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Lateral view of a Male Baetis (Baetidae) (Blue-Winged Olive) Mayfly Dun from Mystery Creek #43 in New York
Blue-winged Olives
Baetis

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.

Case view of a Pycnopsyche guttifera (Limnephilidae) (Great Autumn Brown Sedge) Caddisfly Larva from the Yakima River in Washington
It's only barely visible in one of my pictures, but I confirmed under the microscope that this one has a prosternal horn and the antennae are mid-way between the eyes and front of the head capsule.

I'm calling this one Pycnopsyche, but it's a bit perplexing. It seems to key definitively to at least Couplet 8 of the Key to Genera of Limnephilidae Larvae. That narrows it down to three genera, and the case seems wrong for the other two. The case looks right for Pycnopsyche, and it fits one of the key characteristics: "Abdominal sternum II without chloride epithelium and abdominal segment IX with only single seta on each side of dorsal sclerite." However, the characteristic "metanotal sa1 sclerites not fused, although often contiguous" does not seem to fit well. Those sclerites sure look fused to me, although I can make out a thin groove in the touching halves in the anterior half under the microscope. Perhaps this is a regional variation.

The only species of Pycnopsyche documented in Washington state is Pycnopsyche guttifera, and the colors and markings around the head of this specimen seem to match very well a specimen of that species from Massachusetts on Bugguide. So I am placing it in that species for now.

Whatever species this is, I photographed another specimen of seemingly the same species from the same spot a couple months later.
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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Report at a Glance

General RegionWest Yellowstone, MT
Dates Fished9/13 - 9/19/2014
Time of Dayall day
Fish CaughtRainbows & brown trout
Conditions & Hatcheswarm, sunny most of the time... BWOs, Callibaetis spinners, White Miller caddis, fly ants, bright green-bodied mayfly, small dark brown caddis

Details and Discussion

Wiflyfisher
Wiflyfisher's profile picture
Wisconsin

Posts: 622
Wiflyfisher on Sep 28, 2014September 28th, 2014, 8:26 am EDT
Sorry, to lazy to retype it.. full story is here on my blog...

http://flypatternsfortrout.com/2014/09/28/fly-fishing-west-yellowstone-september/

Oldredbarn
Oldredbarn's profile picture
Novi, MI

Posts: 2600
Oldredbarn on Sep 28, 2014September 28th, 2014, 1:20 pm EDT
John,

Wonderful! Glad to see you guys had such a great time...Hard not to out there, eh?!

Was that thunder in that vid on the Firehole?

I really want to visit sometime closer to Fall myself. I always seem to end up there at the end of July-August...Latest being just before Labor Day in 2004.

Got to love Jim's breakfast! This last time out we fished one night in that run below the dam and just above Jim's place.

What's not to love about the Madison?! It is a great place to fish.

Thanks for the report.

Spence
"Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively

"Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood

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