In my own fishing and guiding - I am a hatch matcher. I would like to think that when a trout takes one of my flies, I know exactly what insect the fish saw my fly as. This game keeps me constantly entertained through studying insects on the water and experimenting with new fly patterns. This has been a busy year of guiding for me, and I want to share some hatch matching stories I had this season.

Early August 2018

Feeling satisfied from a healthy lunch break, and a morning of fishing wet flies, my client and I drove up river in hopes of finding an afternoon hatch. Once riverside, we took a moment to take in the wondrous surroundings. An osprey in the tree, wisps of cloud cover, and the churn of tumbling water soothed the senses. With a soft gaze over wandering water, we began to notice surface disturbances in the calm pool as trout slurped insects yet to be discovered. A close look at the water revealed the miniature sailboats; PMD mayflies, quite small, a size twenty two. The guide in me smiled, as I had been “here” before, about a year ago, and had tied some flies to match these discrete insects. I felt confident and knotted a fly I tied the year before to my clients 6X tippet. I was prepared to “match the hatch” and ready to play the game.

We caught fish that afternoon, but we did not do as well as I expected considering the number of fish nosing in front of us. As we left the river I collected a few insects for a closer look. Although still the same size, this year’s insects had more green color than last years. The wing on my fly was too light of a grey, and the thorax needed a grey olive. It was time to get back to the tying bench.

Mid August 2018

Some weeks later I headed back to the same area with a new client. We ambled and observed, but I was looking for something specific (not the best way to approach fly-fishing); the pale yellow-green sailboats I had observed weeks prior.  My fly box was loaded with some new patterns to match that hatch, and they needed to get wet.

The river was busy and we wandered to find an unoccupied area with glassy water that we hoped to fish. You know the water type; with calm shifting glass that mirrors the sky, with subtle disturbances of trout when sipping, where fish lift a nose to your fly, sniff the tailing fibers, and turn away with an air of superiority?

Happening upon a vacant river bend, we sat in the grass with an intent gaze upon the water in front of us. One, then another, and a third fish eventually rose and revealed their holding locations. Many of the trout were tight to the shallow inside turn, in inches of water sipping the visible sailboats. I set my client up to cast from 20 feet on shore allowing just 4 feet of fly line with 12 feet of leader, and tippet to hit the water. It was a prime scenario to efficiently present flies to these selective fish.This was the game that we wanted to play.

With my newest fly pattern cinched to 6X my client went three casts to three rising fish, eventually landing them all. The next few hours were excellent. This was how a hatch-matching fly combined with good presentation was supposed to fish. I thought I had the game all figured out. 

Late August 2018

Partial clouds provided promising conditions and the hunt for rising fish began. It did not take long to find noses and get a few fish to hand. My clients and I continued moving, creeping along the banks until we were stopped by a push of water signaling the breach of a larger fish. This target was just dozens of yards from where the trail meets the river and only a few feet off the bank. There is no doubt fly anglers test their luck at this location day after day. We stepped off the bank for a lower profile and I tied on my PMD pattern, which was a consistent producer over the last few weeks. This client had a good cast and a few throws into our engagement the timing became right as our drift synced with the quarry’s feeding rhythm. The fish lifted vertically through the deep channel, and I grinned as the fly moved laterally towards the white of an opening mouth. The fish and fly moved at the same speed towards one another, their upcoming conference like destiny. It was a slow methodical rise and I thought the brown was fooled, but as the trout came within inches of the fly it made an arcing turn and refused the offering. Our pursuit continued, changing flies, syncing rhythms, getting drifts, but the best we could get was a rise and refusal. My client was frustrated; he turned to me “let’s go somewhere else”.

After some fishing time up river I turned to the client “We need to catch that fish, let’s give it another try”. He agreed to again test his presentation and my flies on the brown that had won our previous battle. The emerging insects held a mixture of sizes, the smallest a 22 and the largest an 18. So we began testing an assortment of larger fly patterns, running the gambit of emergers, adults, and cripples over the picky riser. Another quarter hour and a handful of fly changes to work the trout, yet this brown just gave us the fin(ger); occasionally raising up lethargically to inspect and refuse our fly. I loved it. These are the moments that keep fly-fishing exciting and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of the game. Alas, my client did not feel the same and sighed with “I give up”. I did not have the game all figured out.

While the client fished upstream having success with other fish, I kept looking back at the rising trout that vanquished our efforts and looking down at the water to ponder our failure. I wondered what clue I had missed in picking the right fly. The client had fished the flies well, and it was my failure in fly selection and not his failure in presentation. I gazed on the water and noticed that for every 10 perfect sailboat dun’s that floated by, a single mangled adult with wings matted in the water and a wriggling body was struggling to release from the surface film. Some of these insects were lifeless and we had not tried a spinner fly, which would match the down-winged profiled of the struggling adults. I turned to my client and said “Let’s give it one more go on that fish”.

Positioned in casting range, I tied a hair wing spinner to the now 7X tippet. This fly was a staple for me on the “Ranch”, where spinners are a daily menu item. I have a bit of OCD and needed the fly to be perfect, so I began to preen the deer hair wings into position; maybe with too much vigor as I tore most of the wing off one side of the fly. “Shit.” The disappointment of ripping a wing dissolved into excitement as the tearing sound drove a chain reaction of sparks through my brain that ended with the Western Rivers shop joke which states that certain “Ranch” fish only eat the one-winged bent-body crippled spinner. I pulled out my hemostats and bent the hook to a 30 degree angle in the center of the body. Loaded with torn wing and writhing body as our ammunition, my client made one last cast.

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