latter stages of the hatch, sucks to nothing visible. I tie on a #20 muskrat fur nymph. There is only one fish rising every three or four minutes in a backwater, but I have no better prospects, so I maneuver into position. I get the fly out in the general vicinity of the rises, hoping I haven't spooked the fish, and wait as the current movesimperceptibly downstream. He's cruising, I figure, maybe in a circular pattern. I get distracted by a flock of geese landing in a nearby field, then hear a suck. Looking back, my fly is gone where there's a dimple. I set on something solid that runs downstream through the weeds, thankfully staying parallel to their flow so that when he turns, we're still connected without too much garbage on the leader. It takes me about ten minutes to land the fish, during which time the hatch starts and there are fish boiling all around me. I net him and stretch him out. A solid 20 inches. Finally! Heck, given the contraction factor of the tube in this altitude and heat, it might really be 21 or even 22, heh, heh! Now there are lots of targets. The nymph immediately sets up on another fish that jumps 10 times. A Brown! I target some ominously silent sucks tight against the reeds in a quiet pocket just inside the current, exactly where they've been the last two days. A very tough spot. No float, and no time for a float. This time I get a suck for a change, but only scratch the fish on the set. Who knows. I take another fish and miss another rise. Hey, this is getting easy! Actually, I stay with the nymph too long, because the red quill hatch gets heavy and these large flies are really littering the surface. Large fish are clearly taking the dun. I change to the hairwing dun and miss two takes that I have come to recognize as the riseform of a large Silver Creek fish slowly closing it's mouth, feeling the hair or hook or whatever, and backing out violently from the fly, all faster than you can react to. Then it is over, completely. Best morning yet, actually learned something again. Paddling back, I check the gulper spot hoping for one last shot, and there a fisherman standing in, literally, the cruisingspot. I tell him he's in a great spot, and he smiles back. I don't think he took it the way I meant it. I throw in the wet tube, waders, and rod, and head back to life, reality, whatever, with the final thought that there are no real spring creek specialists, just anal compulsives who happen to fish. I have the toilet paper stuffed in every pocket of my vest and floattube to prove it. Trump Dpyle McKenzie Flyfishers October 1990
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