mayfly
Recently emerged mayfly

Spring Mayfly Hatch

This post was made on May 11, 2009, but applies again in 2010:

Red Maples are just past peak flowering, leatherleaf is in full bloom, shadbush is beginning to blossom, mayflies are emerging and trout are jumping.

leatherleaf
Leatherleaf in full bloom
Typically, mayflies emerge by the millions in late April/early May providing trout with a spring feast. The Woodens River system, however, experienced a sudden and precipitous decline in the early mayfly hatch in 1989-90. It remains unexplained and mayflies have not recovered since to their glory days (nor have the trout), although there have been sporadic reports of some recovery.

Have you seen large hatches of mayflies on the Woodens River System this spring? Please let us know: e-mail wrweo@yahoo.ca. Thanks.

In 2009, we received this comment from George Taylor of Trout Nova Scotia:
The mayfly on the Woodens starts as early as April 25 and are finished by May 8th. In the distant past on the upper system the mayfly came out in great numbers over the two weeks with new hatched every other day. It was often said that our upper lakes had the largest hatches in Nova Scotia. I remember folks who drove from Cape Breton and Shelburne 25 years ago to fish the mayfly hatch on Hubley Lake. We now have only a remnant population and with a PH of 4.6 /4.8 it is highly unlikely that we will see improvement in numbers. This year on the lower section below Long Lake the numbers looked better then in the last 8 to 10 years. The main hatch this year came on May 2nd in stronger numbers all at once which looked good but only lasted until the 6th. I expect the cold weather in April kept them down until we had a few days of record temperatures. If the hatch was spread out over the two weeks I expect the total numbers would be the same.
(Message was forwarded by Brian Saulnier, May 21, 2009.)