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Brown Drake
A dry fly, tied #10–12, a summer pattern. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — June.
A large mayfly dun on a 2X long dry-fly hook in sizes 10 and 12, tied with tan 6/0 thread. Three moose body hairs make the tail; the body is tan-brown deer hair or dubbing ribbed with brown thread; the wing is barred wood-duck or deer hair set upright; and the hackle is brown and grizzly mixed. It is tied against the Brown Drake, Ephemera simulans, a June mayfly that comes off in water between 55 and 65 degrees. The window is narrow — roughly twenty minutes at last light, and about two weeks ahead of the Hex — so the fly wants to be on the leader before dark rather than knotted on by feel afterwards. It is carried through the summer and fished for trout at dusk, when the duns are on the surface in numbers and the rises come in the failing light.
- #10–12Hook size
- dry flyType
- SummerSeason
- 1Hatch matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 5 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
Each of these is the same hatch record the app's own panel reads, so a pattern recommended on a river card in the app is recommended for one of the insects below.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | 2X long dry-fly hook, sizes 10–12 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Tan 6/0 |
| Tail | Three moose body hairs |
| Body | Tan-brown deer hair or dubbing, ribbed brown thread |
| Wing | Barred wood-duck or deer hair, upright |
| Hackle | Brown and grizzly |
When to fish it
Twenty minutes at last light in June, two weeks before the Hex. Have it tied on before dark, not after.
A summer pattern. The insects it matches are active june, in water from 55°F to 65°F.
Target species
- Trout
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Au Sable River northern lower Michigan · July mean 72.1°F
- Muskegon River northern lower Michigan · July mean 71.0°F
- Escanaba River the Upper Peninsula · July mean 68.3°F
- Saint Croix River northern Wisconsin · July mean 77.2°F
- Abitosse Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 72.0°F
- Acme Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern Wisconsin · July mean 66.2°F
- Addis Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 61.9°F
- Adventure Creek the Upper Peninsula
- Aho Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 70.7°F
- Ahola Creek the Upper Peninsula
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Brown Drake Spinner dry fly · #10–12 — Spent wings, dead drift, in the dark.
- Parachute Adams dry fly · #12–20 — Universal mayfly dun imitation. Every angler carries these.
- Adams (Catskill) dry fly · #12–20 — The original. Rides higher than the parachute in broken water.
- Adult Cranefly dry fly · #10–16 — Long trailing legs, sparse hackle, skittered rather than drifted. Autumn and spring evenings on the bank side.
- Adult Damsel dry fly · #10–14 — Blue or olive extended body on a foam post. For midsummer afternoons on slow weedy water.