Blue Wing Olive (BWO) - Drunella lata - First Fork - Potter County

[DaveKile]

Blue Wing Olive #14 (BWO) - Drunella lata

First Fork on Potter County

June 6, 2011 9:00 am - 12:00 pm and throughout the day

 

[Maurice]

Nice picture Dave. Your take awesome photo's

 

[SBecker]

Sweet idea DK and nice picture.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Yeah this forum is B.A.!

 

[DaveS]

I believe I had an encounter with this bug on the North Fork of Redbank Cr. near Brookville. Mid-late morning, Memorial Day weekend I recall. But I had thought it was E cornuta, so maybe I have been incorrect in my identification. But I was not incorrect as to what to do under said condition. Very good dry fly action that day.

Thanks Dave, for the new forum!

 

[DaveKile]

DaveS I think you may be right. I posted this back when we were experimenting with the forum last spring and not sure how much homework I had done with this. Based on the size I mention and time it would make sense it is the larger Ephemerella genus. I double checked and I did take the picture at 7:45 am on June 6, 2011.

This is the purpose of the forum to share known insects, but also help with some bugs that aren't as easily identified. I am not an entomologist and thankful the help in figuring some of these out. BWO and Sulphur I am sure will be a great source for fun and conjecture.

Any other thoughts?

 

[dryflyguy]

I think that the large BWO's known as cornutas, have rather recently been reclassified as drunellas.

Great picture - as is this new forum idea!

 

[DaveS]

Well then if Dryfly is correct Dkile AND I are both correct. For the record, that day was years ago, but since I caught many fish, I took the matter up with my copy of "Hatches", after the fact. Since that was before Digital cameras, I relied only on my photographic memory. (the one I used to have) In any case, for my money, the large BWO is a good hatch to run into.

 

[pcray1231]

The Cornuta species still exists, as does Lata, but BOTH are classified under the Drunella genus. Which means all the typical markers are pretty much identical between the two. Plain wings, obvious hind wing, 3 tails.

That is a great picture and clearly shows all 3 of those (my markers to narrow it down). I'm fairly certain it is of the Drunella genus. I often get that far and then struggle for species, and end up making an educated guess. Genus is often enough to understand important behaviors, though, so it's often enough for fishing purposes.

FWIW, Lata's are generally smaller, a size 16-18. Cornuta's range from 12-16. So, based on typical size of each vs. reported size, I'm going with Cornuta. Only 60% sure, though. With the variation in location, mayfly's outside of the "typical" size are pretty common. Plus, he caught 1 bug I assume. If it was a 14, but the vast majority were 16's, well.....

 

[DaveKile]

Guys this is great and I think some of the stuff we thought would come out of the forum. Truly an educational and databank for hatches and such in the region.

Afish and the other mods really encouraged this and thank them for their help. You may see us change the title of a post once we have more details established. Again the hope here is we can build on some regional information.

I will add a separate sticky on this, but please be mindful of posting only your photographs. You may even want to watermark with a copyright mark. I don't want to get into a legel thread here, but I have gotten taken down notices for photographs on the site.

 

[sandfly]

another drunella, pine creek:

 

[pcray1231]

I'd also point out to beginners that BWO is one case where our common name for bugs is insufficient. Sometimes, a common name refers to only one species, or at the very least, several species in only 1 genus. And in those cases I think it's sufficient to say March Brown, Green Drake, or whatever.

But with BWO, you have at least 2 genus's. Drunella and Baetis. And the characteristics of the bugs are VERY different, from stream type, substrate type, time of year, time of day, hatching characteristics, etc. In fact, nothing is really the same except the basic color pattern. And that makes it confusing for a lot of people. They read and hear about people trying to catch the "BWO" hatch on the spring creeks in March, and then more people talking about "BWO's" on a wider variety of streams with spinner falls in late June. TOTALLY different hatches! I can understand the confusion and wish that the common name wasn't the same.

P.S. Sandfly, Drunella's have 3 tails. Think you may have a Baetis.

 

[sandfly]

oops sorry pics are in same page..
try this

 

[pcray1231]

There ya go! Yeah, spinner stage of a Drunella species, Lata I think.

I've hit some monster spinner falls of those guys. In central PA they are referred to as "blackish olives", I suppose to distinguish from the Baetis species that are so common on these streams. In the northern tier I've just heard em called BWO's, as the Baetis species aren't as important outside of the limestone regions.