Discovery in High Water

At last, the great river has returned to a glimpse of wadabilty! There are still many runs and glides beyond reach of fly casters, but the flows are slowly receding after two weeks. Each cloud in the sky wrought new anguish this past week, but the rain that fell was light, retarding the recession of high flows somewhat, but thankfully failing to drive them back toward flood stage.

I ventured out, committed to visiting some favorite haunts. These are reaches I visit early in the season, searching for good hatches and a handful of quality rising trout. For this season of 2025, I have found these beloved runs and glides barren, their mayflies and their trout casualties of the drought of 2024-25 and a long, ice laden winter. Could the belated arrival of the high flows of spring freshen these bright waters and renew my hope?

My first destination revealed no secrets as I sat along the riverbank after a passing thundershower. Still no signs of life in the drift, no rises and seemingly no hope. Travelling once more, I greeted my next destination with an upstream walk, finding a grassy place on the bank to wait.

The timing of this visit led me to hope for March Browns, and it was easy to let the depth of my longing cause me to see one of the big mayflies bobbing along in every leaf or bubble drifting a hundred feet away. The sight of splashing white water along a far bank led me upriver, only to have my vision dissolve into fast current amid a jumble of rocks.

At last, I witnessed an image of hope. I waded down, trying the heavy flow about my legs to determine if an approach might succeed, for the second rise, and a rise it was, was preceded by a live mayfly lifting from the rapid surface into the growing midday light!

For perhaps half an hour I saw them in ones and twos, hopping on the surface and taking wing, and every once in a while a trout would decide the treat was worth the effort to rise in that deep, fast flow. The nearest one was a long pitch away, but the rush of the current allowed no closer an approach. At last, I eased up on the nervous power the anticipation fueled in me, and the line unrolled as it shot far across the river. He came for it, and despite all the slack line I had piled onto the faster water in front of me, I managed to bring it taught at the right moment.

The fish was strong in that tumult of swirling water and I dared to believe. He rocketed out of the water and answered my prayer; a brown trout, fine and wild and up to the fight I would give him! He refused to leave that maelstrom, but I coaxed him closer a little at a time. Then suddenly he darted away and was in the air again!

I countered every move, thrilled to every run, though in the end it was not to be. Drawing him at last close for netting, the fickle hook released him. The sense of loss, though poignant, was quickly replaced by intense gladness that such a trout was there, once more hunting this reach of river so devastated by the drought.

Nature renews. The hatch was brief, and in truth there were very few of those big, bright mayflies on the water, but they were there, the building blocks for tomorrow!