I think a lot about what the trout want. Where are they holding? What’s their primary forage and how are they eating it? My objective most days, as I pop the hatch on my 4Runner and lace up the wading boots, is to meet trout on their own terms.

Discovering and deciphering those terms intrigues me. Guessing wrong, trying again and getting it right is a rewarding process, and the renewed mystery around every bend resets the deck with endless variables.

The Hendrickson spinners drop and the wind shifts as the sun tucks behind incoming clouds. So many factors figure into trout habits, and I feel like it’s my job to keep up, matching flies and presentations to the trout’s terms.

And then sometimes I don’t want to.

In fact, I spend a lot of river time catching trout on my own terms — fishing the way I choose, wading the waters I like best and tying on the flies I wish to fish.

I’ve walked up and down creeks and streams with just one fishing method, doing it my own way, just as much as I’ve cared to match the moods of a trout.

I fish dry flies (usually ants) from the end of June through September. And on many days I take no other flies. When I fish mountain streams, I rarely carry streamers or nymphs. And I’ve spent years of my life dedicated to streamers-only, nymphs-only, wets and dries only — fishing on my terms, simply because I wanted to.

Cicadas

It’s summertime, and the seventeen year cicadas are nearly finished here. Pockets of activity remain, but “the best dry fly fishing of your life” scenario is gone. I’ve fished cicadas-only almost every day for the last five weeks. It was amazing, but disheartening. It was spectacular, but disappointing. It was everything that I remember from seventeen years ago, but it all happened in another time, with rivers four times their average flows, cold weather and then heat, rain for weeks, an earlier emergence of the big bugs and an earlier departure. It all happened in another life for me too, and seventeen years is one hell of a marker in time. You only get so many laps, right?

I have many more thoughts on cicada fishing, and I’ll share stories here soon. For now, even though the big bugs are all but gone, I’m still fishing them . . . because I want to. Because I don’t want to let go of the moment. And because random big trout still make the same mistakes they were making for a few wonderful weeks.

For one all too brief event, after seventeen years of waiting, the biggest trout in every watershed rose to the surface through heavy, dirty water. Those trout were eager for a rare opportunity and bold about the calorie gain. They ate dry flies like streamers, and they seemed to enjoy it.

A few of those apex fish are still out there hunting cicadas. Still swimming. Still searching. Maybe they’re doing it on their own terms too.

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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com