I had a few photos of this fella yesterday in the evening and there was a good number of them on the water but nothing picking them off

Strange thing. It was like it had some sort of pincer for a mouth




Thanks

Terry

Black silverhorn (Anthripsodes)or (Mystacides azurea)????
or Black sedge (Silo nigricornis)????


Over to you fishtales.

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Yeah I will go with The Silverhorn. The long barred antennae give it away. Have not seen one like that though usually a dark brown but you can get black. Funnily enough Trout do not seem to like them, they flitter about under trees & around Islands but I have never seen a Trout go for them.
Tight Lines

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"The Future's Bright The Future's Wet Fly"

Yep, defo a black longhorn. Agree with HL - not high on the trout's menu in its adult form.
M

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Across the fields of hoar. And the river steamed -
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Thanks Both. The ones i seen were all black and in bunches just off the water surface dancing. Tricky to catch

Thanks very much both

Terry

Funny thing that. You think with them just dancing off the water surface they would be a easy meal to the trout and they would mop them up

Its Mystacides azurea. We ( most fishermen)call it black silver horn. Stuartcrofts calls them black dancers. the movement over water is the reason for the name. They appear to get ignored when they are 'performing'. Whereas on our stream desperate trout do try and take an aerial lunge at brown silverhorns. Whether this is because they (The blacks) are slightly higher or the dance is a little more chaotic and harder to target, I dont know.

The ones you see are all males sweeping back and forth across the water [6-10inches above it], in a laneway up the length of the stream, they rarely end up in it( the water) unless something causes a collision.
They start to appear in late afternoon and are usually at it all evening.

The female moves up through the dance in a particular pattern and is grabbed by a male, they then fly off clasped together to some high foliage where they mate. (I have spent ages trying to catch a wierd sedge flying strangely only to find its a mating couple of these).


After this when ready to lay her eggs the female comes back to the water, flying in a different pattern where by she is now ignored by the males and then lays her eggs on the surface, usually later in the evening... this stage is taken by the trout.
We have at present heaps of Athripodes albifrons ( brown silverhorn type) flying at the same time in parallel chanels a few yards from the Mystacides lane. so it is hard to know which ones the trout are going for to be honest.

If you kick sample the cases of these are about 8-10mm made up of assorted fragments with a few long pieces of plant fragments.

The M. Nigra is a more matt black colour compared withe oily blue black colour of azurea.


M.azurea

Thanks very much Pom.
Top info as always.
Much appreciated.

Regards

Terry

The black silverhorns are very prolific on all the DCAC and DRAC waters in Derby and no doubt others. Have tried loads of imitations but to no real avail.

If anybody has had any luck with an effective patterns, adult or otherwise, I would love to hear from you.

I would agree that the trout don't appear to care for them!