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 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.
Entoman on Aug 15, 2012August 15th, 2012, 8:45 pm EDT
Yeah, I can't make them out either, but my eyes are pretty blurry this time of night... The antennae are very hard to make out at any time though, usually looking like a tiny pale dot next to the anterior margin of the eye. There's not much to 'em. In a good microscope photo in lateral view, they look like the plunger end of a very tiny retractable ball point pen to me. For me, the best (and easiest way) to identify them is by their having lateral humps on the first abdominal segment while lacking a dorsal hump. Others either have all three or lack them entirely and the cases are different.
"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