1. Troutnut Forum
›
2. Fly Fishing
›
3. Speaking of Entomology...

Found the following article on the web while doing a little research. I've been forced into service at my fly fishing club to teach a little bug stuff. I am trying to put together a power point that we can use at all the different schools we do through out the year. There is even a Boy Scout Merit Badge session...

Anyway. Found this and thought some may find it interesting...I never knew that Patrick McCafferty fished?! :)

This appeared in July/August American Angler mag.

http://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/LandWater/Riverwatch/EntomologyContents/A200YearQuest.pdf


Spence

Yes, and you can tell from his writing that he gets it. His book Aquatic Entomology is full of angling applications of the science. It is at the top of Taxon's list of book recommendations for those anglers serious about learning fishing applicable entomology. I agree with him.

That article is from back before 2000. It is something of a popular companion piece to his "Gentle Quest" scholarly article, published in the Proceedings of a mayfly meeting, in which he summaried over 200 years of mayfly systematics research in North America. It is difficult for me to believe these articles are over 15 years old.

There are actually many things people don't realize about Dr. McCafferty. His being something of a renaissance man is one of them.

Luke,

Good to hear from you and thanks for the link to the article.

The anecdotes in it are interesting. The mention of loosing specimens in the Chicago fire, the note about the paper at the American Philosophical Society in 1802 and Jefferson being the president of the APS at the time. Interesting stuff.

I had the chance a couple weeks back to visit the Nat History Museum in Ann Arbor. I have a nephew that has shown an interest in birding. Well, hanging with uncle Spence usually includes a lunch out somewhere, so its difficult to pinpoint his motivation...If you know what I mean. He's 12 and a young mans stomach can be incharge at that age.

The junior birding club of the Detroit Audubon Society had an outing at the museum and I got to tag along. There are hundreds of cabinets with drawers just full of bird specimens.

They had some examples laided out on a large work table for us to check out. We even got a peek in a cabinet with extinct birds in it. A sobering moment for sure...Especially since their extinction was human related for the most part.

We even got to watch as a grad student was sewing up a specimen...An immature Black-crowned Night Heron. She walked us through the process and its remarkable how long some of these specimens last. They have some from the 1800's.

The curator gave me a tour of the Wilson Ornithological Society's library housed there in the Zoology Dept at the museum. Incredible! Something like 3,000 books, 4,800 bound journal volumes, and 63,000 reprints...They get jounals there from all around the world printed in other languages.

Anyway. After getting a chance to tour this place and having not heard from you in awhile I was afraid we had lost you to a similar "backroom" other there where you hide out. :) If someone were to make sure I ate once in a while I could see myself getting lost in that library myself.

I use to go there as an elementary school student on field trips in the 60's. The place had a familiar feel to it, but the memory I had as a youngster was that they had, back then, an aquarium with a Gila monster in it? Go figure?! :)

Thanks again...I'm doing a little ento thing for our club and that info will come in handy.

Spence

Wow. Neat stuff guys. Thanks, Spence.

Interesting. Thanks, Spence.