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Green Drake (Ephemera guttulata)
Mayfly, hatching May–June, active in water between 52 and 64°F, and imitated at #8–12. Recorded from the North Carolina mountains, where 1575 North Carolina rivers on this site carry a page.
The largest mayfly of the eastern hatch calendar, pale yellow-green with heavily mottled wings, peaking in May and June on water between 52 and 64 degrees — cold, cold-transitional and cool alike. It is an Appalachian freestone event that lasts a week or two at most, and in the mountains its arrival shows up on shop calendars a year in advance. The nymph burrows in silt and gravel margins, pale and gilled. The emergence is a big insect struggling out of a big shuck in the film, one of the few in which fish will take a badly presented fly. The dun is cream-green with mottled wings at size 8 to 12, and nothing else on the water looks like it. After dark the spinner returns as the Coffin Fly: white body, black legs, clear wings. A Green Drake or Coffin Fly dry at 8 to 12 matches it; a Stimulator, 8 to 16, and a Hare's Ear Nymph, 10 to 18, fill in around it. The records here cover only the Virginia and North Carolina mountains.
- #8–12Hook size
- 52–64°FWater, active
- May–JunPeak months
- 4Life stages fished
What it is
Mayfly · Ephemera guttulata · nymph → emerger → dun → spinner
The largest mayfly of the eastern hatch calendar, pale yellow-green with heavily mottled wings. In the mountains its arrival is an event that shows up on shop calendars a year in advance.
Appalachian freestone event, a week or two at most. The spinner — the Coffin Fly — comes back at dusk.
When it hatches
Peak is May–June. The pale months either side are the shoulder — the app widens a peak by one month in each direction and recommends the bug there, and no further: that widening is bounded so that a bug peaking in May is never offered in August.
peak shoulder not recommended
Water conditions
The band is a water temperature, not an air temperature, and it is the range in which this insect is worth fishing — for a mayfly that is the emergence window; for a scud or a midge it is simply the range trout will still eat one in.
Active from 52°F to 64°F. On this map that is cold, cold-transitional, cool water — the band crosses 2 of the three breaks the river colours use. Breaks at 58, 64 and 70°F.
Stages
What the insect is doing, and what that means for what you tie on.
| Stage | What it is |
|---|---|
| nymph | A burrower in silt and gravel margins, pale and gilled. |
| emerger | A big insect struggling out of a big shuck in the film — one of the few emergences where fish will take a badly presented fly. |
| dun | Cream-green body, mottled wings, size 8 to 12. Nothing else on the water looks like it. |
| spinner | The Coffin Fly: white body, black legs, clear wings, falling after dark. |
Matching flies
4 patterns in this book imitate the Green Drake, across its stages. Which one to tie on follows the stage the water temperature says it is in — the app makes that call on a live reading; this page lists the whole set.
- Coffin Fly dry fly · #8–12 — The Green Drake spinner. Fished at last light and after.
- Green Drake dry fly · #8–12 — The two-week Appalachian event. Size 10 and hard to miss.
- Hare's Ear Nymph nymph · #10–18 — Looks like everything and nothing. The other half of a two-nymph rig.
- Stimulator dry fly · #8–16 — Attractor and stonefly both. Floats a dropper better than almost anything.
Where to find it right now
The rivers with a page here that sit in this insect's regions, with a USGS gauge reporting water temperature. This list is re-ranked against the reading each gauge is sending now and today's date, so it is live — the fallback below it, if the readings do not arrive, is each river's measured July mean.
- Back Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Beaverdam Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Bill Davenport Branch the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Bill White Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Black Fork the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Bridge Branch the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Brier Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Buckwheat Branch the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Bull Branch the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
- Cambric Branch the North Carolina mountains · July mean 59.3°F
Regional presence
Regions, not collection records. This insect is recorded from the coarse regions below; nobody has surveyed which named river it has been caught on, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
- the Virginia mountains VA
- the North Carolina mountains NC
Rivers in these regions with a page here
- Catawba River
- Aaron Creek
- Acorn Branch
- Adamcamp Branch
- Aiken Mill Creek
- Alarka Creek
- Alfred Creek
- Allison Creek
- Allmon Creek
- Ammons Branch
- Amos Creek
- Amos Creek
- Anderson Creek
- Anderson Creek
- Anderson Creek
- Anderson Creek
- Andrews Creek
- Anthony Bolick Branch
- Anthony Creek
- Appletree Branch
- Ararat River
- Armstrong Creek
- Arrowhead Branch
- Arrowwood Creek
- and 1551 more
Related hatches
Same family, or overlapping this one's calendar on the same water.
- Large Blue-Winged Olive Drunella cornuta · Mayfly · May–June
- Light Cahill Maccaffertium ithaca · Mayfly · May–July
- Little Sulphur Ephemerella dorothea · Mayfly · May–July
- March Brown Maccaffertium vicarium · Mayfly · May–June
- Sulphur Ephemerella invaria · Mayfly · May–July