Trout Lake Report: A Long, Calm June Evening

You dodge a Spring rattler on your way up to the lake. Live and let live.

You're thinking Drakes, but the access points to the prime shoreline are full of weekend campers. So you launch on the eastern shoreline of the north end to see if they're hatching there yet. This stretch can be prime, too.

It's a little early for the big mays, so you laze along with a muddler.

You get around to the inlet, drop the fly right at the opening in the willows, and get a take. It will be a pretty sure bet for the rest of the season. You've been here when it's a Brown convention.

There are more fish beginning to get active.

The time seems right. You kick back across to see what's what.

It's quiet. You work the muddler some more. Then you see a Drake. And another. Not a heavy hatch yet, but time to tie on your new tie. As you lift the muddler out of the water a big fish chases and swirls and misses. You see the yellow sides gleaming before it sinks out of sight. That was a nice Brown.

You tie on your big Drake and drop it where you last saw the Brown.

There's a take, and it feels like a good fish, but it's a Rainbow. You'll take it.

For the next half hour you fish that little stretch of shoreline, sharing it with a pair of Yellow Warblers who dart out of the willows to snap the big Drakes out of the air. Fish are there, making big quiet rise rings along the bank. You keep hoping for a Brown, but you keep catching Rainbows.

All in all, a pretty good way to spend a long, calm June evening.

Fly Tying: Brown Drake

Here's a bit more of a mouthful. Hope to launch it soon.

Hook: Umpqua U203, #8, curved, straight-eye, 3XL.

Thread: Brown.

Tail: Moose Mane, a good clump, tied the length of the abdomen.

Body and thorax: Light Cahill super fine dubbing. Yellow or tan would work, too, if I had them. Back colored with black or brown Sharpie.

Ribbing: gold oval tinsel.

Wing: orange poly yarn. I've also used green and pink.

Hackle: Brown and Grizzly.

Fishing the Fly: Shorelines are prime areas. Floatability and endurance are prime values of the fly. When Drakes are popping, fish will hit this on a dead drift, but they will also chase it and whack it on a slow, steady strip. When fully keyed in, the trout are frantic to intercept every insect before it can get away. For best results, look for rises and drop the fly right into the rise ring.

Trout Lake Report: A Brown and Brown Drakes

You tied up some Brown Drakes last night for the first trip of June. As sometimes happens, in the morning you don't like them. You bring them along anyway. You're curious what the fish will think of them.

There's another prescribed burn on the way into the lake.

The day has been hot and calm--until now. Some clouds roll in and a stiff wind pushes in from the north. You look down the wave-beaten Drake stretch and decide to postpone the quest for Drakes.

You turn around and slide into some partially sheltered water in the channel. You start working a muddler up against the shoreline.

You come around to John's Cove, where the shoreline curves into a big bend. You haven't moved anything yet, but you're remembering other days and the fish you caught here. You cast and look away for a moment. When you look back the fly is gone. You tighten up and come up on a heavy fish. You always wonder who's more surprised in moments like these, you or the fish.

It's a nice solid Brown. You are grateful for this act of grace, and promise to pay more attention.

You wander over to the north shore of the south lake. The burn is still hot.

You fish the length of the shoreline and find a few fish working the willow verge. Like the Brown, this one took as soon as the fly landed, quickly and efficiently.

You come out at the channel again. The clouds have shifted and the last of the sun is lighting up the ridgeline. The wind seems to be moderating.

So you kick back through the channel, past the truck, and try to make time down the shoreline that will take you to the Drakes.

You can't resist casting the muddler along the way, and some fish still want it.

You get to a little grassy bay. It's a good fish-holding area, and a good place to see Drakes. And you do. Not as heavy as the last time you were here, but they're in evidence. You watch one pop out of the water, and immediately a little trout leaps out of the water after it. You begin to see swirls, and even noses, as fish intercept the big bugs before they can clear the surface. There's a lot of activity going on down there.

You tie on one of your Drakes, grease it up, and cast it out. It sits. Not the right spot. You cast it in closer. Nothing. You cast it right up against the grass. Bingo. A fish grabs it before it can get away.

The majority of the action appears to be under the surface. But you catch some more fish as you start to kick slowly back toward the truck, all entertaining takes as noses rise up to suck in the fly as it drags away from the willows. You also see some fish with "Drake Fever." They whack the fly, making great splashes, and completely miss.

You like the fly a little better. But you will tie up something different for the next trip.

Darkness begins to overtake you, so you tie on a bead head woolly bugger for the relaxed troll back to land.

While you're doing that you hear the unmistakable snuffling of otters, and three of them come up the shoreline past you. They are intensely curious, as always, and double back around and follow you for a ways. You try a flash photo and get only eyeshine.

You kick back toward the truck. Nothing comes to the woolly bugger. You look up and the crescent moon is snagged in the pines on the ridge. It flickers like a cold fire as you drift slowly into shore.

"A Brave and Startling Truth" by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it. 

Maya Angelou, 1928 - 2014