Adult salmonfly cocktail, no olive.

As I posted a few times ago, my eldest son just went to college. He’s studying Biology, and in his current Zoology class he is tasked with finding and collecting five different phyla. When he told me that, I immediately started thinking about the entomology aspect of fishing the fly. I’ve always loved insects, and collected them in one form or another it seems. When I was about 12, that “hobby” was known enough that my great uncle used to send me interesting packages, including live praying mantis eggs in the mail.

Small stonefly nymphs, pickled.

When I started fly fishing, I was enthralled with “matching the hatch” and the art and science of that endeavor. I bought the typical books – the “Orvis Streamside Guide to Trout Stream Insects” and the like. I learned what a mayfly, stonefly and caddis larva looked like, and started counting tails on mayflies I saw while out on the water… and realized I’d completely gone off of the deep end. I was (am) ok with that.

I realized that I could never really “match the hatch,” and that the best I could do was approximate the estimated diet of my quarry. Sure, I could get a close size shape and color in my meager offerings, but I could never match it.

Continue reading My experience, or lack thereof, with entomology