Tiny Baetis mayflies are perhaps the most commonly encountered and imitated by anglers on all American trout streams due to their great abundance, widespread distribution, and trout-friendly emergence habits.
This one seems to lead to Couplet 35 of the Key to Genera of Perlodidae Nymphs and the genus Isoperla, but I'm skeptical that's correct based on the general look. I need to get it under the microscope to review several choices in the key, and it'll probably end up a different Perlodidae.
Someone tell me (with understandable words) exactly what a mayfly spinner is!? I have always thought that it was a mayflies last life stage before it dies. But i have heard it's a separate mayfly from the actual; such as a march brown dun vs. a spinner, the mating stage, blah blah blah and more. Whats up here guys i want to know?
Entoman on May 13, 2012May 13th, 2012, 4:57 pm EDT
Hi Jess,
When mayflies hatch, the duns fly off the water to find a safe place to molt into fully mature adults or spinners. This usually takes a day or two. They then come back to mate and lay their eggs. They die soon after with many ending up in the water. The spinner looks just like the dun but usually shinier, perhaps a little darker, and with clearer wings. Caddis and stoneflies don't molt after hatching.
"It's not that I find fishing so important, it's just that I find all other endeavors of Man equally unimportant... And not nearly as much fun!" Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman
egg (laid in water)
nymph (molts several times as it grows in the water)
dun (a winged stage that leaves the water, but does not mate; this stage molts to form the next state)
spinner (the sexually mature stage that mates and lays eggs)