It’s getting to be the tail end of the big hatch on the river, but I wanted to cover the topic anyway. If you have ever lived along the Mississippi, you know all too well about the mayfly hatch that occurs during early summer. Where I grew up, they were also called June bugs. I wonder if they were called that because the hatch actually happens in June? Either way, the event is truly a spectacle and if you happen to be driving during the hatch you can hear it, see it and smell it. In addition to that, the insects have a weird sci-fi look to them which makes some people a little nervous.

So what is a mayfly? I’ll let our old friend Google field this one: “Mayflies are fragile, aquatic insects in the order Ephemeroptera known for their remarkably short adult lifespans and massive summer swarms. While they spend up to a year or more underwater as nymphs, fully grown adults live for only a few hours to a couple of days.”

That’s the quick version. If you have experience with mayflies, you know that it’s not just a simple bug that hatches. It’s a bug that is attracted to lights and it’s a bug that goes away quickly. When they appear en masse along the lighted river bridges, snowplows are literally called out to clear the roadways. During the massive hatches the conditions could truly be called a “brown out.” To make that even more interesting, when the bugs gather in such massive numbers the road can turn into a summertime ice rink because the mess is that slippery. Where I grew up, if you were to ask any young hot rod the easiest way to spin a donut in June the instant response would be “under the streetlights.” What?! I saw my brother do it, I swear.

During the heaviest of hatches the bug mass can be so dense that the swarm can be seen on Doppler radar. Those events can make travel sometimes interesting, to say the least, but there is also a silver lining. It is believed by many that the more prevalent the bugs are, the healthier the river system is. 

My greatest memory and story about a mayfly hatch took place down at the old Gene’s Bait & Tackle off the back-channel bridge in Hager City. Remember that great place? Gene the owner was using a snow shovel to clear the bugs off his dock. He’d push a shovelful into the water, grab a fishing pole and start casting to the massive school of stripers that he had just chummed up. It was awesome to watch. I can still see the smile on Gene’s face.

Currently the mayfly season is winding down for another year. It’s easy to view them as a good news/bad news scenario. It’s great to have a natural indicator on the health of the river but it’s a pain to drive through a swam and then have to drive your vehicle through the Deluxe Car Wash.  

Overall, I think the insects are pretty interesting in a lot of ways. They are way better than snakes. I can’t handle snakes.

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