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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.

Dorsal view of a Skwala (Perlodidae) (Large Springfly) Stonefly Nymph from the Yakima River in Washington
This Skwala nymph still has a couple months left to go before hatching, but it's still a good representative of its species, which was extremely abundant in my sample for a stonefly of this size. It's obvious why the Yakima is known for its Skwala hatch.
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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This topic is about the Insect Order Trichoptera

Some say caddisflies are even more important than mayflies, and they are probably right. The angling world has taken a while to come to terms with this blasphemy. Caddis imitations are close to receiving their fare share of time on the end of the tippet, but too many anglers still assume all caddisflies are pretty much the same.

Caddis species actually provide as much incentive to learn their specifics as the mayflies do. There is just as much variety in their emergence and egg-laying behaviors, and as many patterns and techniques are needed to match them. Anglers are hampered only by the relative lack of information about caddisfly behavior and identification.

Example specimens

Deke
Posts: 4
Deke on Aug 20, 2009August 20th, 2009, 1:22 pm EDT
i was fossil hunting and came across these i live in west tn,i tohught it was a fossil at first then relized its really small pebbles and relized it was some sort of a cacoon ,wondering what can build this i put them in my aquarium for the night as they are crawling ill put them back tommorow.very interesting creatures i have never seen anyhting like this in my creek all my life thought i was on a endagered species hehe.and im pretty sure this is what they are now that i found your site but what is odd is there is no trout in my creek its on the small size and they was only 3 under this rock each about a inch long. they are not to my knowledge at all in the main creek with crawfish's and minnow's i dont have no plankton for them to eat i threw grass in there and spring water it probably has some and a piece of a sardine know that i know they can fly i do not wish to keep them also hehe but they are cute"in a manly way"
Sayfu
Posts: 560
Sayfu on Aug 9, 2012August 9th, 2012, 12:38 pm EDT

My creeks were much bigger than that when I'd skitter my dicosmoecis imitation across current on a long line, and have the big swirl of a Fall Summer-run steelhead explode on it. What a heart stopper. Vivid memories of those days fishing that caddis on a low water, West Coast river...not much matches it in all of freshwater fly fishing.

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