Fly anglers live for the "hatches" when trout erupt in a feeding frenzy over the mass emergence aquatic insects from the river's surface. In these moments, trout can become so focused on one specific type of prey that they will pursue only a skillful imitation. Anglers who study aquatic insects to meet this challenge find that they're as captivating as the fish themselves. Every species has its own story, its own personality. We cross paths with these characters at the climax of a perennial drama of life and death, and--as with any great drama or sport--every play means so much more when we know the players inside and out. It's not just about catching fish. It's about knowing the stream and loving everything in it.

Troutnut.com's aquatic insect encyclopedia is a guide to these players and their stories. Read about the behavior of each species and view thousands of closeup photos, or join the fly fishing forum to meet other devotees of the world's healthiest addiction. You can learn the basics of mayflies, caddisflies, or stoneflies. Or dive into the details of storied species like the Hendrickson hatch and the Hex hatch.

About Taxon (Roger Rohrbeck): My interest in identification of aquatic insects developed as a natural byproduct of transitioning from other methods of fishing to fly fishing during my early 40�s. However, it was not until my retirement, which followed a 35-year career in information technology, that I was afforded the opportunity to fully pursue study of aquatic entomology and taxonomy.

Within several years following retirement, I had accumulated an enormity of texts and notes on aquatic entomology and taxonomy. And, it was becoming readily apparent that some manner of organizing and accessing that information was sorely needed, as accurate memory of minutia was definitely not my strong suit.

My initial approach was to organize all the information in an Access database, but it didn�t take long to realize that this approach (alone) would not allow sharing the information with other flyfishers. So, I developed a website, which was initially just many entomology-related pages on the website of the flyfishing club to which I belonged. However, as my ever-increasing need for storage began to cause a problem, I took the big plunge, and got my own domain name and hosting provider. To date my website has received in excess of (300,000) separate visits, from (125) countries, representing all (6) inhabited continents.