” When preparation meets opportunity, luck happens”.

Nine days of wandering around rivers. We went east, west and south. We never went north. It’s kind of a gong-show up there anyway. Too many campers, too many camping riverside, too many 4-wheelers, too many anglers, too many casting treble hooks, too many mangled fish, too many… For six of the nine days there were few bugs around; no real hatch. The insect apocalypse theory remained intact. It was mediocre dry fly angling in the beautiful sunny weather. Then the Weather Network and Environment Canada predicted a few days of cooler weather, cloud cover, rain or at least thundershowers. I checked a third source, AccuWeather. It reported the same. All weather sources were aligned and it meant a very strong possibility of daytime low-light conditions with precipitation. I thought, “It might happen”: the chance of a solid daytime hatch and fish up. Trout generally feel safer rising for insects when the dimmer switch has been dialed down.

So on the first cloudy day I put on my rain jacket and headed for a river where I felt there was potential; where “It might happen”. I had not been on the one I selected for a month. Around mid-day birds started swooping and darting over the river. It looked like a hatch was developing and then shortly after it exploded. The main insect: Pale Morning Duns (Pmd’s). And the trout responded. They were up everywhere. Boils and bulges at the head of pools and sipping fish eating duns in the mid and lower pool sections. I got lucky. I got more than lucky as the event lasted for 3 or 4 hours.

On the next cloudy day I returned with a friend, Roman. It was cooler and wetter. There was also thunder and some lightning. We got there just before noon. We waited and waited. There were showers all afternoon. We walked from pool to pool in order to stay warm. I wondered if it was ever going to occur. An old Yiddish adage came to mind, “Man plans, and God Laughs”. Then at around 3-3:30 pm, three hours after our arrival, the birds started working the river, Pmd’s began to emerge and fish started to rise. Big guys and gals. A repeat performance. Just delayed and briefer probably because of the cooler weather. The fish continued to surface even when the sun occasionally broke through late day. The brown trout glowed golden in the late afternoon light. After being wet all afternoon we appreciated the sun’s warmth. Then when the river became fully illuminated by the sun, it all stopped. The trout disappeared: “Now you see me now you don’t”. Like magic.

If you fish a lot you know it doesn’t always happen this way. Some rivers are easier to predict than others but in the end when dealing with Nature there are many uncertainties; many unknowns. Sometimes everything seems perfect but you don’t get a solid hatch, you just get wet…but that’s all part of it.

So, “It might happen” ended up “happening” and we caught and released some wonderful trout on size 16, 18 Pale Mornining Duns…here are a few images…