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.

Mount Deborah and Hess Mountains. Two of the greatest peaks of the Alaska Range rise behind the braided, glacial Susitna River. These massive mountains are 35 miles north of where I took this picture.

From the Susitna River in Alaska

Stream photos

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Glossosoma (Little Brown Short-horned Sedge) Caddisfly Larva Glossosoma (Little Brown Short-horned Sedge) Caddisfly Larva

Dorsal view of a Glossosoma (Glossosomatidae) (Little Brown Short-horned Sedge) Caddisfly Larva from the Yakima River in Washington

I caught this tiny larva without a case, but it seems to key pretty clearly to to Glossosomatidae. From there, the lack of sclerites on the mesonotum points to either Glossosoma or Anagapetus. Although it's difficult to see in a 2D image from the microscope, it's pretty clear in the live 3D view that the pronotum is only excised about 1/3 of its length to accommodate the forecoxa, not 2/3, which points to Glossosoma at Couplet 5 of the Key to Genera of Glossosomatidae Larvae.

11 Recently Added Photos

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.

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Male Strophopteryx fasciata (Mottled Willowfly) Stonefly Adult Pictures

This stonefly was collected from the Namekagon River in Wisconsin on March 18th, 2004 and added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on January 25th, 2006.

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Season Start

5 replies

Posted by Flybyknight on Dec 22, 2007

Last reply on Dec 24, 2007 by Martinlf

Strophopteryx fasciata is the second fly on my hatch chart; the first being Taeniopteryx navalis. Dreadful sounding names to be sure, conjuring up images of prehistoric monsters, but first seeing these benign little creatures bring me much happiness for the dawn of the fly fishing season has begun.

Schweibert discusses S. fascita on p. 64 in "Nymphs"

Often I see them in early March on snow banks and wonder how they can adapt to that. I fish my nymph ties on the bottom of fast riffles just before deep quiet pools, and have more success that way than with drys until about early May. At that time I sometimes have success fishing drys at the mouths of small feeder streams leading into the river.

Dick

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