Daddy Long Legs

There's no ascending pupa behind this one the way there is with a midge — the leatherjacket lives in soil, not water, so the adult blown in off the bank is the whole event, not the tail end of a better one. Wind does far more work than temperature: a blustery, overcast afternoon puts more of them on the water than a warm still one ever will, legs splayed and going nowhere once they're down. On the Irish limestone loughs this is what dapping season means — a long rod, a light floss line, a big bushy Daddy skittering and bouncing across the wave on the wind rather than sitting still, and a take you let develop before you lift into it. On rivers there's no wave to carry a dap, so it's fished static or given the odd small twitch under the trees it fell from instead. Egg-laying females returning to the water, and the spent, drowned ones lying in the film afterwards, are worth the same look as the fresh fall on either water — trout take all three with equal confidence.

• British IslesCommon
• Atlantic fringeOccasional
• ScandinaviaOccasional
• The AlpsOccasional
• Continental EuropeOccasional
• IberiaScarce

Tipula paludosa is a species of true craneflies.