Podcasts about baetis

Hey Everyone,  Here are the pictures and patterns that are relevant to Part 1 on of metamorphosis - focusing in incomplete metamorphosis and the critters that do that.  (Primarily mayflies, stoneflies and dragon and damselflies).  First, though, as promised in the podcast, here is what a silverfish looks like.  A little worse for wear - he's (or she) has been pickled for 8 years, so it's lost a lot of its color.  Normally, they are a very silver color - hence the name.   In some ways you may say this looks a little like a mayfly nymph.   In real life, looking at them, you would not mistake them as being different.  The next thing I wanted to do is give you a step by step on tying a gold ribbed possum ear.  American Opossum is a highly under used fly tying material, in my humble opinion.  It has a wonderful transluscence.  Here is a nice discussion on uses:   https://flymphforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10529&sid=1825d397c1ad8d45a10d56ac80e5e48b But what I want to talk about is my pattern that represents the light colored stage of aquatic insects while their exoskeleton is hardening.  Entomologists call this a teneral stage.   Here is a picture of the outcome - a Gold Ribbed Possum Ear - obviously a joke, as possums don't have any fur on their ears, and inappropriately abbreviated as GROPE.  First step is finding yourself a possum mask - like this.   Where the question becomes, where do you get one?  My brother was a trapper in Kansas so I was well supplied.  When I run out I'll likely order from Moscow Hide and Fur.   Use any nymph hook you prefer.  And I use a light or white thread.    Trim off a pile of guard hairs to make the tail and tie that in.  And tire in the gold wire.  Of course, my tying desk is a mess, so I grabbed the silver.  Go figger Here is the cool part.  Get yourself a dubbing rake.  These are the slickest most under appreciated fly tying tool.   Selene used to carry them in her fly shop, I presume she still does or can order them: Selene's Fly Shop.  The ones she carried are much nicer than this one.   All you do is rake it across your material and you get a nice pile of dubbing - with guard hairs mixed in!   Dub in your abdomen, wrap up your wire rib.  For a wing case I use any white feather. I generally like something with some patterning - like a turkey wing quill.   Obviously, you use the white sections of the quill.  Spray with artists' fixative (smells much better than Aqua Net).  I'm in no way affiliated with this brand. I'm sure they all work fine and smell better than Aquanet.  I've been around pig farms in rural Wisconsin that smelled better than Aquanet.   And tie in a slip to make a wing case.   Finish up your thorax with more Opossum Mask, fold over your wing case and tie a nice neat head.  Then, use dubbing brush to brush out all those great guard hairs to make it nice and buggy.  Again, here is what it looks like:   Pretty cool, huh?  OK, next I want to show you some exuvia (or shed skins) from some aquatic insects that have left the water to molt into their adult terrestrial form.   This is a cool pic, in that not only does it show a golden stone exuvia, but if you look around it, you will see multiple mayfly exuvia - including one on the stonefly!   These are probably mayfly duns molting into spinners. But still pretty cool.  And then here is a dragonfly exuvia.  I've mentioned this before - but check out those white fibers - those are the chitin lined tracheae - or breathing tubes.  When they molt, the turn inside out, like socks when you take them off.  We'll see some more examples of that shortly.  Ah, then I started talking about the work I'm doing looking at the diet of Aroostook County Brook Trout.  Check this out - this is a 2 1/2" crayfish I pulled out of the stomach of a 13" trout.  That is the equivalent of me swallowing a lobster whole.  I certainly can gobble up a full lobster, but I do have to admit, I don't eat it whole - no matter how much I'd like to be a native Mainer.  Note how it looks like a cooked lobster.  That is because there are proteins in the shell/exoskeleton that, while normally green or brown, unravel or become denatured when exposed to heat or acid.  Specifically, the protein is called crustacyanin.  When cooked, or exposed to any denaturing agent (like acid in you stomach) it exposes the astaxanthin which is a red color.  You may be most familiar with this concept of protein denaturization when you cook an egg white.  Normally clear, but when cooked and denatured, it turns white.  You can also "cook" an egg white with vinegar.  Cool, huh?  Somewhere along the line I said I'd post a picture of what the darkened wings look like on a nymph before it is going to hatch. Here is one on a Baetis nymph:  Here is a cool close up picture showing the pattern on those wing pads - which I always think is so cool.    Ok, next I'm going to post a series of pictures showing a dragonfly nymph molting.   OK, here the nymph has just begun to molt.  Note the white fibers of the trachea pulling out.  Also note how the wings are not expanded.  Here you can see how the insect has successfully extracted itself from it's old exoskeleton.  The wings are starting to expand, but note how the abdomen does not look like a normal dragonfly abdomen.  It has yet to stretch out and force the hemolymph (kind of like blood) into the wings.   Another view, a little bit further along in the process.  The wings are starting to expand.  Note how they are held over their back more like a mayfly, rather than a dragonfly.   This next video will show an incredible sequence of a dragonfly nymph crawling up the rock, while the dragonfly we've seen photographs of above, completes its molt and flies off - note how it's wings spread out and dry for a bit before it dries off.  Also note it's color.  That is not it's final color - it is in a teneral stage - where it's exoskeleton hasn't hardened completely and the final color hasn't developed.   https://traffic.libsyn.com/forcedn/anglersentomology/IMG_0156.mp4 I think that is a really cool series of pics and a video.  It is kind of a let down of following that up with just a fly pattern I like, but there you go:  Here is my version of an Assam Dragon - which is a great simple fly.  This one is tied with a strip of red squirrel body fur.  It is out of my working box - so as usual, those are the rejects - and it looks like the soft hackle neck/legs are missing.  Either torn off by a trout, or more likely, I forgot to put it on, which is why it is in my working box.  Doi.     Hook: Wetfly size 12 or 10 Body: A palmered strip of mole skin or red squirrel skin. Hackle: A few turns of an apopriately colored hen hackle. Eyes:  Originally bead chain painted black.  You can also use weighted dumb bell eyes.   and then here is my favorite imitation of a damselfly nymph - Again, very simple:  Tail and abdomen.  Floss - of the appropriate color - olive, tan or dark brown Ribbing: Gold wire if you want Wing case - ribbing wrapped to the eye and then folded back like legs, but on top.  Eyes - little plastic ones or bead chain, or in this example, nuttin.  That's it, and talk to you next time!       

This week Aaron Reed talks with fly angler and shop owner Chris Johnson of Living Waters fly shop in Round Rock, Texas.  00:00 Intro 00:58 Shoutout to Real Ale Brewing and Real Spirits Distilling (realalebrewing.com) 01:32 Shoutout to Duck Camp (duckcamp.com). 02:37 Thanks to our underwriter, The Local Angler series, and Imbrifex Books (thelocalangler.com) 03:25 We join Chris in his office at Living Waters Fly Fishing. 04:00 Chris and Aaron discuss the Baetis hatch at Luna’s Tacos that afternoon. 05:00 We gotta mention Round Rock Donuts (roundrockdonuts.com) 05:43 Chris stands in line so we don’t have to. 07:30 We discuss the guide service and Chris’s guide line-up. Chris inadvertently gives away his (shockingly young) age. 09:30 Shoutout to OG Texas freshwater guide Marcus Rodriguez. 11:58 We take a Chaco’s detour (chacos.com) 13:10 We introduce the amazing shop staff, all our friends. 15:53 The youngest member of the staff, and Aaron’s small-world connection to the Pafk family. 19:18 Fly fishing as a lifetime sport; does that contribute to the notable “small world” phenomenon we often remark upon? 22:25 By the way, most of the best flies in the shop were designed by people who work (or worked) there. 22:40 Shoutout to Matt Bennett at FlyGeek.net. 23:15 Walk through the doors of LWFF, and you’re family. 24:00 Got any crickets? 24:29 The first shop was a reclaimed cat shelter. 26:50 What’s a “creek shop,” and why is Living Waters Fly Fishing one of them? 28:44 “I was in college and found I couldn’t major in fishing, and that was a real downer.” 34:25 We take a quick Tenkara detour. 35:00 The pandemic year and the shop. Aaron means “March of 2020,” natch. 38:10 How the biggest year began. 40:45 Williamson County declares fly fishing “essential.” 44:20 Building community: weekly fly-tying, and monthly “Intro to Fly Fishing” classes. 45:22 Aaron mispronounces guide Pat Vanek’s last name. Look for Pat at Bosque Valley Fly Fishing. 46:50 Why Chris doesn’t offer free beer at the shop. (Hint: It’s not because he is opposed to a good craft beer.” 51:40 So how did the pandemic year work out for Living Waters? 52:40 The importance of not cutting pre-season orders. 53:45 “Head and shoulders, our best year ever.” 53:49 “We invented ‘social distancing.’” 55:35 “It was a bigger boom than the movie.” (“The movie,” of course, is “A River Runs Through It.”) 56:25 Chris and Aaron discuss home waters and the Central Texas fisheries. 1:00:15 Just how much public water is there in Texas? Aaron runs down the numbers. 1:01:20 Chris is a not-so-closet birder. 1:02:18 Population and development pressures on Central Texas waters, especially Brushy Creek. 1:03:08 “The fight is now over water.” 1:04:10 “All water is connected.” 1:05:16 Last year’s big conservation win on Brushy Creek. 1:07:00 The coming Tesla invasion. 1:09:00 Aaron grasps for an analogy, and inadvertently places Black’s BBQ in Luling (it’s in Lockhart, y’all). 1:09:58 New stickuhs in Chris’s shop, including two natives from Mike Williams. 1:10:37 How the Rio Grande cichlids fared in the historic deep freeze we experienced this year. 1:15:02 Check out the new “Fly Fish the Republic” sticker from our friend Nate Karnes at Remedy Provisions (remedyprovisions.com). That’s the first flag of the Republic, designed by Tejano patriot Lorenzo de Zavala in 1836. 1:16:45 What does “Fly Fish the Republic” mean, anyway? 1:19:00 #flyfishtherepublic actually raises money for native fish conservation within the borders of the historic Republic of Texas (that included some fishy parts of present-day New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming). 1:19:30 What are the similarities between Guadalupe bass and Rio Grande cutthroat, and what can fishing about the former teaches you about the latter? 1:21:35 Here’s a tip: try a size 14 damsel nymph for big Guads. 1:24:20 Where to find Living Waters Fly Fishing in person and online. 1:25:17 Oh yeah, what brands does Living Waters Fly Fishing carry? 1:26:26 Central Texas is Scientific Anglers country. (scientificanglers.com) 1:27:30 Tearful goodbyes. 1:29:02 A final tip: right now, Brushy is on fire from the Dell Diamond west through town. Go fishing! http://livingwatersflyfishing.com/ https://remedyprovisions.com/ https://realalebrewing.com/ https://duckcamp.com/ https://thelocalangler.com/

Peter Scorzetti catches up with renowned angler, Craig Mathews, to talk about one of Yellowstone country's most important hatches. Tune in to hear Craig cover the basics of fishing this emergence as well as a few tricks he's learned over the years.

To continue our celebration of flies with the Giant Fly Sale, this week I have a long talk with Tim Flagler of Tightline Productions, maker of the finest tying videos on the web. This is always one of the most eagerly awaited podcasts of the year, and it’s also one I look forward to because I enjoy talking to Tim about fly tying and always learn so much from him. I get a lot of questions about material substitutions, so what Tim and I decided to do was to take six popular flies, dissect them material by material, and recommend our favorite substitutes for each step. Here are the flies we include: Parachute Adams Clouser Minnow Prince Nymph Woolly Bugger Tunghead Zebra Midge Drunk & Disorderly Deceiver (we had to put one complicated pattern in there) In The Fly Box this week, we have the following questions: How do I keep split shot from sliding on my small diameter tippet Why do I keep losing fish? How do I get a tiny Baetis nymph deep? When is an indicator better than a Euro nymphing rig? What is a Cuda Tube? How do feeder streams affect fishing in a lake? What rod would be best for smaller streams in the East? Why could I not catch trout on a Zebra midge when there were midges all over the water later in the day? A terrific suggestion from a listener on how to turn a landing net into an insect seine by using panty hose How should I fish scuds in a spring creek? What is meant by “big streamers” as opposed to “small or medium streamers” and what line sizes work best with them.

The baetis hatch is Tom's favorite and in this podcast he shares his tips for making the most of it. Join us on Facebook at www.orvis.com/facebook to leave us suggestions for future podcasts, or drop us a line at podcast@orvis.com. Subscribe to this podcast at www.orvis.com/podcast Download the podcast directly at: http://media.libsyn.com/media/orvisffguide/The_Orvis_Fly_Fishing_Guide_Podcast_EP31.mp3