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I don't know about you, but my 12 years of bliss in the PNW were largely made so by the presence of a lowly little moth-like creature called the giant october caddis. Pteranarcus helped out a lot too, especially in July, but the real heydays came when the sedge cycle got underway.
Each late summer morning that I got to fish, the rocks would be lined with pink shucks. I've gone as far as opening up the cases to make sure they were the source of all the shuck shedding sedges and sure enough the larvae were all in various stages of development from white featureless grub to orange martian bodies to wiggly adult inside the protective membrane.
I've tied flies for all phases and have caught a huge percentage of summer runs on caddis based patterns as have many before me (that's where I got the idea of course). What I don't have any concept of is the process of how these shucks get onto the rocks overnight.
It's clear that they have swimmeret legs, like a water strider or boatman beetle. I have read that they have been observed ricocheting off the sides of an aquarium by those even more curious than I.
If they do make an active swimming escape to the ether from the watery realm, do they do it at night? The morning shucks would indicate so. If so, do the steelhead chase them under the moon like they do during the day? Flyfishing at night has always intrigued me. It works great for eastern seaboard species, even for trout in stillwater. Joe Brooks writes of not bothering to fish for a trophy trout in a river until after dark, when you should return with a very large lure or live frog (yes, that's what it said) to catch the giant trout in it's night time lie.
What do we not yet know about the sedge that would open more doors than they already have for FF'ers?
Each late summer morning that I got to fish, the rocks would be lined with pink shucks. I've gone as far as opening up the cases to make sure they were the source of all the shuck shedding sedges and sure enough the larvae were all in various stages of development from white featureless grub to orange martian bodies to wiggly adult inside the protective membrane.
I've tied flies for all phases and have caught a huge percentage of summer runs on caddis based patterns as have many before me (that's where I got the idea of course). What I don't have any concept of is the process of how these shucks get onto the rocks overnight.
It's clear that they have swimmeret legs, like a water strider or boatman beetle. I have read that they have been observed ricocheting off the sides of an aquarium by those even more curious than I.
If they do make an active swimming escape to the ether from the watery realm, do they do it at night? The morning shucks would indicate so. If so, do the steelhead chase them under the moon like they do during the day? Flyfishing at night has always intrigued me. It works great for eastern seaboard species, even for trout in stillwater. Joe Brooks writes of not bothering to fish for a trophy trout in a river until after dark, when you should return with a very large lure or live frog (yes, that's what it said) to catch the giant trout in it's night time lie.
What do we not yet know about the sedge that would open more doors than they already have for FF'ers?