Fishing the Evening Mayfly Hatch

This last week I had plans to get out of town for a day of smallmouth fishing on one of my favorite rivers , but after last weekends results targeting white bass and hybrids I instead switched gears and focused my time off on replicating that success.

It turned out to be the right decision (one of only a few I make every year) for a change and I was able to have a couple of my best fishing days in a long while. I made three trips back over to the same reservoir I fished last weekend and wasn't dissapointed in my results on any of them. The two evenings were much better than the morning, but when the slowest outing still produces half a dozen hybrids I'm calling that a huge success!


Surprisingly, the thing that's driving this killer bite is a local mayfly hatch. Every year about this time the shorelines of our local lakes become inundated with large mayflies and everything from crappie to carp take advantage of the situation and show up with the feed bag on. The hybrids and white bass are a little different , only in that I'm pretty sure they're showing up in response to the baitfish that are there to eat the bugs instead of the bugs themselves. Either way, the end result is the same, hungry fish within easy reach of shoreline anglers.On my latest evening trip I landed several crappie, a drum, a walleye, a couple of white bass and close to a dozen hybrids. Just proof of how many different species of fish are taking advantage of this one bug event.


I'm still itching to get on a stream for smallies but for right now I'm gonna stay a little closer to home and enjoy the incredible fishing that is taking place during this hatch. Here's a few pics to give you an idea of just how good it's been....