Jack O'Malley Interview w/ Dave Richey
The Brown Drake hatch is fine. So too are the Tricos later on, and the Hendricksons earlier in the season.
But, for me, one reason I enjoy fly fishing for trout is to recapture the mood of fishing the Hex hatch. The Hexagenia limbata hatch is something to behold, providing you hit it right and that can be a difficult thing to do some years.
It's been my pleasure to have fished the Hex hatch for more than 50 years, and I well remember my first time. I hooked a brown well over 20 inches on the mainstream AuSable, and a perfect stranger did the netting.
The Hexagenia limbata is one big fly that trout love.
It was a special moment for a teenage kid, and I remember the thrill that surged through me as the fish fought mightily against a firmly held fly line. This fish would break the leader, bust the rod on the hook would tear out, but I wasn't going to give it any line. Fortunately, the hook and line held and the rod didn't explode in my hands, and the fish was landed.
I remember the giddy feeling of success, the pat on the back in congratulations from a perfect stranger, and the fact that this fish was mine.
It may have been a nice brown, but my feelings then no longer match my feelings now. I'm well into the challenge of hooking these fish, and if they can be landed, that's great. If they escape, good for them.
Times change, as do the feelings of anglers. I no longer gloat after catching a big fish, and most often the fish is returned.
For me, I enjoy being on the river before dark. Being parked in a riverboat or on foot in a spot where a big fish lives. It's a time of patience, wishing mosquitoes had never been created, and dreaming old dreams of other nights on the river.
The hatch is as unpredictable as the summer weather.
Sometimes the hatch would come off and sometimes it wouldn't, and that is all part of the magic of the Hex hatch. I remember fish hooked, trout lost, big fish and small, and those nights when a blanket hatch covered the water.
The fish would rise like crazy, and your imitation was just another bug on the water. The trout would gorge themselves, and then the action would stop.
There may still have been bugs in the air, and bugs on the water, but the trout were sated and would no longer feed.
Mostly, the hatch is something that you really can't see. The bugs lift off the bushes and trees along shore, hover in the air with a soft whizzing sound. They are everywhere; on your hat, your hands, on the rod, and when a cast is made, the fly gets thrown into the river with the others. Any pause for several seconds means another mayfly will land on your rod again.
It's a noise that seems to move upstream to the angler, and being in the right spot at the right time is sometimes difficult to do. There may be nights when the bugs are upstream or still downstream from you. Being in absolutely the right place is one reason why anglers arrive early and stay late, and fish nightly.
If it is going to happen, and right here at this spot on the river, the fisherman wants to be there and ready. All too often some bugs come off, and there are sporadic sips of a good trout taking bugs off the surface.
Determine the location of the feeding fish, time the period between rises, and cast about a second before the fish is due to rise again. Sometimes these soft and sporadic hatches produce better action than during a full-blown hatch and spinner-fall when fish feed quickly and then stop.
Bugs in the air and on the water.
I thrill to the soft buzzing sound of bugs in the air. It is fun to listen for the first rise, pin down the location with the second rise, and be ready to cast to the brown trout by the time he rises the third time.
These are nights of no action, some sport, or the blanket hatch, which must be experienced to be believed. I prefer the slower, and more methodical rises, and these can last a long or short time. Lay a big imitation into the ribbon of current where the fish is feeding, hear the sip and the pull on the line, the gentle hook-set and than the first feel of the fish in hopes of quickly judging his size.
Is it large, medium or small? It makes little difference. The angler hooks the fish, and given good luck, it is landed. Poor luck, and the fish gets away.
What never changes is the darkness. All fishing is done by sound, and that levels the playing field. A precise cast by a master fly-fisherman may lead to more hook-ups, but in the end, hooking a fish is why we spend our time on the river. The hatch should be at least two weeks away, and as much as three weeks, but we will wait paitently for it and the mood to grab us.
The trout are nothing more than a wonderful bonus, and a small part of why we are there.
