I am new to the forum so I hope this is the right place.

Only having fly fished 3 times I have little or no knowledge of the actual insects I should expect to find on my local River Wyre in Lancashire.

Can anyone shed some light on what I should see? I did glean some information from another forum that there are no mayfly on the Wyre, is this generally true for all rivers in this area or specific to the Wyre?

Thanks in anticipation I am keen to gain an understanding of the local fauna. Oh and can anyone recommend any further reading on the subject please?

Hi chris_much

Its a dark world...welcome

Best thing to do is get down and dirty with some of your own Wyre inverts.

Get to your local market and buy an offcut of net curtain...no more than £1 and then to a hardware store for a broom handle £3...cut this in two and attach the nett to each stick forming a net stretched between two sticks that can be dipped down to the river bed.
Get into the river and find a riffle area of well oxygenated water with a stone /gravel substrate. Place net across the flow of water and stand directly upstream of it pushing the sticks and netting down to the river bed/stones.
Now shuffle your feet and kick up the stones and gravels silt until a cloud of dirty water is passing through your net. After a short while lift up your net and carry back to the banking to inspect the insects that should be caught in the net.
A simple magnifying glass £2 can be used to look in more detail.

Before this day you need to visit the website of the RiverFly Partnership and download/request their simple invert identity chart. This will help you 'sort' your catch and identify the different family groups.

If you enjoy this you can invest money on proper nets, trays and better guides that identify down to species level. Join a monitoring group etc.

This should get you 'going' good luck

__________________
Two things to have in life - A good bed and a good pair of boots -and if you aren't in one you should be in t'other

Thanks sedgeking; I shall be down to the market this weekend and I am off the the RiverFly Partnership website now!

I haven't fished the Wyre for some years but from what I can remember it has a similar fly life to the Ribble.
There is some confusion in this country about what is termed a mayfly whereas in America it seems to refer to all upwing species and we tend to class the mayfly a Ephemera Danica or Vulgata.
The Wyre certainly has upwing flies such as the Large Dark Olive, Blue winged Olive, Pale Watery's, Autumn Dun but to name a few and various species of sedge [caddis] flies stone flies etc.
Kick sampling is also a good way of finding what is present in the river and would show what food is available and don't forget that trout certainly feed on fry and the Wyre has a plentiful supply of course fish as well.

JohnClayton

Chris,

Whereabouts on the Wyre? I'm from Catforth and being a trained invert monitor, have all the sampling kit. If you want to meet up to have a shuffle around in the stones I can give some help on identifying what's down there.

Matt

__________________
The sun pushed dark spokes of melt and sparkle
Across the fields of hoar. And the river steamed -
Flint-olive.


http://northcountryangler.blogspot.com

Thanks Matt,
Thats a very generous offer and I would love to take you up on it. I am a St Michaels member and usually fish the Kippax stretch so it would be good to have a go there. I will send a pm.