Getting Started in Flyfishing

Stimulators imitate stoneflies and caddisflies and are excellent prospecting flies.

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If you are a beginning trout angler, you might have read or heard something about the aquatic insects that trout feast upon. Contrary to the neophytes' general belief that trout eat such classic flies as Royal Wulffs and House and Lots, trout only find those flies similar to their favorite food of mayflies, caddisflies and stoneflies.

You will find in books that these common aquatic insects have been given fancy scientific names. The study of these insects is called entomology. Pretty high-fallutin' huh? Learning Latin names doesn't make you catch more trout. Learning the stages of the insects the trout eat will help you catch more trout. It never hurts to learn all you can but at least start with the basics.

Flies usually don't look exactly like the insect you are trying to imitate. They are imitative, suggestive, impressionistic. They look kind of like one of the insects. They look kind of like a stage of one of the insects. They provide the proper silhouette or shade or wing pattern or size or color. But they rarely look exactly like the insect. The most abundant insects trout eat, the insects that you will be imitating with your selections of dry flies, wet flies and nymphs are mayflies, caddisflies and stoneflies. You can find the first two in almost any trout stream and stoneflies in many of them. The life cycles of each insect vary in length and process but in general, you will be trying to imitate the stages of the cycles whether the winged adult or the immature pupa.

Here are thumbnail sketches of each: