Two Weeks & Two Days

Two weeks and two days: these are the last days in the parade of summer 2026. The Equinox comes at 8:05 PM on the 22nd of the month and autumn takes charge of our angling fates. We have been fortunate weather wise during my years of retirement here, the dry fly season hanging in to perhaps the last week of October. That of course does not promise strong hatches and plenty of rising trout through those several weeks of October. I count the end as the last day when I find a substantial wild trout to entice to my dry fly, whether hooked and landed or simply cast to and wished for.

Water temperature generally tells me that pinnacle of fishing has passed. Come October, the rivers cool through the sixties, then the fifties, and some years on into the forties. Once fifty-five degree water remains only in memory, there are few chances to see a significant trout urged to feed on the surface. Likely, there is nothing much to make them.

Depending upon water levels and temperatures through September, the larger fish I seek will begin to move closer to their spawning areas. I will not follow, for it is not right nor proper nor sporting to harry them whence they seek to sustain their kind.

October can bring a wave of Indian Summer weather, temperatures flirting with the upper sixties and seventies, but it is likely that the fish I hunt have gone to their task to ensure next season’s fry. Then I begin carrying an over-under shotgun rather than my bamboo fly rod, though I can be enticed to riverside come afternoon.

In kinder years, I have seen gentler days later in October, even found post spawn trout back in their feeding lies, but that is a rare gift.

This year, September has begun with the rivers in good condition. We had enough rain through the summer so that flows and temperatures are more favorable for this long farewell to summer fishing. The relief is palpable after the past couple of years, when heat and long droughts proved life quite taxing for all of the river creatures, including the two-footed, booted variety.

I am hoping that September’s early signs point to good fishing as summer eases it’s way toward autumn.