Mayfly Magic Smallmouth
By Andrew Ragas Every year, our northern lakes swarm with mayflies. The hatch is considered a negative and detriment to summertime bass fishermen who fail to produce good results. While the lake’s entire food chain becomes temporarily imbalanced from this natural forage abundance, and fixated on it, the prevalence of mayflies rising from the lake’s surface leads to one of the briefest, but engaging and entertaining smallmouth bass fishing patterns and peak periods of the summer fishing season. Previously my summertime bass fishing strategy was to completely avoid being on lakes that were hatching mayflies. During the hatch, most gamefish will feed heavily on emerging larvae and adult mayflies to the point of over-eating and be disengaged towards everything else. But an eye-opening experience on a guide trip a few seasons ago changed my outlook and perspective on how to deal with this phenomenon. The presence of mayflies rising from the water’s surface, and sight of smallmouth wolfpacks feeding sub-surface, is advantageous and can lead to the best fishing of summer. The catching and easy fishing that ensued has become a summertime scenario I look forward to annually.