Dragonfly Nymph Photos - Odonata-Anisoptera - Cordulegaster

At what point does a hobby become an obsession?

For me, fly-fishing has been somewhere between the two – I like to call it a passion. 

I might have crossed over last night.

While fishing a nearby lagoon which was quite slow, I put down the rod and started to gently dig in the sandy waters edge.  Only about 30 seconds had gone by before an aquatic insect of some sort drifted into my hand.  Excitement mounted… I had found evidence of what type of bugs my quarry was eating.  After depositing my little trout morsel into an empty plastic container in my vest, I changed my fly to try and match it.  The only thing I had was a sparsely tied scud, but it yielded the first bite of the evening.

I took the little bugger home to photograph and try to determine what it was.  Thanks to troutnut.com I was able to identify it as a Dragonfly nymph.  Troutnut.com has incredible photos of aquatic life, with great descriptions – I don’t intend to try to compete – but I will show you what it looked like.

The lagoon is in Castaic, CA.