This wild-looking little thing completely puzzled me. At first I was thinking beetle or month larva, until I got a look at the pictures on the computer screen. I made a couple of incorrect guesses before entomologist Greg Courtney pointed me in the right direction with Psychodidae. He suggested a possible genus of Thornburghiella, but could not rule out some other members of the tribe Pericomini.
This is the largest common species of Baetis on our trout streams, and it can hatch in incredible numbers, drawing impressive rises of selective trout.
Anglers may have read in books about Baetis hiemalis, which is now a synonym of Baetis brunneicolor. It appears to have been a name for the fall-hatching brood of this species, which was reported to prefer slow water and weedy habitat instead of the gravelly riffles of the early summer brood.