On-stream insect photos from the Namekagon River
Giant
Hexagenia limbata spinners leave ghostly trails around the glow of a full moon.
A dense cloud of extremely tiny flies hovers close over the river.
Large stonefly nymphs sometimes crawl quite far from the water before emerging. This empty case is from a nymph that hatched about 5 feet up in a tree 10 feet from the river.
This is the skin a brown drake dun shed when it molted into a spinner. Many of these were on the surface one afternoon, having been blown in after the flies molted on overhanging alders. They were our most noticeable sign of an intense brown drake hatch the previous night and a spinner fall to come.
Two
Ephemera simulans (Brown Drake) spinners hang from tree leaves along the river. It's worthwhile to look for these in afternoons during the Brown Drake hatch, because their presence may reveal the best place to fish in the evening.
Always keep an eye on your waders for sign of caddisflies, both live adults and fresh eggs. Both are a sign that the adults are diving to lay their eggs on underwater objects (like your leg), and that means a diving caddis pattern (I like LaFontaine's) is probably the best fly to use.
Start a Discussion of the Namekagon River:
You must
log in at the top of the page to post. If you haven't registered yet, it's this easy: