FENCEROWS...Fishing in the Hatch
By John Luthens
The lilacs were in fragrant bloom on the shoreline of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The first ducklings of the year paddled obediently behind a hen mallard on the placid surface of Asylum Bay. I rigged a fishing rod and squinted as the sun sank deeper into the bay.
The first signs of a waxing moon followed from the outer fringes of Lake Winnebago as I paced over the footbridge onto the lighthouse point of the bay. It was a perfect scene. It was too perfect.
From the depths of the mud bottom, the first of the blood worm larvae started wriggling to the surface. The theme music from the movie “Jaws” started playing. Or maybe it was the music from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. Either one of them would set the mood for what was about to happen. A dark cloud began to form on the point. The lake flies were coming.
Maybe it’s the weather or the water temperature that sets it off, but everyone in the Winnebago lakeshore communities knows without a doubt when the hatch is on. Windshields and houses are covered, spent flies piled under every street lamp. There is a low and almost musical hum in the air as the swarms grow. Power washers roar and snow shovels are known to appear out of hibernation for cleanup duty.
It can be like a horror movie and it can get messy. The flies have no mouths, so they don’t bite. That doesn’t stop them from flying into your own mouth, or into your hair, or in your pockets. If you crush them, they smell really bad, and they leave behind a skid-mark stain that won’t come out.
These shores are the only place I have personally seen them hatch. I have heard there are other places, somewhere in Canada, maybe Africa. The bugs go by various names in a scary array of confusing Latin categories. Here, they are simply the lake flies, and the facts of nature are thrust right into the faces of hearty fishermen on the Winnebago shores.
Lake flies gather along a stone wall on the Winnebago shores.
The larvae feed through the year on the lake bottom, filtering algae for nutrition while at the same time providing a buffet table for the fish. The sturgeon population, which provides for such a unique spearing season through the ice of Winnebago, relies heavily on the larvae for nutrition. And when the larvae hatch into flies, once in the spring and once later in the summer, the buffet table rises along the shoreline and it becomes all you can eat.
The flies live for the day, mating over the shoreline, hanging on in the foliage before falling to the water. They were still in transit of their mating routine as I walked beneath the trees of the point. Blackbirds swooped and took them from the air. Swarms fell down from the trees and up from the grass. I breathed through my nose and brushed the hoards out of my hair, careful not to crush them. It might look good on the younger kids, but I’ve personally never wanted a green-tinted hairstyle. I watched the water as the first ones landed.
A small wind at my back was just about right. It blew more flies from the overhanging trees and onto the water. The first dimples appeared on the surface. The feeding frenzy was starting.
The small bluegills came first at the shoreline. They were too easy, smacking at anything you put in front of them that even remotely resembled a floating bug. The big fish were further out, sucking in flies and putting out rippling wakes that made my heart skip a beat. I haven’t figured out yet where all the big ones go to hide in the summer, but they were here now.
Lake Winnebago bluegill taken during the lake fly hatch.
It wasn’t bad if I didn’t move much. The flies kind of calmed down. But every new step sent them into a buzzing frenzy. It’s very hard to cast without moving, but I got the hang of flicking my wrist and retrieving line without shuffling my feet. When the big bluegills moved from the depths and under the tree branches to feed, I forgot about the flies altogether. Then I just did a lot of retrieving.
I’m not one to get hung up on numbers or size of fish. I usually just throw the fish back into the water and keep on going. But I make exceptions for the Winnebago lake fly hatch. Most fish still get tossed back, because getting a limit is not difficult with all the ripples and splashing. Then it would be over to quick. The flies only last for so many days. It is a fishing to be savored a bite at a time, like a prime-cut steak in the water with a bunch of piranhas tearing it up. I counted up to 50. After that, I got confused and lost track.
The crappies hit towards dusk. I lost one that might have gone well over a pound. They came to the surface and they hit below. Worms, minnows, fishing flies, it didn’t seem to matter what bait. Everyone along the shoreline had slab tails hanging over the edges of their fishing buckets.
Winnebago lake flies and crappies.
The lake flies were still hovering around in the gloom when the bass began smashing the water. The bluegills were still rising when it was too dark to see a line in the water. The moon rose high. I shook out a sweatshirt that I’d laid on the ground and hundreds of lake flies piled out. My truck was covered in a mass when I walked out.
Fishing in the lake fly hatch; you can still feel them crawling and hear them humming long after you have left the water. It kind of grows on you, like an addiction to bad horror movies or an addiction to great fishing.