I'm loving these hot, hazy days of late summer. We've had nineties for a couple weeks straight now, and the past couple of days have hit a hundred. It's a relief to get out on the lake as evening falls.
Usually the temperature drops to a comfortable zone--but not always. This evening it stayed warm and breezy, but now and then the breeze would bring a refreshing rush of cool air gathered somewhere in the high places.
The fish seemed to be taking refuge from the heat as well, if not from the temperature then from what appears to have been a hot and heavy hatch earlier in the day. The wind-sheltered areas of water were thick with a mulligan stew of bugs, mostly midges, but I saw a callibaetis, a few tiny caddis, and a lacewing. The fish, as though they were full, never did join in an evening rise. there were a few fish up here and there, but the rises were lazy, like someone taking just one more bite of dessert after a sumptuous meal.
I never found myself near what looked like good fish--they were always whopping back into the water way over on the other side of the lake and then disappearing for awhile. So I caught a handful of little fish on a cinnamon ant.
The best fish of the evening came on a big green deerhair caddis which bears a striking resemblance to the Carpet Caddis that I still haven't gotten around to tying more of. I cast it right over the weeds tight against the bank and had a couple of takes that immediately came off in the weeds. I finally hooked this fat trout--was that just from today?--and managed to horse her out of the weeds. She did not appear to be happy about that.
But I was happy, and a little bit cooler, when I finally packed it in at dusk and headed for home. And I just might head back at noon tomorrow to see if it's any cooler up there (it won't be) and whether there will be another super hatch (there might be). As usual, I won't know unless I go.
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