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By Steven Therrien February 21, 2000 Only fly fishers and entomologists get excited about poking around in the dark looking for a bunch of bugs to come out. On our river the Hexegenia limbata hatch of late June and early July engenders an intense interest. Their individual size makes them one the largest may flies in North America. The hatch has also developed a reputation that is both mysterious (no doubt because it’s nocturnal) and legendary. For our river it represents one of the largest biomasses that infuses itself into the river’s food chain. The Hex is different from other major may fly emergences because of the phenomenon proportions any one emergence can reach. At times the overwhelming size of an individual emergence can completely cover an area of a river. The change it initiates in the behavior of the creatures that rely on the hatch for food can also be just as profound. The Hexegenia limbata may fly evokes wonder with its abundance and awe in its beauty. That’s if you’re into the mating rituals of bugs. Let’s face it the reason we go chasing around for a few hours after dark with fly rods in our hands is big fish like to feed on the darn things. Otherwise most of us would never really give them much thought and be more than happy sitting at home thinking about fishing with a drink in our hands. Some people outside the sport could mistake the behavior of fly fishers during the hatch as nothing less than a mystery cult. To a certain degree it is a fertility rite. After all, that’s what a may fly is built for. I’d like to think, on our river, the gathering of fly fishers for the Hex hatch is akin to the annual gathering of the old clans complete with feasts cooked out over open fires, conversation and story telling, and plenty of strong drink--kilts are optional. The Hex hatch has developed its own traditions among fly fishers that come to fish what we call “the hatch” on our river. Much in the same way that deer hunting has its own traditions "the hatch" leaves its mark on the progression of seasons and serves as a marker of time. “Remember a few years back when it rained for a week during the hatch time. Put the hatch off for a week.” “Wasn’t it five years ago that Matt caught his ten pounder near the outflow of the pond?” A father from Rockford, Illinois, and a son, from Colorado may come together to reunite and rekindle their love of the sport and each other. Families and friends alike come together and catch up, sharing their lives and their adventures over the cooking fires. We trade our stories, show our age, and come together to celebrate life and living and on occasion mourn the death of a fly fishing friend. Both fly fisher and insect metamorphose. The insect’s changes are obvious; the fly fishers’, more subtle. The behavior of the fly fisherman changes with the opportunity to catch large fish especially on a dry fly. The behavior of large trout changes also with the opportunity to feed on what looks like a small night crawler with wings. Sometimes fish and fisherman can both be dumber than dirt. When it comes to catching large trout, I have watched fellow anglers change into maniacs. These guys are for the most part nice even-tempered guys who would never attempt to justify their change in behavior on anything other than themselves. It’s as if during “the hatch” some moon inspired werewolf transformation occurs. Chasing the mystery dance of some ephemeral bug, these guys leave their spouses and families, “Bill? It’s little Joey’s confirmation.” The only excuse Bill can muster as he goes out the door, “But it’s ‘the hatch,’ honey!” I can hear the words of the wives over coffee, “He’s a great father and husband, but when it comes to that damned hatch, he’s like he’s out of his mind.” “I don’t know what he sees in it. Most the time he never sees what’s going on, it’s so damn dark out.” “One time he came back with two huge flies stuck through his right ear and said he’d had the most spiritual night of his entire life.” I don’t know how all of the outdoor experts manage to predict what I find darn frustrating to predict: weather, fish and insects. People are easy by comparison. During the Hex hatch trying to predict the unpredictable can be the most frustrating part of being a fly fishing guide. Fly fisherman want to know exactly when the hatch is going to come off. I get calls all the time. When will the hatch come off this year? What day will we see spinner falls on the upper river? I’m a guide, so I’m supposed to have a pipeline to Mother Nature? One time a guy called me and asked if I’d go out and take the temperature of the silt banks in the river, the place where the Hex nymphs live for most of their lives, because he was thoroughly convinced that you could predict the emergence of the bugs by the steady rise in the temperature! I guess on other rivers the hatch is more predictable--right down to the day. On our river, I like the unpredictable nature of it all. Just like most of nature, I take it as it comes like a surprise snowstorm or a hot day in spring.
July 3, 1978-- He came into the shop where, I’d been tying flies all afternoon. I knew what he wanted. For the past few years I have been getting free tying lessons from him “by playing poor me, help the young guy who don’t know nothing.” Being a very successful commercial tier, and generally a generous person, he had shown me some speed tying secrets that saved my job at the shop. When he came through the shop door, I knew by his look that a collection notice on his lessons was being served. “Come on,” he said standing over the tying bench, “I’m going fishing!” I tried my best to pretend I didn’t hear him, that the batch of flies I was finishing up had me in the deepest of all meditative states. “You can hear me, and I know you can tie those in your sleep,” he grumbled moving to the door. “I’ve got the boat on the truck already. Put the cement to those on the bench and get your gear,” clearly this was a command that must be obeyed. The door closed ringing the bell on the hook above and reopened immediately ringing the bell a second time. “You can bring a rod this time,” a voice through the door offered all punctuated by a door slam, the ringing of the bell once again and the four count beat of the wading boots on the porch steps. I knew he didn’t mean it--the rod that is. Usually when he came to collect on “his lessons” he’d be a little less blunt. Asking if I didn’t mind “repaying the debut” a few hours in advance. This time it was different. He explained, as though it had great meaning, that the parking lot at his favorite spot was empty. As I slammed the truck door, he continued to lecture excitedly “...at 6:00 during the hatch? I mean empty, Steve, not a soul empty. They’ve given up on the hatch in that section of the river.” Which further meant that he and he alone could hunt the waters for Hex cruising browns with his polar-bear hair patterns. Maybe he’d even see a small hatch of late emerging Hex. Which in his opinion were better than the massive hatches during the peak and as good as the first hatches when the fish are “...as dumb as a box of rocks.” His anticipated luck was dashed quickly by the fog bank that hung over the river. Often when the conditions were right, fog would form over the river and cling to the valley all day. We pushed off from the landing anyway, “...it just might lift and give us a chance.” It didn’t. But the funny thing about fog on our river is that if it’s a warm fog the fish can still be active. Cold fog, forget it. I don’t pretend to understand the mysteries of warm air over cold water any more than I understand behavior of fly fishers when the opportunity to catch big fish presents itself. It’s funny how at times fishermen and fish can both be creatures of habit. We worked all the hot spots until after dark yielding nothing for our efforts. He was even more frustrated when the anticipated hatch didn’t develop. I learned early on in guiding that making suggestions to a frustrated fly fisher could be a hit or miss proposition. It’s like brain surgery. You’ve got to be careful and have a steady hand. I thought if we could find a patch of water that had a clear space between the surface and the fog we might be able to find a willing fish. A few years before a hot day had produced a fog in the river valley. Wherever we found “clear spaces” we’d catch fish. The problem was in the mind of the fisherman. His night was over or so he thought. How many times have we all done that, quit in our heads before we should have? I pushed the canoe farther down stream to a place where cedar shrouded bank springs poured into the river. As we got closer to the spot he started wondering out loud how close were we to the landing. Because sound does funny things at night and in the fog, it sounded as though he was talking right in my ear. So it missed hearing the first rising fish, but I saw the outside ring of it as the bow of the canoe pushed through its tiny wave. I didn’t miss the wake of the fish as it shot away into the misty darkness. The wake of the departing fish caught his attention. The impulsive furious casting at the phantom fish was not characteristic of the Old Fly Tyer. He handled a rod as well as the best I have ever known. Some how experience or muscle memory or something way back in the deep folds of the gray matter gets a hold of the out of control maniac and turns control over to the skilled fisherman. He calmed enough to place his obscenely huge polar bear fly next to a rock near the bank. The fly came down as though it had fluttered and stuck to the surface much in the same way spinners make their last descent. The fish took the fly in what looked and sounded like a toilet flushing. The arch of the rod when he set spoke volumes about the fish. We were shallow, but had water enough to float the canoe with a foot to spare under the hull. After a few seconds of slow head wagging the fish realized it was hooked and took off for deeper water. The rod dropped and the reel sang. Knowing he had enough room to play the fish, more line was let out. The fisherman needs to get acquainted with the fish on his own terms in the first stages of a fight. The Old Fly Tyer had played big fish before. I moved the canoe when we needed to gain an advantage on the angle. The stillness of foggy air was broken only by the sound of the reel when the fish made a hard run or by the singing of the line as it cut through the water when the fish changed directions and cut a wide arch back in front of the canoe. I never know how long a fight lasts with a big fish. Seems like time just gets suspended. I like to think fish battles last a lot longer than they really do. I often wonder why I don’t just time them. I ‘m glad that I never have. The battle slowed to a stalemate. The dark figure in the bow that up until this point hadn’t uttered a word said, “The fish’s hung up.” “Nothing on the bottom but grass and weeds here,” I said reaching for the flashlight. Sometimes you see things you can’t believe and sometimes you see the unbelievable. In the circle of light, in no more than a foot of water, the enormous brown lay on its side its jaws firmly clamped to a clump of grass. All I remember doing is moving the boat over and reaching out under the fish and pulling the weeds out of the bottom....
June 28, 1994 Fire had been started and the potatoes near finished by the time we got to the camp. Bacon cooking and wood smoke drifted down to the landing to greeted us. The camp chatter fueled by plenty of strong drink was loud and punctuated with laughter. Guides have to keep up their image and the general moral of their clients. So, there are two things that guides on our river won’t talk about over the fire at the camp: politics and religion. The rest is fair game. Keeps the fighting down among the clients. There is, however, plenty of ribbing and good-natured fun. After the steaks and potatoes were served, the rain moved into the valley. Fishing and the hex hatch looked like it was on hold for a while. The whole crew moved inside the screened in shack. Lighting flickered in the distance and the rain dripped from the cedars around the camp. Candles placed at the center of the table and on the overhead beams threw a warm light on the party. A cork popped and a bottle placed on the table. The crowd’s attention drawn to what appeared to be a very old and expensive bottle of cognac. A coffee cup, tin cups, plastic glasses, Styrofoam cups, a beer can with the top cut off appeared with much mumbled approval. The bottle disappeared into the motley assembly of vessels and soon there after disappeared into the motley crew of guides and clients. By the time the cook kits were packed and the rods rerigged for hex fishing, the clouds had moved off revealing a clear sky.
June 25, 1992 If fish were entirely creatures of habit, we’d have either destroyed their numbers or given up out of boredom. “Browns on our river never jump.” “They rarely take out lots of line. You know like they do out West.” In guiding you tend to pick up on those words of wisdom. It helps when you’re younger and your learning your chops. All it takes is one experience that confirms the phrase, and you’ve got an etched in stone law. Sometimes it only takes one fish to contradict all the great adages from all the local sages. So when I went to meet the young Eastern couple at the landing, I was more than prepared to spread thick my guide’s wit, wisdom and laws of our midwestern river. They’d come to fish “the hatch.” They had heard that the big browns of our river “...were crazy for the Hexegenia limbata.” Their only experience with fly fishing, however, was in Maine and Nova Scotia where they spend two weeks a year casting for Atlantic Salmon. They had brought a rod, a 5 weight Thomas and Thomas bamboo; they’d borrowed from a friend. A rig they were told would more than match any trout they’d catch on our river. I’d like to think that we’ve got the biggest and toughest trout in the world--pride is like that. So I stuffed my urge to really tell them.... What I showed in restraint I made up in waxing fairly deep into the guide’s bull. They were in all fairness very nice people. They asked questions about the history of the river, the various birds, fish, insect hatches; their sincere interest and honesty only seemed to bring out the “I’ll show these Eastern, we fish Atlantic Salmon, probably never hooked one, got the guide to hook one once and lost one” attitude in me. It was not one of my finest guiding moments. I let them know all the rules of our river brown trout: 1.) Big browns on our river only feed after dark. 2.) Big browns on our river never jump. 3.) Big browns on our river never make long “reel rippin’” runs. A cold front had settled in. Nothing like a cold front to put off "the hatch" (another one those laws). Fishing on the way down river was poor, few fish and all small. They both could handle a fly rod, which wasn’t the first clue I had over looked with my bound and determined to show these folks a thing or two idiot cap on. Because of the “twinkie wand” they brought along, I had them fish a big but easy to cast dry fly. The trick usually works for day time fishing during weeks “the hatch” is on. I’d like to believe that fish have memories and that they come up for these ridiculously huge offerings because they know it to be a Hex with an early arrival date. Trout are just nuts for these things, right? More than likely it’s just an opportunistic urge. I’ve seen full blown Hex hatches, flies bank to bank on the water, and not a fish rising. Hex fishing is like that. Hell, fly fishing is full of it. It brings out the expert in all fly fishers. We try to explain every nuance. Post hoc fallacy is damned! We know our stuff--this is how the rules of the river are made. I knew the night would be a bust for a hatch so I moved the canoe downstream a little faster than I would have had I expected to catch anything with size to it. Their casting was very good even with the large fly pushing the capacity of the small rod. If I hadn’t been watching closely, I never would have seen the fly disappear in a rise form that looked like a wrinkle in a glassy dark surface. Immediately I knew the canoe was moving too fast. I never understood how he knew he had a big fish on in the instant between the take and the first set, but it was clear that he’d been in this position before and knew that he needed to position the hook and drive it in as well. This was someone who’s used to sinking steel into big hard jaws. By the time I had the canoe slowed and turned toward the fish, the fish had swing up stream and started across the river for a large weed mass in mid channel. Before I could utter a word, the rod lowered, paralleled the river and applied enough pressure turn the fish. The fish slowed from a slow swim to a stop, and then, with a distinctive response from the little Hardy Princess, the fish tore back up stream. The rod raised slightly above parallel to absorb the shock of the run. When the trout broke water at the end of the run, the rod, tip pointing at the fish, waited for the fish’s next move. The fish seemed to stall in mid air, to be illuminated for an instant by the reflected light of a summer sunset. The thick body of the brown came down on its side shattering its reflected image and sending a shower of sparkling pearls back at the sky. “Let’s go!” a voice commanded. It was all I needed to get me out of my dazed state and move the canoe upstream as fast as I could pole it. The sound of the furious cranking and the net being prepared by the fisherman’s wife in the middle told me more of their experiences than I’d ever get out of them in ten nights of fishing on our river. The fish eventually came to the net and was expertly landed, revived, photographed and released. Nothing like a big fish, in this case a Christly big fish (as one of the old timers use to say) to humble any inflated fishing ego one allows oneself to have. These were classy people. Fishing ended that night. “One good fish is enough for the day,” was the gracious reply from the fisherman. The rest of the trip back to the lodge down stream became a mixture of owls calling in the distance, the passage of the river under the hull of the canoe, the moon illuminated shore, a deer crossing cautiously in the shallows and the cool scent of night time on the river.
June 20, 1981-- When things go wrong, they go wrong in sets of three. The car breaks down on the way to the canoe landing. I forgot the landing net. My flashlight wasn’t working right. Flip the switch, it would flicker, stay on, go off; shake it, stay on. Flash lights are important gear to have for night fishing. So, for the entire trip to the landing I had the car, landing net, flash light worry pot on in my head. It wasn’t the exactly the mantra a guide should have been using to prepare myself for what looked to be the best night of a week full of poor nights. A couple from downstate had hired a guiding partner of mine and I to fish the hatch for a full week. Weather plays a big role with the hatch. Cold fronts, wind, and heavy rain can put the hatch and the equally desirable spinner fall off. For three days quick rain showers coming in at dusk and wind picking up after the rain had stalled the hatch. A misting rain came in an hour after we left the landing darkening our chances of seeing a hatch or a spinner fall once again. The wife of the couple suggested we sit and wait. Not a bad plan when nothing else seems to be going right. Sliding the canoe to the bank I grabbed a hold of some the tall grass that hung over the river and pulled the canoe out of the current. The long drone of frogs back off the river and the repetitive call of the whipper-o-will downstream broke the quiet of the growing darkness. The mist stopped. The whining of a mosquito in my ear faded only to be replaced by a sound you’d hear if thousands of people en masse would lightly rub the fingers of both hands together very quickly. Out of the dark spaces in the trees and brush the spinners came and hovered ghostly above the surface of the river, thousands of delicate wings beating furiously. In an instant the river was covered. Literal rafts of dead and dying spinners blanketed the surface of the river. Fish came up for what seemed like mouth fulls. Where do you fish in a mess like that? With what kind of fly?
June 20, 1997-- Peter hadn’t fly fished in almost thirty years. He grew up the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. His stories of fishing told a tale of a guy who needed to get back to that joy you feel when everything’s done right. His trip on our river was a birthday gift from his wife. We found ourselves alone on the river. It was early for the crowds that would come once the word was out that “the hatch” was on. Some things in life don’t ever leave us, riding bicycles, swimming. For Peter, casting a fly rod came back to him the instant he picked up the rod. Maybe guys from the UP have a gene for it. At dusk we started spotting Hex on the water in front of us. Peter picked up where he left off 30 years before. The joy in his voice, his body language told the story: a man can come back to something he had put aside for many years. I don’t know if I’ve had anyone fish from my canoe that enjoyed himself more. He’d spot a fish take his time and put the fly down just where it needed to be. The drift was always perfect and the set quick and sure. I watched the tension melt off his shoulders one fish at a time. We didn’t boat large fish, but the trout we caught would please anyone who knew fly fishing and the pure joy of doing everything right.
June 29, 1996-- At night the whole world of fly fishing changes. Those that were excellent casters in day light can be down right awful at night. Distances distort. The light that's reflected off the water in the hour or so after sun set can be surreal. You’d think you’d be able to see a size 4 White Wulff without a problem and yet it fades into the monotoned background of the darkening river’s surface as though the fly were wet sponge. So you learn to fish by limited sight, feel, knowing the length of the line, sound and, for some, some extra sense that God’s given them. Night fishing in general is an act of concentration and consistency. Those who get the hang of it realize the importance of discipline. Every experienced Hex fisher has discipline. They have their own ideas about the best strategies for fishing the hatch too. This is serious business. In general some stake out a spot and wait; others cruise around and hunt.... Bend holes on our river usually come studded with over hangs and dead falls with plenty of watercress and forget-me-nots woven through the limbs. We call them sweepers or sweeps. They’re places where even on the brightest days very little light filters through. What’s underneath is anybody’s guess? Mostly likely it’s an ugly mess. It’s just the kind of spot the big dark “legends,” huge brown trout, with spots the size of dimes, lurk. These are the solitary types of fish that rarely reveal their presence. They park themselves in this type of haunt for a season of two. On our river these fish have names and reputations: Cement Head, Knobby Jaw, Blackie. When fly fishers see these murky liars, they instinctively know what’s under them. It’s a place for hunters.
June 23, 1995 He can barely cast his fly in the day. She doesn’t fish but wants to share the trip down river. The mosquitoes and may flies are so thick that she hides under a beach towel the whole evening. In Kansas City where they live they rarely go out after dark. His casting at night is surprising better than what he can do when the lights are on. He’s having a blast. In the thick of the hatch, he’s managing to catch everything he’s cast to. Gone through a half dozen extended body duns. By the end of the night he’s caught sixteen fish none less than fifteen inches. After the bugs have stopped for the night, we look up at the stars thick across the heavens. A shooting star cuts across the sky leaving a short ephemeral tail of sparkles before it disappears over the western horizon. We find out later at the landing we were the only group out that caught any fish.
July 3, 1991-- You can hear where the river flows into the lake before you get there. A solid wall of cedar mixed with balsam and alder trimmed with rock at the river’s edge rises up from the pool that forms the head of a long lake. Looking up river the white and red pine reach up and sweep the sky. When the sun creeps below the tree line, the shadows swallow the pool. The river tumbles down a short rapid. Its roar, the background chorus to this place that has been for generations a stopping spot, a place to rest and eat and listen to the songs of the water and rock, a place for fishers.
We knew we were a little late getting out on the water. I poled up river. Dave, my guiding and fishing partner and good friend, rigged up his rod. The rapids hadn’t been open throughout the hatch. The run into the head of the small lake fans out at the tail into a sandy flat. The back lighting of the trees cast a unusually bright reflection that made the tail out of the run appear an exact glossy duplicate of the tree line and cloud streaked sky. The spinners, which were already on the surface, were easily spotted on the polished image. The first fish broke the surface of the run with its dorsal fin before it nosed up and took its first spinner. We had the run to ourselves. Still well out of casting range, we watched as other fish started breaking water. The more dominant fish had established feeding stations. By the time the canoe was almost in position, each rise appeared in the darkening surface as a widening ring that moved down stream and faded only to be replaced by another. The spinners started to pile up in the back eddy. Dave’s false casting whispered into the roar of the water as it poured then flattened out into the run. Fishing from a canoe is about communicating. People often think of canoe guides as human motors. In reality it’s two people trying to catch one fish. Much in the same way whitewater paddlers work a canoe down a set of rapids. Good paddlers know each other’s habits well enough and rarely utter a word. They communicate with action. When Dave had the distance, I stopped the canoe. The forward loop reached out over the run and delivered the fly gently. The fine mist thrown from the line hovered over the fly. In an instant, the fly disappeared into one of the rings on the dark reflective surface. The line lifting off the water tore the image in half. The bend in the rod said “Good fish.” I dug the paddle in deep to follow the fish into depths of the pool.
June 27, 1989-- A fly fisher and his wife who had fished our river together for over forty years sat mesmerized through a combined massive hatch and spinner fall. In the orange glow of the sunset, the duns and spinners mixed and fluttered in such numbers that they were dropping to the water in clusters. Their wings sounded like wind rustling aspen leaves. They landed on everything in the boat. In the half light, his wife covered in duns sat in the canoe chair and listened to a tape of Phantom of the Opera. The old guy didn’t pick up the rod the whole night, but sat in awe and wonder at the spectacle. We traveled back to the landing in silence. On their way to the car, she turned and said, “To see it like that was worth the price of admission.”
June 21, 1987-- We waited as the sun set behind the stand of red pines on the west ridge overlooking the kidney shaped pool. The pool fed a narrow rapid, which turned and disappeared down stream. The place got over looked a lot. Fly fishers are attracted to fast water. The pool was wide, still, and featureless. Still water is tough to fish. Casts have to be delicate and accurate even when you’re fishing the Hex hatch. On three different trips, I had seen an enormous brown come up three times each night and then quit. Each take, the same: a hole would open in the slick surface of the river with a deep mouth popping sound. On all of the nights previous, the casts where right on top of the fish causing the trout to push a wake up stream and disappear into the deep middle of the pool. I explained my strategy to the banker from Milwaukee: “The fish moves to the shallow part of the pool as it flows into the rapids. The fly has to be put two to three feet up stream from the rise because the fish is sitting in shallow water. The water is really clear so its best to try and set the fly down as softly as you can. We’ll wait until the fish comes up at least twice before we give him a look.” So we sat for a good twenty minutes. I sipped water from my jug; the banker rested his rod in his lap. A reflection of the sky stretched across the pool, a deep blue with hints of light orange and pink tucked into the folds of the cloud. A few hex fluttered by and a few fish up river started. The banker obviously felt an urge to cast. After a few years of guiding in a canoe you know the signs. Body language! It can tell a person a lot. This guy had twitchie butt. The little buttock to buttock shifting some people do when they‘re nervous or unhappy. If we were wading, they’d just walk right over and start casting. Damn the advice of the guide. That nervous energy has to go some where--the butt. A hole opened in the slick surface of the river with a mouth popping sound. The twitchie butt got worse. Before I could calm the banker down and talk him through his cast. He whipped a quick cast out and put it down perfectly three feet in front of where the ring of the rise hand been. He then promptly put his rod down on the bottom of the canoe and reached into his shirt pocket. Lighting the cigarette, he leaned back and put his feet up on the gunnels and let out a huge cloud of smoke. The fly drifted slowly over the fish and disappeared into the hole in the slick surface of the river. The rod jerked once and then the line went limp. The banker slouched in his seat. I batted a few mosquitoes away from my ears.
June 29, 1996-- Tom, a client for nearly twenty years, loves to fish “the hatch.” We had spent three nights during the peak week to locate a monster. He’s a hunter. Never casts during “the hatch” until he hears or sees a rising trout. For him I suppose it not the amount of fish he catches it’s the situation and the fish. We’d scouted and found a few good fish.... The warm jets of air coming out from under a thick group of balsam mixed with the moist cooling air coming down the river valley signaled that the river valley would cool down quickly. We watched the bats skim the surface of the river to pick up hex duns then arch up into the fading light of the evening sky. A few fish had already started bulging the surface taking emergers. They quickly switched to duns as the big flies struggled to dry their wings and get flight. The rises started out awkward, big splashy takes, then they developed rhythm and control. Fish had staked out a part of the bend hole for their feeding station except around a tangled sweep of cedars at the tail out. The river grew darker; the hatch and the feeding intensified. I strained to see by concentrating on the dark outline of the cedar sweep. The sound of a large fish broke me out of my trance. Tom waited and listened. It’s hard to guess what goes through the mind of a fly fisher. Talking breaks the concentration and at these times you might miss the sound of a take that would warrant moving. Some fishers like to wait until the crescendo of the hatch has come and gone before they start, believing that it’s easier to local and catch fish have settled in to solid feeding patterns. When the fish came up a second time, it sounded as though someone had smacked their lips with pop. Tom waited. The hatch had started to slow. The mosquitoes hummed at my ears, and no-see-ems were feasting on the back of my ears and neck. The third rise had a more resonate sound, deep and large. It had obviously come from under the mystery of the sweep. An impossible place to hold a boat, an equally impossible place to cast, and just the place for the fish to come up and pick off duns. We had fished together so many times over the years that we didn’t need to talk. I worked the boat over; Tom stripped out enough line. In one motion, the fisher throws the line out in front of the boat then back casts, keeping the tip high and letting the cast stall for a moment above the canoe so that elbow can be dropped low and the rod hand can be pushed out forward. All the while the line hand hauls and then releases when the rod is punched forward. We both reach out with our senses into the black for the take. Nothing. Tom drifts the fly completely through. I hear the line click off the reel--about a foot. The pick up is barely audible. One false cast to knock the water off the fly and a duplicate cast only one foot farther. A lip smacking take. I felt the set of the hook as the hull rocked slightly. The fish thrashed through the surface of the river and ran down stream of the sweep. Tom reels up as the fish turns. I quickly place the boat between the fish and the sweep. Then there is a pause. Silence with a little motion. I look up at the tree line to get a better sense of where I am holding the canoe. The stars are thick and bright and I realize that the temperature has dropped quickly. The hatch has stopped. The mosquitoes have gone to roost in the trees. Mist starts to rise and reach out onto the river from the cool spots near the springs. The moon framed by white pines on the ridge casts a shadow of the sweep across Tom’s shoulders. “He’s ready for the net,” breaks the stillness.
July 3, 1978-- The Old Fly Tyer swung the fish next to the boat. The exhausted trout lay on its side. Reaching under the canoe seat I realized I had forgotten the net, besides the only one I owned would have never fit the fish. It was huge in the ring of light cast from the Mag-Lite. There was no fight left in it. The eye, the size of a penny, lifeless and dull, I lifted the fish by the gills. The weight of the fish shocked me. As it lay on the bottom of the canoe it looked bigger out of the water. It never moved. Fisheries biologists can tell how old a fish is. I don’t know much about those things. I’d like to think when fish get to enormous sizes they become immortal. I know they haunt our memories and live in the rivers of our thoughts especially the ones that get away. I know that fish die of old age. I’ve found them in the river, fins wore down, and the size they once had missing. We sometimes kill fish that we fully intend to release. That’s a part of the sport. I’d like to think that trout are more than table fair and trophies. I’d like to believe that catching and playing great fish is a way for us to find the pulse of life out side of our world and our influence. I know the Old Fly Tyer was happy. I was glad that I was there to witness in the secretive mists of our river a great battle.
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