The best way for a fly-fisherman to catch trout is to understand what they like to eat. That’s why anglers spend hours tying hair and feathers onto hooks in the hope of imitating aquatic insects. It’s also why they sometimes shell out more than $100 for a copy of Hatch Guide for New England Streams, published in 2000, to understand trout food.
Since the 1990s, its author, Thomas Ames Jr., has been making studio-quality photographs of mayflies, caddisflies, and countless other insects that trout adore. A fisherman himself, Ames brings an angler’s understanding to his photography, giving others an edge in the endless quest to create the perfect fly to fool even the most cunning fish.
For years Ames’ guide was out of print, leaving many anglers out of luck. But with the release last fall of an updated version of his entomological bible, Ames is back at the center of the East Coast fly-fishing conversation.
I met Ames streamside after he’d given a talk on his revised guide, Pocketguide to Eastern Hatches, at the popular Battenkill Fly Fishing Festival in Arlington, Vermont.
Here, at one of Vermont’s most hallowed fishing grounds, we hoped to find trout feeding on the famous Hendrickson mayfly hatch. Every year, as winter gives way to spring, the winged insects emerge en masse from the river, drawing hungry trout in hot pursuit—and fishing fanatics not far behind. Because it is the first large mayfly hatch of the year, Hendricksons draw the biggest of the notoriously wily brown trout to the surface of the Battenkill for a few days of rare abandon.
On a river such as this, adult fish can reach more than 2 feet in length. On this early May day, though, the odds were stacked against us. Just two nights prior, it had snowed in the mountains, and the highs in the 40s were probably not warm enough to set off a spring hatch.
So, as I foolishly hoped to see the winged insects fly off the stream, Ames turned his attention underwater. Beneath the river’s cobblestones, he identified bug after bug, quickly finding the three primary types of insects that fly anglers imitate. Caddisflies—wormlike in the larval stage—build twig-and-rock cases for protection. A flat, clinging mayfly larva, light brown with a broad head, used its six legs to scamper to the far side of the stone. Ames revealed the largest of the three types, a stonefly nymph, latched to a rock. Finding the yellow and black, inch-long bug was a good indicator of the stream’s health, he said.
This practice of identifying bugs began for Ames as simple curiosity. In the 1990s, while living in Norwich, Vermont, he would capture insects during his evening outings to the nearby White River and bring them back to his studio.
Because the fragile bugs don’t travel well, Ames developed a portable studio, lugging his gear streamside. A photographer first and angler second, he captured scientific-quality images of the Upper Valley’s aquatic insects, leaning on academics for help with the tedious work of identifying dozens of lookalike species.
Hatch Guide for New England Streams was a success when it was released, selling out its 5,000-copy first run and prompting more printings. Critical acclaim was immediate, as fishermen called it the most important insect guidebook for Northeast anglers in half a century. Some renowned anglers and fly tiers said Ames’ photos were the best they’d ever seen.
“I was a little stunned,” Ames recalls. “I wrote this book and I put it out there because somehow I got talked into it.”
It took years of painstaking work to capture the dozens of insects in all stages of life. Ames remembers the challenge of photographing the green drake mayfly, a hatch he describes as “mythical.” The bugs typically hatch into adult form for just a week in late spring, dying in a matter of hours or days. So, while running his photography business, Ames kept in close touch with fly shops in the Northeast. At any time, he might receive a call that the drakes were hatching, forcing him to close shop at a moment’s notice. When the call came, Ames headed to upstate New York near the Housatonic River.
“We waited and waited and waited and all of a sudden, there dropped out of the sky and the trees above us the most amazing spinner fall I’ve ever seen,” Ames says, referring to the spectacular mass death of the mayflies, which drop to the river’s surface as they die, setting off a trout feeding frenzy.
Patience and hundreds of miles on the road have resulted in an irreplaceable resource that often winds up dog-eared and tattered from use. The guide follows a straightforward form. Each left page includes one of Ames’ insect photographs and details about the bug and when it hatches. On the right, he includes a photo of flies that anglers can use to imitate the insect. Below that image, he includes key information on insect behavior, characteristics, and when and where an angler might encounter that particular trout food.
There dropped out of the sky and the trees above us the most amazing spinner fall I’ve ever seen.”
—Thomas Ames Jr. ’74
Ames followed up his debut with two more books that lean heavily on his photography, Fishbugs and Caddisflies. He calls the latter his master work. Ames has collected more than 300 species of caddis—often overlooked by anglers fixated on the flashier mayflies—giving the mothlike insects attention long overdue.
The books never became a full-time pursuit for Ames, but they informed his later career as an elementary school teacher and ongoing work teaching children and adults about fly-fishing, entomology, and trout.
“My science curriculum was based largely around this,” he says. “Parents loved it because it got their kids out of the classroom.”
On this day along the Battenkill, Ames and I couldn’t coax any trout to eat. He walked a few hundred yards upstream, using a fly to imitate a mayfly larva. Nothing.
Anglers are often quick to dismiss a lack of success by explaining that hooking fish isn’t the point. For Ames, who has turned photographing insects and replicating them with flies into an art, it might be true. He is just happy to be on the water. “For me, that’s still the foundation,” Ames says, “as opposed to, I’m here to catch a fish.”
Ethan Weinstein is an editor at VTDigger, a statewide news outlet in Vermont. He lives and fly-fishes in northern Vermont.
