Latest updates, page 3

In the past month I've added a large number of new specimens to the insect encyclopedia, photographed on trips to the Montana/Wyoming/Idaho area for the last two summers. I haven't learned my Western hatches very well yet, so I'm relying on expert help (or slowly trudging my way through keys as time allows) to identify most of them.

To make this process easier and also catch up on specimens that have fallen through the cracks over the years, I created a page that automatically lists specimens that aren't identified as specifically as one could reasonably expect. I'll use this to guide my own ID attempts and I hope it helps some of the other experts who like to weigh in here.

The new page is called identification needs, and it's linked from the top of the Aquatic Insect Encyclopedia page for easy access once this post falls off the front page.

Recently I've been fishing entirely with barbless flies, and I've pinched down the barbs on everything in my fly boxes. To some extent this is because I'm sure it helps a little bit with survival; the scientific research is mixed on whether this is a big enough difference to matter to whole populations, but I know I used to damage a fish once in a while because the barb made the hook hard to remove, and now I don't. However, my main motive is a form of laziness: I fish places that require barbless hooks sometimes, and it's easier to de-barb everything and err on the side of caution than to keep track of the rules about that.

I found an interesting blog post recently by John Newbury talking about barbless hooks for Czech nymphs and how retention wasn't very good on barbless hooks that were manufactured using the same designs as barbed hooks but minus the barbs. I assume the same reasoning would apply to pinched barbs, too. As an alternative, he suggested hooks designed for retention when fished barbless such as the Hanak 333 BL and Fulling Mill Czech Hook. I've never used either of those, but the recently-started Montana brand Firehole Sticks seems to use similar design principles and I have fished those with some success.

However, I haven't really had an opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison between those designed barbless hooks and de-barbed hooks using similar flies. I'm curious if anybody else here has done enough of that to form an opinion.

On the last day of this year's Montana trip, I had a fun visit in the morning with Pat Clayton from Fish Eye Guy Photography, who I think it's safe to call the best trout photographer in the world. He recently opened a brick-and-mortar gallery in Philipsburg showcasing some of the best of his must-see work. I didn't take any pictures there (taking pictures of pictures would seem odd), but check out his website if you haven't seen it.

I did snap a quick photo of the Columbia River from a particularly scenic spot on the long drive home to the Seattle area.

July 9th was the fishiest day of the wife-oriented portion of this Montana trip. After a late-morning start, we drove the scenic highway from Philipsburg to Rock Creek and then down the valley to a spot that fished really well last year. My backpack included a Jetboil, can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup, a Mountain House meal, tea, apples, a large book about genetics, and several other unconventional amenities designed to keep everybody happy on the river for 8+ hours. It worked, I think.

The fishing was good for most places and alright for here. Nymphs were surprisingly ineffective and most fish rose to dries instead. I caught quite a few decent cutthroat and brown trout, along with one brookie, although nothing exceeded 15 inches. Rainbows remained in hiding. Lena caught a nice cutthroat, too.

I tried for a couple hours to fish the Ruby River at a public fishing access site below the reservoir, but nothing was happening. The water was pretty high and off-color, probably thanks to recent thunderstorms. I don't think I even found a strike, but I did collect a couple good bugs.