Channeling Sylvester Nemes

As will eventually happen around here, spring arrives.  And it did...just yesterday.   Sensing that 72 degrees and sunshine in April means the best hatch (in my opinion) of the year on the local trout stream, I made arrangements to get up and get after it.  Fish that like caddis flies also like swung soft hackles, a tip taught to me originally by none other than Shox McSteel, back in the days before children and mortgages.  It was also reinforced by a brilliant though highly underrated angler named Sylvester Nemes who wrote the book on this fly and the techniques used to fish it.
The swung fly has become the hip thing to do in some steelhead circles these days but I will take this opportunity to suggest that it is also a very, very deadly approach to spring creek brown trout fishing.  If you ever tire of bobbers and lead and there isn't enough surface activity to warrant the Halfordian approach...tie on a brace of size 16 soft hackles and swing through.  You may be surprised.

The cardinals sang and the midges flew, the sun rose and the morning clouds burned off as I took 2/3 swings per step through all the choice water and even some marginal water.  The browns were awake and looking up and they plucked away at my Hungarian partridge wrapped iron.   A few came up short, but more than my share stuck.  Nothing big, nothing worthy of a real grip and grin, but the catching was hot and the fish continued to peel off their feeding lanes to have a taste.

After fishing my favorite caddis riffle (without ever seeing even a single caddis...or caring) I noticed a fish rising on the outside of a deep slow bend.  Telltale ripples exposed his position every 10-20 seconds as it tilted up for a midge struggling to dry itself before flight.  Leaning my 4 wt. against a box elder tree, I got down in the dirt and dry grass and slithered to the edge of the bank for a closer look.  Less than ten feet away I could make out the spots of a healthy brown trout, high in the water column, having breakfast...or brunch perhaps.  Making myself as comfortable as possible as the blood rushed downhill into my head I watched and snapped pictures for the better part of an hour.  The sun was completely wrong and the light reflection was brutal, but I had front row seats and enjoyed the show until the fish spooked and disappeared...sunlight glinting off the lens perhaps?

I checked my watch and saw that mid-day was fast approaching so I made for my vehicle in order to make my an appointment with my daughter and her soccer team.   I made it to the appointment and even had enough extra time to stop at a local coffee house to bring my wife a small token of my appreciation for mornings like these.  I should confess that as I headed for the vehicle I couldn't help but stop at my favorite caddis riffle and work through it one last time just to cement my satiation.  The fish were still eager and a few larger ones came out to interrupt the easy rhythms of my soft hackle swinging through...Just like Sylvester Nemes suggested they might. 

The day about to unfold.

That's gotta suck.

Soft hackle brunch

Average brown for the morning

A quick pic before release

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Midge on the menu

Gulp

...and turn

Gulp

...and turn...

...and turn.

Gulp

...and turn

Almost Vertical

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