Early June 'snowstorm'

It was a rainy, foggy night. Light evening showers fell as I began my trip home just after nine o'clock. Steam rose eerily off the pavement. The stage was set for the extraordinary.

As I headed south paralleling the Driftwood Branch, I was about to experience a "June snowstorm."

A cloud of what resembled ash fallout from a volcanic eruption limited visibility. I slowed down. My vehicle was being pelted by the floating flakes. The road was soon covered.

What I was experiencing was millions -- maybe billions -- of brown drake mayfly spinners returning to the stream to reproduce. It would have been even more spectacular to witness the event on the stream with my four-weight fly rod in hand.

The mayfly spends the majority of its life as an aquatic nymph. When the time is right, the mayfly undergoes its final nymph molt, emerging as a winged adult to live a tiny fraction of its life outside water.

Mayflies are unique in that they actually have two adult stages. The adult mayfly that emerges from its former aquatic nymph stage is known as a dun and is not yet ready to reproduce.

After hatching, duns fly to nearby forests and streamside vegetation. During the next several days they undergo a second shedding of their exoskeleton to become a spinner, the sexually mature adult form.

What follows is a mass migration of mayfly spinners heading to their home waters to reproduce.

By the time I made it home after having my vehicle thoroughly splattered, I was making plans in my head for fishing the next night.

Mayflies are sensitive organisms. They cannot live in polluted water. The large diversity of mayflies living in the Driftwood Branch and hatches of such sheer abundance reflect the health of the Driftwood Branch and its watershed.

So, instead of being annoyed at the mess, I was happy to see these healthy stream indicators in such abundance.

There are few streams in Pennsylvania that could match the hatch on the Driftwood Branch, where the air is literally buzzing with clouds of mayflies.

After the utter devastation of the June 30, 2006, train crash and lye spill, I would never have guessed that the Driftwood Branch would be harboring such hatches this soon.

Although it did experience a severe fish kill, the high pH conditions were not lethal to the stream's aquatic bug life.

In fact, it appeared to actually boost the stream's hatches. In the aftermath of the spill, with very few fish left in the stream to prey upon mayfly nymphs, last year's hatches were of epic proportions.

Residents of Driftwood and Castle Garden in southern Cameron County have been reporting mayfly hatches on the lower end of the Bennett Branch of the Sinnemahoning Creek the last couple of years.

For decades the Bennett Branch was virtually dead as a result of acid mine drainage originating in Clearfield and Elk counties.

Little by little, things have been improving. When the Hollywood acid mine drainage treatment plant opens in the next couple of years, fishermen will see dramatic improvements in this stream.

Here's another item of good news in the Sinnemahoning Creek watershed: Western Pennsylvania and New York Railroad has reached an agreement with the Fish Commission to allow fishermen to cross the railroad to access the Driftwood Branch.

With fishermen access denied last autumn, several of the most popular sections of the Driftwood Branch were taken off the stocking list this season. These sections will be stocked once again next spring.