:46 (permalink)
    Hey everyone, trying to find out what type of mayfly this is so i can add it to my records for future use, I did some searching and i think that it is a march brown is that correct or am i way off
     
     

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    D-nymph
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/12 09:04:03 (permalink)
    My money's on Brown Drake spinner.  The super long front legs and three tails is what makes me think that.
     
    Not very common, but when you find them, it's usually good fishing.
     
    http://www.troutnut.com/fullsize/picture-im_regspec/248
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    tank7791
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/12 09:08:47 (permalink)
    You look to be correct from the link you posted,Thanks D-nymph for your help, I looked for a good pic and could not find one until now thanks again     Tank

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    D-nymph
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/12 09:12:30 (permalink)
    No problem.
     
    Now you have to tell me which stream that was on.
     
    #18
    tank7791
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/12 09:21:49 (permalink)
    pm sent
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    KJH807
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    RE: Green Drakes on the Loyalhanna? 2009/06/12 09:56:42 (permalink)

     
     
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