Instant Summer, With No Corn on the Cob

A cool morning, though it is heading for eighty degrees! Rivers remain low and continue dropping, and the hatches, such as they are, aren’t even making sense. My front porch will probably hit 90 this evening, though the Summer Ale isn’t even in the stores yet. There’s no corn on the cob, no steaks or burgers for the grill waiting in the freezer, oh, and no fishing.

I guess that last part isn’t quite accurate, it just seems that way. I have seen a few quick, spotty appearances of Red Quills, and there were shad caddis on the Delaware yesterday afternoon. No sign of a Quill Gordon, or a Blue Quill or a traditional Hendrickson. I have not seen a mayfly on the Beaver Kill, and wonder about the effects of that terrible sustained drought followed by two months of ice cover. Oh yea, on a positive note, the wind is blowing, hard.

Maybe my ramblings require explanation. In any kind of a normal, or even abnormal year, the Quill Gordons are the first mayflies to appear. The smaller Blue Quills show next, giving the trout an option of a juicy size 14 or a diminutive but plentiful size 18 when they are both on the water. This may occur any time between the second week of April and the last week, depending upon Mother nature’s calendar for the year. Once we get to that last week of April the Hendrickson’s begin and as that hatch progresses over it’s first week we see some Red Quills. The Hendrickson hatch usually takes us through the first couple of weeks of May. As they are waning, the Shadflies or Apple caddis begin to appear. Hatch timing always presents some sort of quandary, but the progression stays the same once they start. Not this year.

Even the fly shops, whose business it is to exclaim how great the fishing is, have been reporting “a few Quill Gordons and Hendricksons just starting”. The fishermen you talk to though haven’t seen many of them; and what are the Shadflies doing here two or more weeks early?

Perhaps I should be carrying a fly box containing one pattern of every fly I own, as it seems there is no way to know what might show up today. One each should be plenty regardless, as there won’t be many of them anyway. I’m going to stop bellyaching now, let a hot shower take some of the pain out of my bones before I dig out my summer fishing clothes. Now, where did I put those ant patterns?