Wind Knots & Tailing Loops

 

Was surprised by how few questions have appeared since the last Q & A session. 

Dennis - Cornuta are the largest olives (think 16's), that I'm aware of. They can be seen most any time but mid mornings in late May - early June on the freestones is when I look for them (later on the tail waters). The trout love them and the hatch is never heavy enough to fill them up. You just have to be patient. The fish feed on the emerging nymphs early in the hatch and will ignore your dry.  It's not until the hatch begins to wain that the trout start to look up, but when they do, they aren't fussy at all. 

Jorgen - Don't be so hard on the fall fish. The poor things are one of the ugliest fish to eat a dry fly. I am disappointed when I feel the rubbery soft mouth when I hook one, but every once in a while one morphs into a big old brown or hot rainbow, when in doubt I make the cast. As to distinguishing them from trout, there are a few tells. The most obvious is the head bob. If you are looking at the rise when it happens the fall fish has to lift its head out of the water to get the fly into its down facing mouth. They (along with shad) often do a little tail flip after the take which results in a splash of water flicked up into the air. Fall fish usually feed farther back in the pool than trout, if you hook one, pay close attention to the other rises in the area. Have been suckered into casting at fall fish many times when I see a seemingly slow subtle sip. On the positive side, a group of rising fall fish is a great place for a beginner to gain some success.

Brian - Your question about climate change is a good one. The length of the question alone speaks of the complexity of the subject. Was aware that the average start date of hatches on freestone streams had moved up by over a week twenty years ago. As a young fly fisher I was opposed to the damming of trout streams. Today I wish the corps of engineers had dammed more. The freestones that I use to fish had a "big bug season" of about six weeks with early morning and or late night fishing the rest of the summer. Over my period of fishing the hatch period has started sooner and has often times been of a shorter duration. Tailwaters are, for fly fishermen, a godsend. The cold water releases extend hatches and have produced specific hatches that thrive in the ice cold water. Have often said I've learned to like the color gray (or plaid as my one time Canadian salmon fishing guide said) as there are usually plusses and minuses to every question (even the political ones).  

Jim N. - Your idea (suggestion ) of designing waders that could be unzipped in the rear for unscheduled waste removal brought back a memory from a long ago snowmobile trip. A group of us were riding in to shovel off the roof of a hunting camp when one of the group had to make an emergency stop. Unzipped his snowmobile suit, squatted down and did the job. It wasn't until he flipped the hood back over his head that he realized that he hadn't tucked the entire suit out of the line of fire. Most people in the group found the incident humorous.