The Front

The forecast indicated afternoon showers, but the sunny morning skies seemed to speak louder of a lovely spring day. That sun was bright when I walked the riverbanks, the water glistening and quiet beneath it. I hoped the light might warm the cold river a bit and encourage more fish to surface feed, at the same time wondering whether the bright sky might continue to suppress that activity.

That had been the formula this week: bugs and rises under cloud cover, and still waters when the sun shined. I became more convinced during the first hour or two, until a handful of flies appeared on the surface and a single trout sampled one. A small olive Century Dun had been waiting on my leader, and that trout took my third cast. He was on, and then he wasn’t; one of those scenarios that makes you guess and wonder.

Ten, twenty minutes later there was another ring on the surface, and the few flies in the drift were definitely Hendricksons. The old faithful A.I. brought him up, a good fish, who refused to give in to the pull of my rod. He found his way beneath the downstream edge of a sizeable rock, keeping me in that stalemate until he leveraged the hook bend open enough to escape.

The sun remained, though a few clouds had gathered, they were thin enough to pass the general brightness, but the number of flies on the water gradually increased to a medium trickle. I had waited patiently for another rise, and it finally came beside an upshot rock two thirds of the way across the river. He showed his nose and I pulled line quickly from the reel, aerializing it as he teased with a brief roll at the surface.

I put that first cast three feet above the tip of the rock and just to my side of it where he had made his display. Nothing. The follow up cast dropped a touch further upstream and was also ignored. Perhaps he’s shy after that showy rise under this bright sun, I thought, lofting the next cast further to my left so that it danced down right over the center of that sheltering rock. I met the take with a solid hookset, and the big brownie turned his side into the current!

We had a good game there in the middle of the run, he and I, coaxing a tune from the Hardy each time he ran down with the flow. In the net he was bright and golden, twenty-one inches from nose to tail!

The hatch gradually increased, but as had been the case all week, only a few trout took advantage of the steady surface feeding opportunities. As I moved and reached for the few that did fall to temptation, the sky darkened with a new bank of clouds.

The winds had been crazy since I parked the car, changing from hard upstream to calm, then hard downstream, trying to make up their minds in these pre-frontal conditions. Their intensity grew with the arrival of those darker skies and the hatch became heavier. I moved upstream to chase one good fish that splashed heavily in the deepest party of the run, finally hooking him as a powerful downstream gust accelerated the current and bowed my fly line in a deep downstream arc. I lost control for only a moment, long enough for that fish to take advantage of the situation and open up the hook gap.

As the edge of the front overtook the surrounding mountains, another trout licked one of the hundreds of skittering duns from a foot wide band of slick water across the maelstrom. My casts in that swirling wind came up short, so I took two steps upstream and over and waited on a moment when the wind paused to reverse itself. On cue I delivered the cast, old A.I. alighting amidship in that narrow slick.

Seconds can seem like days sometimes, the drift of the fly almost detached from time; and then, finally, the gentle bulge and the battle joined. Experienced anglers relish the vigor displayed by a good trout feeding on a hatch in fast water. The excitement of the protein buffet and the high oxygen levels can make an average trout feel like a trophy, and a true trophy feel insurmountable.

Wind and water rushing, the pawls in the little Hardy screaming for mercy as the big fish took charge, formed the soundscape for ecstasy. The blackness of the sky continued to expand as I fought him, adding it’s own drama to the power and crescendo of sound. The battle seemed it would never end, with my heart rate elevated each time he roared away. Once his runs were completed, I brought him round again and again, yet his strength was still with him, refusing to come to the net. I had him at the last, pinned near the bank, twisted the hook and he was away. Wide flanked, and better than two feet long, he still had the energy to shoot back across the river like a bullet upon release! I believe I was more spent than he was.

As the full measure of the front descended upon the little river valley, the temperature dropped ten degrees and the cold rain blew sideways in the swirling winds. The river was blanketed now with Hendrickson duns, thousands upon thousands of them in phalanxes that blew en masse across the wind tossed currents. All feeding ceased it seemed, but the flies continued as I rested, then began the long hike out.