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.
Shakeyfly on Oct 17, 2012October 17th, 2012, 3:18 pm EDT
This is a very amateur question... but do different species or families of caddisflies make their cases out of different materials? or do they all just use whats available to them?
Meaning when I do a search for brachycentrus, I noticed almost all the images are of the 4 sided wooden cases. Are the caddisflies that make their cases out of stones and pebbles a different subgenus/family/species?
Thanks for the input and information!
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad - A.K. Best
Catching fish is as incidental to fishing as making babies is to #$%&ing. ~William Humphrey
Taxon on Oct 17, 2012October 17th, 2012, 6:56 pm EDT
Shakeyfly-
The best categorization of caddisfly larval cases (which I have seen) appears as the row headings of a table in W. Patrick McCafferty's wonderful book, Aquatic Entomology:
The full table has a column for each of the different caddisfly families, but the row headings should provide you a feel for the variety of larval caddisfly case types. I believe that a given species of caddisfly tends to build the save type of cases, but expect there are probably numerous exceptions. With regard to Brachycentrus, as I recall, not all of the species build square cases, as some species build tubular cases.
Risenfly on Dec 18, 2012December 18th, 2012, 10:25 am EST
If you're trying to imitate these bugs then try using lead tape. You can form it a bit more than the lead wire to help get the box, or cylinder shape you want and then advance with your other materials.
www.risenfly.com
Fly reels, lines, boxes and accessories. Rods coming in 2014!