Caddis Pupae

"Tim Lysyk" wrote

.. I think
the photo on the above link is pretty representative...they look lke like
fat larvae with stumpy wings anbd long legs.



That is my impression also ... and correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think
entomologists would seek out the pupa for identification purposes so they
are more likely to have pictures of cases and larva

Good images, even a good real time, head bent to the water, glimpse of any
of the transitional
periods of emergence are damn hard to come by ... harder than troutG

You can cut pupa out of cases and get things that look like
the picture in Tim's link. "Caddis and the angler"
has a picture or two, and there are Schwiebert's drawings in
"Nymphs" All look much the same in basic form. The only "in the water"
pictures I have are in "Emergers" by Swisher and Richards ... and they are
very poor and B&W but suggest exactly the same form.

But the question is if that is what they look like when available
to the fish. As you know, LaFontaine and others say "no" that a big shiny
bubble is more like what the trout see. I have never been able to
confirm that, and have never seen anything 'real' that actually looks
like a sparkle pupa or Iris caddis etc but I've never SCUBA dived and
tried to get the fish's eye view.

Let us know if you find any good pictures, Peter, of emerging mayflies too,
if you happen on them.

Oh, and I have seined small cased caddis from the daytime drift on a couple
spring creeks ( near the surface!) and Lawson and Harrop both report
fish "rising" to them on the HFork, although I've never been able to confirm
that...... To me this remains like floating snails, I've seen 'em, the
'experts' say trout eat 'em, it makes sense, but I ain't caught a fish on
one yetG