What does an avid fly angler do when they can’t find a comprehensive guide with information about insect hatches, taxonomy, behavior, and flies to match those hatches in their part of the country? Well, if you’re an aquatic biologist and writer like Ann Miller, you build streams in your basement and garage, analyze and photograph the bugs as they develop through their lifecycles, and then write the most comprehensive and authoritative books on the subject.

When I was in 10^th grade, I bought a fiberglass fly rod and Pflueger Medalist reel and decided to try my luck at fly fishing for trout. It felt like a natural progression, having already spin-fished for bluegills in ponds, and bait-cast for bass and pickerel in lakes. Now it was time to cast flies into rivers for pretty fish that ate bugs. But I knew little about how to catch trout, except from what I had gleaned from a few Field and Stream articles with banner headlines like: “Ten Tips for Giant ‘Bows!”