Iron Blue Quills

This is one of the most important species of the Baetidae family. It is distributed across the country, but most of its fame comes from excellent hatches in the West.

Diphetor hageni has two former names used in angling literature, Baetis parvus and Baetis divinctus.

Anglers used to know these mayflies by the revered name of Baetis vagans. Baetis tricaudatus was a Western species of relative obscurity, but entomologists recently discovered that it's the same species as the popular Eastern vagans. The scientific conventions guiding entomologists do not account for a name's fame among fishermen, and new or obscure species names sometimes replace our old favorites. Baetis vagans is one such casualty.

Fortunately, brown trout think like Shakespeare: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The rose that was vagans has lost none of its charm.

This species often emerges together with Paraleptophlebia strigula and Paraleptophlebia guttata, and the combined effect can be a good fishable hatch. The latter two are much less famous than mollis, but Knopp and Cormier say they are more reliable.