I met Steve at noon. We were going to float down river and cast big cicadas in the sunshine and maybe have a Waikato. I wanted to start late so we would be there when the cicadas were most active. I had forgotten about the forecast of heavy showers and possibly hail. Neither of us had a jacket but I did pack a towel. The sky looked ominous. Steve was very nervous about getting wet.
We floated down and Steve cast a size 4 deer hair cicada olive with rubber legs. He was not interested in putting a dropper below. We were there for the dry fly take only. His first fish rose so slowly in the rapid; it was weird. Steve counted slowly and struck nothing but air. The next one he struck way too soon. The next one he lost after a brief hookup. This was all within the first five minutes. It was all on when the drizzle started.
Then it started to rain. It was heavy for a while and fish were rising. We came to a foaming eddy that was just full of tailing trout. It was very clear they were eating caddis flies. Steve said he had never seen that happen before. We ditched the cicada and put on a Chubby Chernoble dry fly. It is so big and made of foam that it is hard to miss, even in the rain. This time we put a dry fly dropper behind. Let's see, a Goddard caddis dry, elk hair caddis, parachute caddis, parachute Adams and other stuff that I have forgotten. They all caught fish.
The rain cleared and it was nice again with the odd shower and sun mixed in. We were watching another set of stormy clouds but they never made it our way. Steve even caught a good rainbow on the Chubby Chernoble.
We changed up the combo with a Royal Stimulator above a Royal Wulff. Seemed like a likely combo to me and hell, Steve had already caught a bunch of fish so he did not care either. We had a foam line with some rising rainbows. I know this spot and they never stay in one place. They just keep moving around as the line varies. So it is important to make a perfect cast to get their attention. It took a while before Steve got the right drift and his presentation was ignored. I took off the combo and put on a lace moth fly. They were likely eating caddis and a lace moth looks pretty damn close. Steve kept saying that his fly was being ignored. I was watching and he still had not made the perfect presentation. Then he made the perfect cast and I said, 'that's the one'. a few seconds later, the fly was eaten. Steve landed our last trout of the day. In like ten years I might get around to the video footage and see if I just made all of this up.
Now I'm sitting here, sipping at my ice-cold beer. Lazing on a sunny (and rainy) afternoon. In the summer time...
