Sow bugs are freshwater isopods — the aquatic cousins of the terrestrial pill bug or “roly-poly.” Like scuds, they’re crustaceans rather than insects, but they fish like nymphs: subsurface, year-round.

Scuds aren’t insects — they’re freshwater amphipod crustaceans, distantly related to ocean shrimp.

Midges are the year-round food source — the bug that keeps trout feeding through January and February when nothing else is hatching.

Crayfish are big-meal targets — when a trout (especially a brown trout) eats a crayfish, that’s a serious calorie haul.