Fly Fishing for Trout
...is the greatest sport in the world. On any level it is an exciting encounter with nature. On the highest level, it is a chance to match wits not against a fish, but against the power of evolution itself to hone a creature's instinct for scrutiny to masterful levels. Coaxing a selective trout into taking your fly is the most satisfying challenge in fishing.
This site is both a scientific reference to help you catch more trout while fly fishing and a photographic tribute to our trout streams.
Aquatic Insects of American Trout StreamsFly fishing demands imitation of the look and behavior of the insects trout eat. This section holds 3711 close-up pictures of 748 flies and other trout foods, along with detailed hatching behavior and, soon, identification keys. Here's today's Specimen of the Day:
Baetisca laurentina (Armored Mayfly) Mayfly Nymph
View 3 PicturesI took a few group picture of a bunch of Baetisca laurentina nymphs to show the degree of individual variation in size, color, and shape that can occur within the same species in the same pool of the same river. This variation is one important reason why trout are forgiving of some small degree of variation in our imitations--the naturals themselves vary, too.
View 3 PicturesI took a few group picture of a bunch of Baetisca laurentina nymphs to show the degree of individual variation in size, color, and shape that can occur within the same species in the same pool of the same river. This variation is one important reason why trout are forgiving of some small degree of variation in our imitations--the naturals themselves vary, too.Region: Upper Midwest
Collected Mar 1, 2004
Added Jan 25, 2006
Common NamesTroutnut.com is organized by scientific "Latin" names, but you can also find the hatches you know by their local and fly fishing pattern names through easy-to-use cross-references:
Popular Gift Shop ProductsTo help pay the more than $1,000/year hosting bill for this site (I could buy how many fly rods for that?) I've used CafePress.com's printing services to create a store with t-shirts, mugs, calendars, and related gifts with a buggy fly fishing theme. Here are a few of the favorites:
Fly Fishing ForumsThe 2265 members of the Troutnut.com forums have made 10796 posts in 1525 topics. The "Integrated Boards" are partially built into other sections of the site.
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Articles & Miscellanea Fly fishing entomology is complicated business, and there's much still to be learned. Some of these articles cover the basics to help you get the most from this site, and others investigate more interesting and original questions.
Trout Stream Landscape and Fish PicturesThe allure of fly fishing for trout owes much to the pristine habitats that trout prefer, and such streams are also a gift to the landscape photographer. I've dabbled in that complementary hobby and put 849 of my pictures online. I've included pictures of trout, too, because there's no point making a fishing website without showing off some big fish!
Today's Picture of the Day:
Today's Picture of the Day:
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This little brookie is my dad's first trout on a fly. It came on opening day of the 2004 early season for trout in Wisconsin.
Underwater Pictures from Trout StreamsThe world of the trout is much more interesting from below the surface than from above looking down. These 226 underwater pictures are a peek into the secret lives of nymphs and other denizens of the riffly shallows.
Today's Underwater Picture of the Day:
Today's Underwater Picture of the Day:
This is my favorite picture of this school of brookies. Notice there are a few other fish mixed in, minnow family mostly. Near the bottom right there's a really big brookie. These trout were densely schooled up near a major spring source during the dead of winter.
Desktop BackgroundsMany of the best pictures from Troutnut.com have been specially trimmed and resized to fit the 17 most common monitor resolutions.
Video ClipsMotion is one of the most important things for fly fishermen and fly tyers to imitate, and one of the hardest to convey through still pictures. Most of these videos show the swimming motions of various aquatic invertebrates.
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