My quest for knowledge of how flies looked to trout
soon was fraught with obstacles. For starters, as I
would set them on the tiny ‘stage’ in my basement to
photograph them, they flew away; I ran out of
‘photographic’ subjects real fast. Also, there was
a limited ‘window of opportunity’ in which to take
the little rascals pictures. Ephemeralla
means ‘lives only a day.’ Ergo, they died on me. Dead
bugs do not a picture make; for that matter, anaesthetized
ones do not either. Adults were only available a few months
a year, I had all winter to take pictures and no bugs
to shoot
The inevitable result, raise the things. So the
collection process was enlarged, which did not thrill
my spouse at the time. Many trips to streams at various
times of the year with collection vessels, figure out
how to raise adults from nymphs, and in general, learn
a whole lot of things about bugs and cameras I had not
intended to learn.
Time, before spent on fishing, was now filled with
poking around in stream-side mud, peering under rocks
and turning over sticks and small logs. The truth is
I loved it.
Originally published c. 2003 on Fly Anglers Online.