Category: Bugs

Bugs

Are you crazy for caddis?

It’s fun to turn over rocks and see what kinds of critters are lurking beneath them. This video is really good at showing the different types of creepy caddis out there–I love them! Plus it’s super helpful to know what kind of bug life is happening at any given moment on the stream. For SoCali streams, you can’t beat caddis imitations. Think green.

If you want to get deeper into the beloved caddis fly, here are a couple of excellent reads.

First is the classic “Caddisflies” by Gary LaFontaine. Gary used to hang out at Fisherman’s Spot decades ago and apparently was a really nice guy as well as being an obsessed researcher and writer. Written in 1981, Gary discovered the synthetic Antron held air bubbles, which could mimic a caddis pupa! Actually, he wrote about his Emergent Pupa pattern that “All the air bubbles clustered around the fly turn it into an attractor as well as an imitator, often making it even better than just a perfect copy.”

The guy was a star.

For a more approachable book with pics that will give you a glimpse into the different encasements mentioned in the video, check out “Bug Water” (2010) by Arlen Thomason. I love the opening paragraph:

“Bug water is a soggy place inhabited or visited by creepy crawly creatures we collectively, if imprecisely, call bugs.” Gotta love the alliteration!

See you on the river, Jim Burns

Bugs

‘Like insects waking to th’ advancing spring’
Trout Unlimited’s Bob Blankenship spotted this mayfly near the LA River. Spring is in the air. (Courtesy Bob Blankenship)
The mayfly has played a role throughout human history, appearing in the lower righthand corner of this famous Albrecht Dürer‘s engraving The Holy Family with the Mayfly, 1495. Lasting only a few hours, depending on the species, the mayfly symbolizes the transitoriness of life. (Courtesy National Gallery of Art)

In shoals the hours their constant numbers bring
Like insects waking to th’ advancing spring;
Which take their rise from grubs obscene that lie
In shallow pools, or thence ascend the sky:
Such are these base ephemeras, so born
To die before the next revolving morn.
— George Crabbe, “The Newspaper”, 1785

Mayflies are totally prehistoric, with their distinctive wing profile. More than 3,000 species make up the Ephemeroptera, a wonderful word I first read just recently in an old British tome about bugs on the water. If you have spent any time at your vise during the pandemic, I’ll bet you’ve tied more than a few dries, as well as imitations of the rest of their life cycle, which is mostly spent as a nymph.

See you on the water, Jim Burns