Ok, I want to talk about late Spring and Summer which seems soooo far away on this late March day where we are getting giddy because the temperature got above 40 degrees. I want to talk about the "Evening Rise", that magical time of late day when the sun begins to cast long shadows over the pools and runs of our favorite streams. The birds begin to swoop and drive for the spinner stage of insects that may have hatched just a day or so before. As the gloom of twilight and then darkness settles in the stream is alive with rising trout and the patient fly rodder will be rewarded. It's been that way on New England freestone rivers forever. It was that way on the Squannacook River back in the 70's and the Millers from the 80's onward. Count the EB in this group too. The evening is the witching hour!!
BUT YOU WOULD'NT KNOW THAT IF YOU LISTEN TO THE "AUTHORS",TACKLE SHOP GURUS AND SELF PROCLAIMED STEWARDS WHO WRITE THE MILLERS, THE EB AND OTHER FREESTONES OFF AS "TOO WARM TO FISH" OR SUDDENLY BECOMING A BASS RIVER OVERNIGHT!!!
One wonders how much real aquatic knowledge is being dispensed here. The term Evening Rise is over a hundred years old and is of the Catskill tradition. Those knowledgeable old timers knew that it was a fools game to be out at noon, in July, when the temperature was 85 degrees. They waited till the evening when insects, trout and people feel the most comfortable. What do I mean by that? Doug Swisher and Carl Richards, the authors of the great book SELECTIVE TROUT, said just that. In the Spring and Fall the best time of day for humans is mid day. That happens to be when most insects are hatching during those seasons. The temperatures are right for us. The trout like it because that's when the food (insects) are most active. In mid Summer the mid day sun can be too uncomfortable for humans. It's also a time when you don't see much aquatic insect activity. The trout aren't doing much either except going after a beetle or two. But the game changes as the light levels diminish and the air begins to cool. That's when you see aquatic insects and feeding trout.
Why the confusion when the answer has been in the fly fishing literature for many decades? I think the answer is that some are confusing one type of river with another. Go to a bottom release tailwater and you can catch trout all day regardless of the air temperatures. Go to Montana and fish on a hot July day and you may still be fishing snow melt. It's not the Northeast where the rules are different.
This season when someone "in the know" says that you should wait until the Fall stocking to fish a certain river just smile and get out to that favorite pool or run at 7:30 and wait for the action. The guy "in the know" will not be there. Neither will many others. You'll have the shadows, the insects and the trout to yourself. I've been doing this for decades.
Ken
P.S. Try 4:00 am in early July on the Millers. More rising trout than I could count and it was all over by 5:30 when the sun was bright in the morning sky!
P.P.S. I forgot, the update. Talk to you in April!!!
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