**Mayfly Genus Anthopotamus (Golden Drakes)**

Mayflies

Caddisflies

Stoneflies

Taxonomic Navigation -?-

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

» Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

» Class Insecta (Insects)

» Order Ephemeroptera (Mayflies)

» Family Potamanthidae (Golden Drakes)

» Genus Anthopotamus (Golden Drakes)

Species in Anthopotamus
Anthopotamus distinctusGolden Drake	0	0
Anthopotamus myopsGolden Drake	0	0
Anthopotamus neglectusGolden Drake	0	0

1 species isn't included.

Common Name

Match	Common Name
	Golden Drakes

These mayflies have something for everyone. For the angler, they offer a chance to fish large dry flies to a rise on midsummer evenings when little else is on the water. To the entomologist they are interesting for their unique placement mid-way between the burrower and crawler groups of nymphs. Another curious characteristic is that the eyes of the adults are the same size in both genders; this is very unusual in mayflies.

Where & When

Regions: East, Midwest

Time Of Year (?): Late June through August

Preferred Waters: Mostly medium to large rivers

See the individual species pages for distribution and timing details. Anthopotamus distinctus is the main species in the East, and Anthopotamus myops is more common in the Midwest.

Hatching Behavior

Time Of Day (?): Throughout late evening, peaking at dusk, sometimes after dark on hot days.

Habitat: Slow to medium water

Water Temperature: 65-70°F

These mayflies emerge fairly quickly, but they may linger on the surface for a while as their wings dry, making dun patterns the imitation of choice. They can make some commotion which is worth imitating if a still pattern does not work.

Caucci and Nastasi in Hatches II say that the duns begin hatching when the temperature drops below 70°F in the evenings. However, in Matching the Hatch, Ernest Schwiebert reports a hatch when the water temperature was a steamy 78°F. The trout are unlikely to respond at such times.

Spinner Behavior

Time Of Day: Twilight to late night

Ted Fauceglia writes in Mayflies that the best trout activity associated with these spinner falls happens well after dark. This is the only mention of fishing to the spinners that I've found.

Nymph Biology

Current Speed: Slow to Medium

Substrate: Detritus (Detritus: Small, loose pieces of decaying organic matter underwater.) over sand, gravel, or silt

Environmental Tolerance: They have an unusually high tolerance for warm, shallow water.

The nymphs of this genus are the unique representatives of a transitional step between the crawler nymph group and the burrower nymphs. They don't dig U-shaped burrows into the sediment like Ephemeridae nymphs do, but they do settle down into indentations in the detritus (Detritus: Small, loose pieces of decaying organic matter underwater.).

They become active on the bottom shortly before emerging, and fishing nymph imitations before the hatch may reward the angler.

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Jargon Defined:

Detritus: Small, loose pieces of decaying organic matter underwater.

Dun: Mayflies have two adult stages. They first emerge from the water as duns (scientifically known as the subimago stage). They then molt into the spinner (imago) stage, in which they mate and die. Sometimes the word "dun" is confusingly used to refer to a brownish gray color in fly tying materials.

Nymphs: The juvenile, underwater stages of mayflies, stoneflies, dragonflies, and damselflies and other aquatic insects whose juvenile stages are covered by hard exoskeletons. The word can also refer to the fishing flies which imitate these creatures, in which case it is used as a blanket term for flies imitating any underwater stage of an invertebrate (except for crayfish and leeches).

Spinner: There are two winged stages of adult mayflies. They emerge from the water as duns, molt on land (usually) into their fully mature stage, spinners. As spinners, they mate, lay eggs, and die.

Useful References:

Arbona, Fred Jr. 1989. Mayflies, the Angler, and the Trout. Nick Lyons Books.

Caucci, Al and Nastasi, Bob. 2004. Hatches II. The Lyons Press.

Fauceglia, Ted. 2005. Mayflies . Stackpole Books.

Knopp, Malcolm and Robert Cormier. 1997. Mayflies: An Angler's Study of Trout Water Ephemeroptera . The Lyons Press.

Schwiebert, Ernest G. 1955. Matching the Hatch. MacMillan Publishing Company.