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3. Montana Pseudo

> The area of the Missouri River I fish is downstream from Helena near a
> little burg called Craig. Any ideas as to what the tiny (hook size 22
> - 24) "pseudo" might be? Same for "pseudo" on the Big Horn, which lies
> about 70 miles southeast of Billings.


A friend emailed me with the question above. I guess Plauditus virilis or Iswaeon anoka. Any ideas from someone else?

Hi Konchu,

I have seen hatch charts that listed the former Baetis punctiventris as an important late-season species on the Big Horn. Given the historical difficulties/confusion regarding the identification of punctiventris, anoka, and relatives, I don't know how one could do more than to guess that it might be something in that neighborhood.

Hi Konchu,

Probably way too late to be of much help to your friend, but I have fished the stretch on the Missouri he mentioned many, many times. Mercifully, most of the fall fishing involves larger baetids. But in September, I have fished over some very challenging hatches of Diphetor hageni (Little Olive Quill) sized 20 & 22. "Pseudo" is a common name used by anglers of the region merely to describe tiny baetids so it isn't much help in determining which genus he may be referring to. He doesn't mention the distinctive bright green/chartreuse coloration that I. anoka is known for. Coupled with the fact that I don't remember seeing them there leads me to discount it as a possibility. Perhaps somebody with more experience on the river could confirm or refute this assumption.

Matt - Have you ever been there in the early fall or noticed those tiny glow bugs?

Sayfu - Have you spent much time on the Missouri?

Regards,

Kurt

Thanks, Kurt. I wouldn't have thought of Diphetor. Now, I'm trying to remember who it was who emailed me three years ago...a lot of proverbial water under the bridge since then...and a lot of other stuff, too.

Luke - Yeah, three years... Sorry about that. I didn't pick up on it at first, but his question is phrased such that it's pretty obvious he's talking about different bugs. I've never fished the Big Horn, but it is my understanding that I. anoka is important there. Their seemingly glowing chartreuse bodies are hard to confuse with other species, so the angling reports are probably accurate? At least that's my understanding.

Kurt

yeah, day-glo bugs. sometimes even a pale, institutional green. think old hospital walls.

Yes, I guess an equally intense but darker green on Midwestern waters like the Au Sable? I've never seen them personally, but the pictures look that way.

Ahhh...the good old days. Last time I saw a hospital with walls that color, I left without my tonsils. :)

What we talking about here boys??? Are we discussing the "incognito" fly? The fly that has had so many name changes, over the last 10 years, you would think it was an East German spy? Somehow "pseudo" seems appropriate don't you think?! My, "it's not just a Webster's, its a Merriam Webster's" dictionary defines "pseudo" as false, spurious..."Spurious" of falsified or erroneously attribted origin...of illegitimate birth...Would the "real" anoka please stand up?! :)

If color is your hang-up and your superstitious behavior has you by the you-know-whats...George Griffith's 14/0 green thread will do the trick for the body...The one that appears like early in the season grass green on a size 24 hook...How's that G? Now turn your head to the right and cough please!

Spence

My East German cousins used to call the Berliner Mauer "an anti-fascist rampart"...How's that for "real-speak"...On the 25th anniversary of the walls construction I saw a wonderful cartoon...It showed two Stasi guards in a tower on the wall sharing a smoke and taking a break and one turns to the other and said, "Twenty-five years and no ones broken in yet...I call that a success!" This just popped in my head after I came up with the image of our beloved "pseudo" anoka crossing the Glienicke bridge under an assumed name and the cover of darkness...passports from many places falling from his rucksack...

Spence: are you suggesting that the Iswaeon anoka that I pulled out of the water may have been the painted corpse of Plauditus punctiventris, planted there by rivals to thwart attempts to decode its DNA?

Luke...Thinking about Steve Jobs here...There are i-pads, i-phones, i-tunes...etc. One day we will have a hand held i-decoder or some such where we will be able to desolve the little critter in some solution and get an instant DNA id...It will then show us a few great photos of the bug taken by Ames, tell us something about its preferred habitat, the fly we should choose, current air temp, and a GPS location of where we took the sample. Then point out a local place for a pizza and a good micro-brew...:)

Luke...If it's you that creates this device, remember you heard it here first and to send Spence some "clip"...

By then Spence, we'll probably forswear such devices, preferring to use the arcane and outdated (but quite traditional) TroutNut forum to find out about such things. Some blasted machine may be able to provide the data, but never the banter.

You are right Kurt...These fantasies of the future I have are more like nightmares...If we ever get to that point, I'll finally break down and buy a cane rod and only toss North Country wingless wets along with Softhackle...I recently told an angling buddy, when he was playing around with his GPS, "one of these days you are going to really get lost in the woods and the batteries in that damn thing are going to be dead and you are going to be screwed..."

Spence

Get to fishin those soft hackles with a spey rod, and you can play with a number of those techy toys while it is swingin. Roll it out there 80 ft. plus, tuck that long rod under your arm, break out the toys, and wait for the big tug. If you can swing at the hips you can probably even mend your line!

Now there's a cast I've never seen in FFF's Master Caster training manual! :) The old hula-hoop mend...

When I was dating my wife we would end up on a dance floor somewhere before the night was over. If she was feeling the music, and maybe a few glasses of wine in to the evening, she had a second gear. Now if we could only get her to teach it to us, I bet we could do the hula-hoop mend so fast that fly would just camp out along a log for a very long time...Drag-free-float hell! It wouldn't even move downstream...I bet that fly hanging over Mr. Big would rattle his cage and he'd have to smack it! :)

Spence

Hey guys,

It's a little chewed, but I wanted to show the fly that worked pretty well on the Missouri. It is #22 eq. in size. The quill I used is more olive in appearance than the photo shows. I tried to color adjust, but only made things worse in other aspects.