More macro photos

[WiFlyFisher]

Here are a couple photos i took during early June of size #18, Sulphurs (Ephemerella dorothea dorothea) hatching. Trying to take macro photos in the field is more difficult because the insects tend to not sit still. Sometimes they fly away just as you are clicking the button.



This was fascinating to watch a Sulphur nymph emerging in my seine. Notice the shuck below is almost translucent. Yet, I often see trailing shucks on fly patterns that are to bulky and in colors that do not really resemble the insect's shucked nymph case.



It is tough at times for me to put my rod down and stand behind rising trout with a small seine in hand in the river. I was seining emerging sulphurs when all of a sudden not more than 3 feet above me a nice head started to poke out of the river sucking in emergers. I couldn't stand by an watch anymore. So I slowly went back to the bank and grabbed my fly rod. What a fight on a 4wt bamboo fly rod, beautiful trout.



John

[driftless angler]

Awesome photos John!

[2wtt]

ditto on your photos & catch

[Flykuni3]

Great stuff again, many thanks. I watched a PMD struggle from its shuck one time, and laughed out loud as it wiggled and wiggled. This was before cell phones and digi cams so I didn't record it. But the scene is burned in my memory, and you jogged it. Thanks again.

[Eric Peper]

Really outstanding pics, John, especially for on-stream work. Great guides for folks like me who prefer to tie "trout food" imitations rather than standard "patterns." I'm getting too old to trust my memory of what I saw on the water.:-)

[WiFlyFisher]

You and me both. Plus, the entomologists keep renaming the damn bugs on us.

Eric, you have always been one to tie patterns that closely imitate the trout's food rather than standard patterns. I can't ever remember seeing standard patterns in your fly boxes.

John

[cregb]

Nice photos John, and I love the sulphurs as well.

Got on the water this weekend fishing sulphurs and thought I saw a bunch mating but instead they were crane flies and took some macros. My Olympus has a new LED macro ring and the shots were kind of hit and miss. Here’s the best of them (kind of disappointed but so it goes- my old Pentax was like butter with macro shots).

[jhuskey]

The last photo is really cool man!

[WiFlyFisher]

cregb, those look good for a moving subject in varying light.

I only use the LED light ring when I am using the focus stacking feature and a small tripod I bought. Plus, Photoshop to edit.

While on the water I don't use the LED light ring.

For the fun of it, I tried a few underwater macro photos in our lake of a PMD soft hackle pattern i had tied. It was not easy with the subject moving in the current. A couple came out decent.



John

[Flykuni3]

I like that last underwater shot -- if you ever have the time and inclination, I'd love to see a vid of a soft hackle fly underwater in a current, because I'm of the personal and heretical belief that the hackles actually don't move much if at all. This is counter to the faithful almost religious belief that they undulate and entire the fish.

I've tried over and over with aquariums at home and on stream in eddies with swirls, and I just don't think they move much at all. I'd do the vid myself but don't have a waterproof cam at the moment. Thanks.

[WiFlyFisher]

I like that last underwater shot -- if you ever have the time and inclination, I'd love to see a vid of a soft hackle fly underwater in a current, because I'm of the personal and heretical belief that the hackles actually don't move much if at all. This is counter to the faithful almost religious belief that they undulate and entire the fish.

I've tried over and over with aquariums at home and on stream in eddies with swirls, and I just don't think they move much at all. I'd do the vid myself but don't have a waterproof cam at the moment. Thanks.

My observations with soft hackle hen feathers is the same as yours. I did a few GoPro videos under the water in northern WI trout streams with a friend casting several different flies. It was sort of tough because the flies went flying by the camera pretty fast. Plus, the tea stained color of the northern rivers didn't help. I planned on doing it out West a couple of years ago on the HF, but large trout sipping small mayflies kept distracting me.

Starling and marabou do move much more than any hen feathers I have tried. There is often a big difference when someone holds a wet soft hackle fly pattern in the air than when it is under the water.

John

[Eric Peper]

Tie your softhackles with CDC if you want motion. Loosely dubbed fur also works pretty well.

[WiFlyFisher]

Tie your softhackles with CDC if you want motion. Loosely dubbed fur also works pretty well.

Ah.. shouldn't YOU be tying some CDC flies right now???

Enjoy!!

John