Mayfly Hatch

[Flambeau Vista Retreat LLC]

There was a major mayfly hatch on the Lake Bastine area of the TFF on the evening of Saturday, June 11th, 2011; however, there were not any carcasses the next day. Strange!

[CincinnatiCrew]

Well sorry for everyone who's there fishing now but I'm glad it's happening the week before we get up there! LOL This is the news I've been waiting to hear. We are staying on Bastine too.

[firetiger]

The mayfly hatch just started and could go for at least a couple weeks.

[Don Pemble]

I've been on the flowage the last three days anywhere from Fisherman's Landing to the south end and up to Donner's Bay and have yet to see a mayfly, been seeing the tiny ones but not the big ones that fishermen just dread.

[therealdeal]

Hey guys! Just wondering what this mayfly talk is all about. I've heard it before but what exactly does it mean in regards to fishing?

[mkoeh475]

It basically shuts it down. The mayflyies hatch under water and come to the surface to do their thing. It's an all you can eat buffet for the fish and they are hard to catch during this time. Basically they suck

[phun1981]

So did the mayflies hatch or not? Coming up tomorrow and would like a heads up.

[walterj]

Am I to assume that the Mayfly hatch is in effect??? I leaving tomorrow morning with family for a long weekend to visit family, and was hoping to do some fishing :)

[BlueRanger]

A thick mat of larva moults began washing up on our shoreline beginning Saturday, and there were also lot of them drifting in Townline this morning. But I didn't see too many actual flies around, and most of them were the smaller dark variety, which I think are Ephemera simulans. I didn't see many of the big Hexagenia limbata, so either it's a weak year class or they haven't really started yet. Surface temps are still only in the mid to upper 60s - it actually dropped several degrees after last night's cool rain. Regardless, I didn't notice any effect on the fishing this weekend - with the exception of the muskies, which weren't at all cooperative, I did very well. I did something unusual and went after them DonP style with a Reeves jig and pieces of some leftover crawlers my parents had in the refrigerator from Memorial Day. Saturday, I worked some areas off the Manitowish channel below Blair just long enough to pick up a nice late lunch of walleyes and perch, then pitched in and around downed trees in several areas and picked up a lot of nice smallies up to 19", which were great fun on my perch rod with 4 lb. line. Saturday evening, I was out on Baraboo in a light rain catching them like crazy, and the only other boats I could see in any direction were a couple miles away down on the big water - a rare thing on a summer weekend.

Most of this weekend's photos were flowers and geese, so unless somebody has a thing for Lupines, I'll skip posting them...

[Flambeau Vista Retreat LLC]

Blue,

I love Lupine, so please post them.

[BlueRanger]

Since you asked... I posted some of the nicer ones.

[Flambeau Vista Retreat LLC]

Nice pics Blue. Thanks for sharing.

[Hesperus]

Funny we were talking about them on the drive up. The drive was getting kind of long and boring so I put everybody on "dickweed" watch. This really piqued curiosity. Then we came across a "patch" and I pointed them out. Flowers like a batter wrapped weiner on a stick. Been calling them that since I first encountered them in the 90's when we used to drive up to the mud races.

We have a bag of many hundreds of seeds that we've collected and I joked that we should have brought them along and flicked them out as we drove...

[BlueRanger]

They don't seem to need much help spreading - a few people planted them in flowerbeds and now they're popping up all over the place. Good thing they're nice to look at.

[Birdoguy]

Now that (according to Don's report) the mayfly hatch has occured, how long before fishing will return to normal? I have a large group of fisherpeople coming from out of state the week of the 4th, and am hoping that they will be able to see some action.

[Flambeau Vista Retreat LLC]

Between 7- 14 days, depending how long the hatch goes on. Fish can still be caught, but it takes some skill and patience.

[Don Pemble]

I was out on Sunday with my old fishing buddy again and we found very few mayfly's compared to what was out there a few days earlier. Fishing was decent and should get better each day unless another big batch of them critters shows up.