The Miracle of Salmon Flies

​Every year during this time, on creeks and rivers throughout the west, a large orange-abdomened bug emerges from and takes wing above the waters for approximately two weeks.  These are the salmon fly, and when considering their occurrence, it’s hard not to sense something miraculous. To the trout, they are a bundle of protein to feed upon at the exact time the winter runoff starts to wane and the waters begin to warm, which causes the trout’s metabolism to kick into high gear. The energy the salmon fly provides helps propel the trout through the warmer months ahead, and their bright orange abdomens help the trout locate them in waters still murky from mountain sediment. It’s a perfectly calibrated system, each part seemingly evolving for the other, but inseparable from the whole… The great watch at work. 

Photo Credit: http://www.laterallinemedia.com/colorado-river-salmon-fly-hatch/