Early season fly fishing has its benefits, for example: no crowds, less wary fish, and did I mention no crowds. During the early season I like to venture out with hopes to find a short-lived afternoon hatch or two. Often it just doesn’t happen, either the water is too high or cold, and I end up nymphing my way through the wintry day.

I was at one of my favorite streams, nymphing with a pair of flies. Two of my early season choices are the Chocolate Hares Ear and Pheasant Tail nymphs, weighted of course to ensure the effective early season tactic known as bottom bouncing. I was slowly working the pair upstream while patiently anticipating a strike. It was an overcast day and my thermometer read a balmy air temperature of thirty-three degrees. A slow as it was I planned to make an early departure and bail out by mid-afternoon. The wind was beginning to pick-up, the temperature down, and oddly enough my hook-ups increased. It’s occasions like these when I really wonder how much I understand fly fishing or basic entomology . Here I am, it’s getting windy, colder, and now the bugs and fish have decided to do their thing. Not a dainty ring here and a subtle tap there, no, this was a carefree boiling about on the surface with an almost playful appearance – real nice. The feeding frenzy was caused by a small gray bug, popping up in good numbers onto the wintry surface.
Crouching to pick an emerger from the water, I inspected the small bluish-grey winged, thin olive bodied mayfly struggling to escape its’ shuck through the almost impenetrable surface tension; called the meniscus. I believe the emergence stage is very important to fly fishing. It’s said by many experts that trout key in on this stage because the insects are so vulnerable. Gary LaFontaine, writes about his scuba diving observations in Caddisflies. “…the third phase occurred just under the surface film, with pupae hanging down and drifting. In no observed instances did an ascending pupa break through the meniscus and fly off as an adult without this period of hesitation. The time spent on the underside of the meniscus not only varied with the species but also with the atmospheric conditions. On cold or wet days the drifting period was longer.”
The Little Blue Winged Olive dun, Baetis parvus, is an early season fly that must be quite hardy. They probably have similar personality traits that of a mountain climber, or Gloucester fisherman , cold, wet, windy - no problem. Maybe it’s their small size that makes them so resilient. Maybe they’ve evolved to hatch early because of lesser predator activity; aka birds and sluggish fish. Charlie Meck and Greg Hoover, write in Great River Great Hatches, about the relationship between mayfly emergence and plant/tree floral bloom. “Charles began to make some additional observations. The quill gordon emerged when forsythia located near the stream just began to flower. The hendrickson appeared on the surface when the forsythia was in full bloom. Entomologists recognize this phenomenon called plant phenology. They make pest management decisions based upon a comparison of insect and plant development. For example, entomologists know that a pest of turf is first susceptible to control when the black locust is just starting to bloom. A second time when this same species is susceptible to management occurs when rose of sharon is in first bloom.
How is this information useful to you as a fly fisherman? By recognizing plants or flowers along your favorite river or the one you plan to fly fish, you too can take advantage of phenology.”

By the time I was able to capture and examine the size twenty olive morsel, the pool was alive with numerous feeding trout. It was getting colder. I fumbled through my leader adjustment and began roll casting. Bang! A brawling rainbow took without hesitation, game on, now to land this beautiful fish. Earlier while bending down to scoop drifting flies, I had tucked the rod under my armpit like so many times before. Unfortunately the rod tip slipped into the icy water. Now I had to pay winter’s price. A wad of ice had formed on my first two rod eyelets. The ice balled tip looked more like a solid hunk of glass than a delicate line guiding component.

I’m so darned ingenious, I‘ll slide the rod down through my hands and get rid of this icy nuisance.

So there I was trying to suck the ice off with my mouth – no way would I land this fish. I successfully removed some of the ice but in doing so dunked my reel completely in the water. Pathetically I attempted to reel in the securely hooked trout; unbelievable. This contorted effort must have been a good sight as I frantically tried to turn the handle on my beautifully milled hunk of icy round metal called a fishing reel. Ice puts a hell of cramp on any fancy-shmancy disc drag system. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to fish with a cane pole, you know it can be quite enjoyable. As a child we fished the canals of Flordia with them for endless magical hours. To land a fish one employs a variety delicate cane pole tactics like: flip that sucker to the side and behind you, or twist the pole to wrap the line around the tip to retrieve that rascal. I didn’t want to injure the fish. So there I was wrapping the fly line around my expensive graphite rod. Of course this is why I pay so much for these fine instruments; it’s to finesse the fish, to feel the load of the line. More importantly, it’s to wrap the line around a hunk of ice called a guide and land that honker. Well, somehow I did it and the rest is history.
Go, go my dear sweet delicate gem-like fish. Down you go to the solemn icy depths of this shimmering turquoise pool. Now rest and catch your breath from the near catastrophe made by this winter boob defying the season’s hardy warning.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 8:22 am and is filed under General, Essay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.