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 was surprisingly straightforward to identify. The lack of a sclerite at the base of the lateral hump narrows the field quite a bit, and the other options followed fairly obvious characteristics to Clostoeca, which only has one species, Clostoeca disjuncta.
Wbranch on Jul 24, 2007July 24th, 2007, 3:37 am EDT
Have any of the tiers here ever compared their success ratio with flies tied with and without gills? I'm not much of a nymph fisher anymore but will resort to that approach if it is obvious the riseforms are to subsurface life cycles. I've tied gills on larger hook sizes like #10 - #14 but it gets dicey on #16 - #18. I was wondering if ribbing on a nicely tapered abdomen wouldn't be enough to offer the appearance of gills.
I looked at the photo of the Dorothea nymph on the "Aquatic Insects" page and it appears to have distinct gills of a much lighter color than the abdomen. Any thoughts on this? Thanks in advance.