Bug, and larvae questions.

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

So, I'm a mid 40's guy who grew up in St Louis City.   My parents didn't fish. I'm primarily self taught in the local ponds.   While there is alot of info on fly fishing not much on etymology.   I recently learned the word to be honest.   I've got a high school city education, no college.  The teachers they tried, but we just weren't that interested.     

I've been watching Brian Fleshing with Mad River Outfitters for a decent amount of time.  He has been promising an etymology selection of videos,  but hasn't posted any yet. 

What this is about, is a request for someone to direct me to a Bugs for Dummies class or something similar.   Maybe someone on here can break it down with the ultra basics.   I've learned what a "hatch" is, but for many years while reading on here, I was lost.   

Can someone show pictures to match names of common bugs? The life cycles of the species? And the flies to match them?   

I have tried to research,  but unless you know what your looking for specific to the species and the fly to match it, there's not much for beginners.   If I knew that info, I would not be asking on here.   

If you got this far, I appreciate it.  If you can help direct me, I'll appreciate it more.   

[ness]

I tried to quickly find an online resource that had it all in one place but didn't find anything.

I think if you Google mayfly, caddis, stonefly, dragonfly or midge life cycle and click on images, you'll get a decent idea of the various stages, names and a visual of aquatic insects. Associated names and pictures of flies that match the bug and the given stage will usually have a picture. Kinda like this:

mayfly life cycle will get you: nymph> emerger> dun> spinner> spent spinner

mayfly spinner fly pattern will get you pics of flies

 

 

 

[Ryan Miloshewski]

Walt Fulps has a great book "Trout are Stupid..and other uncomfortable truths" and he goes into it fairly well. I have it. I can lend it to you in a couple weeks. I know some, but @dpitt's son is an entomology PhD so I think he can probably get something digestible from him

[fishinwrench]

Let me just say that while it's all interesting, and kinda fun to know when you're in a riffle looking at the bottoms of rocks......  it's also basically useless information when it truly comes to choosing and tying flys, & catching fish. 

Having that education can actually be detrimental, in the sense that you'll often try to overthink many situations. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

2 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Let me just say that while it's all interesting, and kinda fun to know when you're in a riffle looking at the bottoms of rocks......  it's also basically useless information when it truly comes to choosing and tying flys, & catching fish. 

Having that education can actually be detrimental, in the sense that you'll often try to overthink many situations. 

Exactly.  For trout, egg and scud.  😃

[jdmidwest]

Flyfishing was a sport for elite, historically.  The elite were well educated and had the luxury of time on their hands to study.

I am a self taught purist.  I started the hobby in the early 90's when it became cool again.  I had a few mentors of the early bamboo age to work with.  I have a library of books and have read many methods.  I have studied the old ways and tied the life cycles.  It has been very interesting.  But some of the flies I have created are from my observations. 

Trout will hit a chartreuse strike indicator while ignoring the perfectly made fly to match the hatch, so I created a foam fly and cleaned up.

Hatchery trout feed on brown pellets, so I created my brown bead head nymph.

For some reason, carp like a yellow and red wet fly, and goggle eyes like them too.

A gold bead on a hook with some red thread and pearl/gold sparkle fiber make a minnow imitation to take any kind of fish.  Killer streamer.

But my boxes are full of many patterns, and sometimes they will catch a fish when others fail.

 

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

3 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Exactly.  For trout, egg and scud.  😃

Or night crawlers and redworms.   I just want to understand what a (insert bug here) is.  What is a Sulphur, or a crackle back?  When do certain things happen to the stream? 

 

When in high school,  I really wanted to study marine biology,  and micro biology.   But, life happened and I never did.  I may be preparing for the mid life swing.  I'm just wanting more from my fishing trips.   

[Al Agnew]

There probably aren't any real shortcuts to learning the different aquatic insects, their life cycles, etc.  If you're interested enough in it, you can spend a lot of time researching the whole subject.  But the thing is, you don't NEED to learn it all quickly.  You don't need to be an expert of the bugs trout eat to catch trout.  There are many things about streams and stream denizens and the fish you catch in streams that I'm vitally interested in.  But the bugs aren't all that important to me beyond the basics.  When you're fishing for trout, most nymphs you could fish with are interchangeable.  Dry flies...try to see what they are rising to, and if you can't figure it out, just try something generic like an Adams and see what happens. If they aren't rising and you still want to see if you can catch something on a dry fly, try an attractor pattern like a Royal Wulff, or else try a terrestrial like an ant or grasshopper imitation.  The other evening I went down to the river next to the house.  There were some smallish trout rising in a smooth current area, and although caddis flies were flitting around, there were none on the water.  I had and still have no idea what those trout were rising to.  But I tied on a smallish Stimulator, figuring it was a generic pattern that could be a hopper imitation.  Promptly caught three of the risers before a thunderstorm got too close and I had to retreat to the house.  A couple evenings later, I went back down to the same spot.  More fish rising.  Nothing that I could see that they were eating.  Put on the Stimulator again.  Got several half-hearted takes on it, didn't hook any of them.  Ya just never know.  

 

[tjm]

I spent a lot of hours in the City Library back in the '70s and memorized a lot bug names and then some grad student did a research paper and changed all the names and even changed the families the bugs belonged to, and I'm pretty sure that's happened again since then, point being that entomology as such isn't going to be constant. Every crop of grad students can and will rewrite it all. I believe that I've finely managed to forget most of those bug names. One book that was small enough to carry on the water and covered most of the mayflies was Art Flick's "Streamside Guide to Naturals and Their Imitations" which has since been revised as "new"  and may be available from your local library.   

For simple insect study that may interest you try Troutnut https://www.troutnut.com/hatches he has about the best website as far as trout related bugs go. You can learn about mayflies, caddis, and stoneflies with good images of most. 

the terms like 'sulfur '  "March Brown" "Blue wing Olive" are kinda vague terms for the patterns we use to imitate some types of insects and are also used to roughly designate the insects being imitated. I say vague because the terms often apply to more than one species of insect or more than one type of imitation. Sulfur generally means "yellow colored"  and Blue Wing Olives/BWO  can have  gray wings and gray bodies to my eye although the name suggests pale blue wings and olive body. "Crackleback" is the name of a St. Louis  fly pattern that is based the old Palmer style flies sometimes called "woolly worms".  It is confused on whether it wants to be a dry fly that is fished underwater or a wet fly that is fished as a dry. A web search of each term with 'fly fishing' included in the search bar should find lots of explanations. 

You can take a handful of rather generic Catskill or parachute dry flies, to represent the adult mayflies or "Duns" and something like an Elk Hair Caddis/EHC to represent all the "sedges" or caddis flies and basic nymphs like the Pheasant Tail, sparse woolly bugger and the Hare's Ear/GRHE  to represent most larvae, along with a marabou leech or two and catch fish just about anywhere and even if the imitation isn't a hatch match, if it is the right size and delivered to the right spot it will often catch a "selective" trout.  So intimate knowledge of the insects isn't necessary for  fly fishing. 

As  to hatches, they are a lot more important in places that I have never fished than they are in places that I have fished. I've read many a tale about needing perfect matches,  of millions of insects and hatches that lasted hours, but my experience runs more like a couple hundred insects sporadically hatching over a hour and the fish paying only mild attention to them. I guess that in my ~50 years of fly rod fishing I've just been very lucky to never have encountered a single large hatch, although I've seen hundreds of smallish hatches. I don't recall a time when my fly actually matched the hatch either but I always managed to find a stupid fish or two. 

[dpitt]

6 hours ago, Ryan Miloshewski said:

Walt Fulps has a great book "Trout are Stupid..and other uncomfortable truths" and he goes into it fairly well. I have it. I can lend it to you in a couple weeks. I know some, but @dpitt's son is an entomology PhD so I think he can probably get something digestible from him

Yes, he became an Entomologist because of fly fishing, we'd go fishing I would look up and he became more interested in turning rocks over and beating the trees for bugs.   It can get really technical, but understanding the basics lifecycle of aquatic insects can be helpful when you are checking out new water, so when you drop into the fly shop and get some bugs, you'll now how to fish them.  That said the basic lifecycles are necessary for presentation purposes, 

Here's a brief description, hope it helps, sorry if it too simple

      Basic Lifecycle for - Caddis, Mayfly, Midge, Stonefly (They differ a little but, for fly fishing doen't really matter, in my opinion)

      Microsopic eggs on the bottom - No patterns to small

       Become Larva -  Blood worms, rock worm patterns, prince nymphs,, many patterns (Mayflies and Stoneflies, don't have Larva stage (Incomplete Metaphors-is, ooh  fancy technical word) fish on bottom with indicator.

       Nymph/Pupae, start rising to top.(suspend in water column or bottom) , or crawling out of the water - Bead head zebra midges, Pheasant tails, prince nymphs, there are many patterns, some have tails, legs, etc... trout can't count, so really I think size and color are key. For instance, I believe a bead zebra midge fished with a tail at Taney, which I don't believe has prolific Mayfly hatches, but the Nymphs have tails would work to represent a midge.  

      Adults the Pupua has risen to top of the water or crawl out on a tree, and break out of there wings, hang a bit to dry out, trout pound them, then fly away,  have insect sex and die, eggs drop back and float to bottom cycle repeats.  -- These are your dry fly's no indicator, there are many patterns and they don't usually have to be anatomically correct, the right sized stimulator can make trout think it's a cluster of adult midges, caddis, etc.. not always, but sometimes. It's probably how the trout see the hackle dimple the water from below, but who knows.

This was super generalized and simple  but hope it provides the basic framework on how to present  flies.  Also, turn over some rocks in any body of water and you will certainly see some kind of larva or nymphs,  If you want to get fancy you can a dip net , stand above it with the net basket below you and down in the water, kick your feet around to move gravel and rocks and you won't believe how many critters you will find. Also, the fisherman below you will be happy

Taneycomo has mostly midges for aquatic insects, so you can fish Larva patterns on the bottom and bead head zebra midges on the bottom when the water is running,  when off, bead head midges suspended in the water column does really well, the dynamic is size and color,  just have to play around, honestly I have not spent a ton of time fishing adult presentations at Taney (not usually the best percentage way but it is the most fun), the fish will go fairly crazy eating and sipping them off the surface, but does not seem to be as crazy as other waters.  When you see them kind of just sipping or getting mouthful on the surface I think they are eating the midges in the transition stage from pupae to adult. 

Again, sorry for the simple stream of consciousness. 

I Attached a book  cover that I liked has a lot of information, but presented in an easy to read way.