First BWO of the year

[pittendrigh]

Found this mayfly in the cab of my pickup today, on the way back from Darlington Spring Ditch, down near Three Forks on the Madison River, Montana. March 4, 2012. First mayfly of the year for me. I put him a fly box and then transferred him to my fly tying vise once I got home--which is surrounded by a light tent. Managed to squeeze off two frames and then she flew. Haven't seen her since. This was a big mayfly. Roughly the size of a Pale Morning Dun. Is this a Baetis of some kind? Sure looks like it. Some giant sub-species? Or what? Without the bulging salmon-colored eyes, this is probably a female. Regardless species. The exaggeratedly thick (and high bulging) thorax is new to me. Ah. Perhaps a Western March Brown.

[Byron haugh]

He looks mad. Can you imagine if they were 10 ft long? Would make a great Syfi movie. The world would be saved when this biologist found a way to make trout 30 ft long

[pittendrigh]

He looks mad. Can you imagine if they were 10 ft long? Would make a great Syfi movie. The world would be saved when this biologist found a way to make trout 30 ft long

:=))
I like that thought. It is interesting, how they've found mayflies in amber--from the time of the dinosaurs--looking much the same as they do now.

[sagefisher]

This is what a March Brown looks like and they are BIG.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_brown_mayfly

Larry ---sagefisher---

[pittendrigh]

Well then. It must be the Baetis Yomangamus. This mayfly was a strong 5/16" long. 8mm or so. Equal in size to a Pale Morning Dun. A Baetis that size I never saw before. i posted the same photo as an "ID Request" at http://bugguide.net.

Perhaps they will know.

[NJTroutbum]

Is it a Blue Quill?

[pittendrigh]

OK. This bug got positively identified as a Baetis Tricaudatus at http://bugguide.net
This is interesting. This was a big mayfly. The BWOs that hatch in April on our Bozeman MT area rivers are much smaller. Some the BWOs that hatch as late as November in the fall are infinitesimal compared to this one. Some of these are probably different species. Baetidae is the family. Baetis the genus and tricaudatus one of many species underneath the Baetis umbrella.

Now that I think about it, I remember--from my spring creek guiding days--the size of the PMDs on the creek varied too. I remember one late summer hatch, long after the main flow of PMDs had dwindled--that followed a heavy, two day early August rain storm. The PMDs that hatched that day were huge. And the trout went absolutely bananas.

[JohnScott]

It is about that time. A couple days ago, I saw two or three BWOs over on the Lochsa. They also were on the large size. We are due for some cloudy, wet weather over here this week - good chance the BWOs will be coming off big time.

John