Header image
Enter a name
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.

Dorsal view of a Ephemerella mucronata (Ephemerellidae) Mayfly Nymph from the Yakima River in Washington
This is an interesting one. Following the keys in Merritt R.W., Cummins, K.W., and Berg, M.B. (2019) and Jacobus et al. (2014), it keys clearly to Ephemerella. Jacobus et al provide a key to species, but some of the characteristics are tricky to interpret without illustrations. If I didn't make any mistakes, this one keys to Ephemerella mucronata, which has not previously been reported any closer to here than Montana and Alberta. The main character seems to fit well: "Abdominal terga with prominent, paired, subparallel, spiculate ridges." Several illustrations or descriptions of this holarctic species from the US and Europe seem to match, including the body length, tarsal claws and denticles, labial palp, and gill shapes. These sources include including Richard Allen's original description of this species in North America under the now-defunct name E. moffatae in Allen RK (1977) and the figures in this description of the species in Italy.
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.
Troutnut is a project started in 2003 by salmonid ecologist Jason "Troutnut" Neuswanger to help anglers and fly tyers unabashedly embrace the entomological side of the sport. Learn more about Troutnut or support the project for an enhanced experience here.

Landscape & scenery photos from Eddy Creek

A couple Canada geese take off from the scenic but nasty, swampy, and apparently troutless headwaters of a small, beaver-ravaged stream.

From Eddy Creek in Wisconsin
What was once an excellent trout stream now meanders through a swamp as a shallow, silty beaver pond.  The ground is anything but firm, and I was insane to try to navigate it on foot.

From Eddy Creek in Wisconsin
A beaver swims around the swampy corpse of a trout stream his species destroyed, with a little help from ours.

From Eddy Creek in Wisconsin

Underwater photos from Eddy Creek

This stickleback lost fear of the camera after I held it still long enough in the icy water.
Here a stickleback investigates a little piece of grass in the slack water of a beaver pond on a remote stream rumored to have been great for brook trout at one time.  It's now a swampy hellhole ruined by silt-trapping beaver dams, and I found no trout.  Wading it in early April, when the ground was only half-frozen, was a nightmare.

References

Troutnut.com is copyright © 2004-2024 (email Jason). privacy policy