I grew up hearing about Drake hatches in the reverential tones usually reserved for sporting events. The Green Drakes, in particular, were discussed with the same fervor as folks reminiscing about Jordan’s last shot in the 1998 NBA Finals, or the Immaculate Reception.
There was the holy grail of the Drake hatches on the Henry’s Fork, but that was a hatch for grown, seasoned anglers. The Drake hatch that felt most attainable was on the Middle Provo River, about an hour-and-a-half from where I grew up in Utah. The entire Provo River was the local measuring stick, the bar that you had to clear if you wanted to be taken seriously as a fly angler, although it was never clear by whom. All I heard from grandpa and my dad was that if I could catch fish on the Provo, I could catch fish anywhere.
The Provo is smack in the middle of Utah’s major population center, so it sees something like a half-billion angler hours per year. More flies have been lost along its banks than there are stars in the sky. And its Green Drake hatch was, in my experience, mercurial at best. I’d hear the Drakes were on, then find a way to excuse myself from whatever summer job I was working, borrow my dad’s truck, and make the drive.
But between my youthful inexperience and my know-it-all attitude, I never hit the Drake hatch at its peak. I saw a bug or two, and maybe even a fish rise, but that fast-paced afternoon of big fish rising eagerly to even bigger dry flies? That didn’t happen.
I also never made it to the Henry’s Fork during the Drake hatch, either (and I still haven’t). The hatch would peak right around the time when the Utah section of the Green River has some of its best hatches, and the Green had the virtue of being closer. I almost made the Henry’s trip a few times, but the closest I ever came was fishing the South Fork of the Snake instead.
Which means that in almost two decades of fly fishing, I’d never fished one of its iconic hatches. I made long trips for blue-winged olives, skwalas, pale morning duns, and salmonflies, but I always seemed to be fishing elsewhere when the Drakes were on.
I didn’t realize any of this, however, until last week.
The Local Hatch
My first child was born six weeks early thanks to a bout of preeclampsia. My wife and I were in Utah at the time, and it’s lucky we were, because our local hospital here in Wyoming doesn’t have a newborn intensive care unit that could’ve handled our daughter. Our quick trip to visit family while I worked turned into a seven-week stay, and last week was our first full week back home in Wyoming.
I’d missed what little runoff season we had this year, but the heat was already turning the low-lying rivers into warm, moss-filled trickles. And even though the water wasn’t off-color, it was still high enough in the mountains that fishing was a tough proposition.
But a newborn at home is a tough proposition, too, and I needed a few hours on the water to get my mind right. I set off for the local creek with a promise to my wife that I wouldn’t be long.
When I pulled up to the creek, the water wasn’t as high as I’d heard. It was surprisingly clear, too—clear enough that I could watch trout flashing just below the surface as they snacked on emerging insects. I grabbed my rod, scrambled down to the water, and got a closer look at what they were eating.
Caddis bounced around the bushes, and a few salmonflies crawled on the rocks, but the fish were clearly going nuts for some big mayflies that hovered just over the water.
I tied on a size 12 Adams, made a few casts, and this brown smacked my fly like it had just insulted his mother.
That’s how the entire afternoon went—long after the time passed when I told my wife I’d be home. The Drakes kept hatching, the fish kept eating them, so I kept on casting. At one point, two fish jumped clean out of the water, simultaneously sniping Drakes as they flew a few inches above the river.
This was the sort of Drake hatch I’d heard about. The sort of Drake hatch I’d never fished. Honestly, I’ve fished very few hatches that ever put on a show quite like this. I didn’t keep track of how many fish I caught, but it felt like it was over 15, and most of them were the creek’s larger specimens. One probably pushed 16 inches, which is a phenomenal fish in that water.
I finally reached a good point to crawl out of the creek and hike back to the truck, and the hatch had petered out enough that the fish weren’t throwing themselves around like a boy trying to get a girl’s attention on the playground. Although, I did see one more fish eat while I was taking my wading boots off. I almost went back for seconds, but if I’ve learned one thing in fly fishing, it’s when to leave the water on a good note, and this was the best tune I could’ve written.