Lateral view of a Female Hexagenia limbata (Ephemeridae) (Hex) Mayfly Dun from the Namekagon River in Wisconsin

Hex Mayflies
Hexagenia limbata

The famous nocturnal Hex hatch of the Midwest (and a few other lucky locations) stirs to the surface mythically large brown trout that only touch streamers for the rest of the year.

This view of the pipeline, the Atigun River, and an impressive sunset/rise was one of my first views of the North Slope as I came through Atigun Pass in the middle of the night.

From the Atigun River in Alaska

Stream photos

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Neoleptophlebia Mayfly Nymph Neoleptophlebia Mayfly Nymph

Dorsal view of a Neoleptophlebia (Leptophlebiidae) Mayfly Nymph from the Yakima River in Washington

Some characteristics from the microscope images for the tentative species id: The postero-lateral projections are found only on segment 9, not segment 8. Based on the key in Jacobus et al. (2014), it appears to key to Neoleptophlebia adoptiva or Neoleptophlebia heteronea, same as this specimen with pretty different abdominal markings. However, distinguishing between those calls for comparing the lengths of the second and third segment of the labial palp, and this one (like the other one) only seems to have two segments. So I'm stuck on them both. It's likely that the fact that they're immature nymphs stymies identification in some important way.

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27" brown trout, my largest ever. It was the sub-dominant fish in its pool. After this, I hooked the bigger one, but I couldn't land it.

Troutnut is a project started in 2003 by salmonid ecologist Jason "Troutnut" Neuswanger to help anglers and fly tyers unabashedly embrace the entomological side of the sport. Learn more about Troutnut or support the project for an enhanced experience here.

Male Heptagenia culacantha Mayfly Spinner Pictures

This photo was provided by guide Eric Naguski along with the following comments, "I took this photo just upstream of Three Mile Island on the east shore of the Susquehanna River just below where the Swatara Creek enters. The Susquehanna is not an easy river to sample for bugs in my opinion. It is very large and pushes a lot of water. Especially in the spring when you would collect mature culacantha nymphs. And I don't believe that there are a ton of these Heptageniids around. Also the people who are doing most of the sampling like myself are doing so for water quality monitoring work so they only take the specimens down to genus-level taxonomy".

This mayfly was collected from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania on October 22nd, 2011 and added to Troutnut.com by Entoman on February 10th, 2012.

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References

Jacobus, L. M., Wiersema, N.A., and Webb, J.M. 2014. Identification of Far Northern and Western North American Mayfly Larvae (Insecta: Ephemeroptera), North of Mexico; Version 2. Joint Aquatic Science meeting, Portland, OR. Unpublished workshop manual. 1-176.