Stillwater’s Puzzle (When Kicking About With A Bugger Isn’t Enough)

I have to be taking a break to kick or row about searching with a pulled Woolly Bugger or wet fly in the surface. I am more comfortable focusing upon a drop off a shoal or back bay and intently working a pattern to induce a hit. When times are slow, the full range of why’s, where’s and how’s come into mind. I try to stay there mentally to learn. I try to avoid the maybe’s and could’s because at that point…if I fall into that mode of thought, I am not a thinking fisher anymore and might as well kick about aimlessly trolling a some undulating marabou concoction.

So, this past outing called for some tactical calculations and in the process I mentally noted all the factors stillwater fly fishers consider while trying to seduce some little rocket (or some bigger slob) to our creations. The presentation? To slow, to fast? How long a strip or should I use a finger roll? Is the clear Intermediate down far enough? Let’s see, this is about 10 feet of water and at an inch a second that would take……..  When I got hits, I noted how far into the retrieve I was and possibly how deep or how far up the fly had been retrieved? What do I see going on about me? Hatches, pre-emergence signs in the surface film. What do I see rising for those emerging chironomids? All I see are small fish. Is it worth the effort to throw a floating line at predominantly small fish in the hopes for something bigger? Or, should I keep digging deeper in the water column for that memorable cruiser?

The fly? Alway foremost in most of our considerations. Color, weighted or unweighted? What should I imitate or should it be suggestive or provoking? Old standby’s aren’t working. How can a Little Fort Leech fail? But, it is failing. So is basic green! What? A few fish on The Calico Bugger. A few fish on a nymph. No consistency. Finally, the obvious intrudes. Dragon flies everywhere, all day. I cannot remember the names. Are they the longer nymph or the shorter stouter nymph. I fish both. The Kaufmann’s Dragon works great and I couple this with a Hale Bopp Leech (Derek Fergus) and a pattern emerges…the Brownish Hale Bopp with a reddish orange marabou tail starts being the ticket. It stayed consistent for  several days.

Wind, moon, temperature, barometer, retrieves, location, structure, hatches, light… all bounced around in my head like a popcorn popper. Much easier to bob along pulling a Bugger and catching your four fish. But, not my usual intent…admittedly I’m too intense to just do that…despite my best intentions, I do care how many I catch. I do care how big they are. I do care about results. I don’t share that with anyone near me. I just think it. And, when I become too consumed with the puzzle, I do sit back and take some photo’s or just pull that bugger about while I smoke my briar.

I have remarked before how much I savor those final fifteen minutes or so when I turn and face into the fading light. The backs of porpoising fish are sometimes visible. Splats, dimples and glumps are discernible all about you, but most enjoyable straight ahead looking into that semi glowing funnel of light…last light.

Tony’s version of last light solitude is always turned toward the shore line and the weeds and reeds hoping for that wallowing cruiser. He endures the little ones in the nursery looking for mama.