I had hoped to get some of my own “Bugs” photos of the 2013 hex hatch, but when it began I was so busy casting I forgot all about it! Sorry.
I did find this video on You Tube though. It shows a similar hatch on a different water, but looks much the same except for the volume of the bugs in their final cycle of their life
This picture is of the first Fall River rainbow I brought to hand during the hex hatch.
We met our guide at the Circle 7 on a shirt sleeve warm summer’s evening shortly after 7:00 while he and a fellow guide were discussing tactical strategies with a foot on the back bumper of a pick-up, and a cold beverage in hand. We just love fishing!
Following a “Best of Luck” send off, we loaded the john boat and headed down river. Although the hex hatch tends to move up the river a little each evening, Cody had been studying the manner of the hatch moving tendencies for a “best guess” where the hot spot would be for this evening. The excitement builds.
My fishing pal describes to Cody what he and I experienced the evening before as we motored past. We went quite a few s-turns beyond the section of water we fished previously.
Cody pulled up in the middle of a straight section between s-turns, and anchored the john boat. He told us we were a couple hundred yards down river from where he wanted to place us during the hatch, and that we could try a couple of nymphing patterns, and deep water techniques while we waited. There were a couple of fish slurping bugs on the top leaving the characteristic rings that get dry fly anglers blood pressure up. We cast some big hex nymphs in the direction of the hungry, big rainbow trout for quite a while and only got one grab. Missed it though.
Bugs were just coming off all over the place as the light diminished from seeing clear to, have to look closer just to see anything clearly. The big hex duns were appearing on the surface to dry their new wings more frequently, and the fish rings went from slurping, to gulping with a splash, then outright jumping high in the air. Really spectacular!
Just before the outright jumping aerial displays began Cody had moved us up to just below the long grasses and low brush on the inside of the turn maybe thirty feet from the bank. He said that from this position we could cover fish feeding near the shore, or out towards the middle of the sluggish moving Fall River and that we should begin casting to rising fish right away. We did of course!
For the next nearly an hour it was nuttin but whoops n hollers, flailing elbows n arms, and the occasional word(s) best left unsaid in polite company. Yep,big fun! I was so busy doing what I was doing, I don’t even remember what my pal was doing. Pretty sure he hooked up a couple of times, but never boated a fish.
When it was too dark to go on, my friend tangled his leader all up, and Cody told my friend to pass it back to him. He asked for the light we had brought. It was one of those bazillion candle power jobs. Cody grabbed the trigger and shone the light up above us, and I will tell you what. There were so many bugs flying around that it looked like a heavy snowfall in the foothills. Cody said, “that’s nothing, look at this” and put the light on the river’s surface. The entire river was covered with bugs, bugs, bugs! I mean it was carpeted so as to barely see any water! How a fish could pick our imitation from all the food is beyond me. But they did, and that is what counts for dry fly fishing to be Ketchinnee!
Mr Hook