You know how this story starts by now, Dean walks into a fly shop. Not that fly shop though, a different one. Behind the wooden counter stood a middle aged, disgruntled man. As described to me post factum, the conversation went something like this.
DEAN: “Do you know of a place I can catch small to medium sized brook trout between here and the border?” [the fly shop is located in close proximity to Minnesota]
FLY SHOP MAN: “Border of what?”
D: “Wisconsin and Minnesota…?”
FSM: “[UNDISCLOSED STREAM].”
D: “Oh, that’s a good spot?”
FSM: “I don’t know. Never fished it.”
D: “Alright, well thanks.”
Dean turns to leave, hand gripping the door. The man stops him.
FSM: “You ever fished the [UNDISCLOSED STREAM] before?”
Now the guy wants to talk.
D: “No. I go to school around here, but never fished the area.”
FSM: “Well I’ll show ya.”
The man proceeds to pull out a map of the stream and gives detailed directions written on the back of the shop receipt.
FSM: “Oh, and those big mayflies will be hatching here too.”
D: “Ugh, big mayflies?”
FSM: “Yeah, the hex.”
End scene.
It’s the next evening and we’re in the car, en route to the Undisclosed Stream. It’s about an hour’s drive from Duluth, Minnesota, but we arrive while the sun is still plenty high in the sky. We pull up on what appears to be a logging road, with forest canopying both sides.
The mosquitoes appeared to be extra pesky, I located my green head net and don it immediately. Waders are put on, rods are rigged, Jimmy Johns devoured and we start making out way through the forest. With no trodden path apparent, we blaze our own in classic bushwhacking fashion. Every now and then the brush would thicken to a point of no pass and we would side step accordingly. I think we were going in the right direction…
Eventually a bright light shone through the brush, alerting us of a clearing. The first sight of the stream was something to behold. A wide expanse with seemingly acres of casting room, enough to go ‘double-wide’, a rare feat on Wisconsin trout waters. Shallow, wadeable flats with plenty of structure and beautiful pine trees lining the shore. Storybook stuff. We took this in as a trout made an audible sip just upstream.
We spread out, with each taking one half of the stream. It wasn’t long until I was able to entice the fish we saw surfacing into taking a parachute Adams. Soon a colorful trout lay at the bottom of my net. It was a small to medium sized wild and native brookie, the kind that we’ve become partial to. Dean followed with a similar brookie and a brown.
We continued fishing as the sun dipped lower and lower in the sky. In the golden hour before dusk, we settled on a bend that would serve as our base to wait out the hatch. Thin, light leaders were switched for brawnier ones and small sized 16 mayflies swapped for flies the size of a hummingbird. We sat on top of two partially submerged rocks and surveyed the area, speculating whether or not we’d actually experience our first bona fide hex hatch. Trout continued to surface around us as we waited, creating small ripples while slurping non-visible flies, likely mosquitoes.
Suddenly, a larger wake. Dean and I exchange glances. “Cast on it”, he motions. The hex pattern splashed the water with the grace of a belly flop and drifted past. Nothing.
Soon another splash just downstream, and another. Bigger splashes, not slurps. Without headlamps, we surveyed the air for what we’ve been told we would see. Still nothing.
We persisted. Dean drifted his hex past a riser downstream that was splashing with frequency. SPLOOSH, the take! I glance back to see the silhouette of a 4 weight throbbing under the tension of a meaty trout. I moved in to assist if necessary, with the video camera rolling. Dean elected to net his own, so I stood back. After about a minute, a plump rainbow was wriggling at the bottom of the net and jubilation ensued. On the hex!
Pitch black now, we continued casting towards the disturbances in the night. At least I think that we were casting towards them, I could never be truly sure. It’s a funny game of echolocation coupled with the inelegance of casting something the size of a bass bug. At times I would close my eyes and just listen. All you can really hope for is that you’re in the general zip code.
The trout appeared to believe that the two hex patterns floating along their bend was indication of a full blown hatch. We had, in a way, just created our own hatch. Despite the oversized hooks, hook-ups were generally short lived. A momentary spike of adrenaline as you pull tight to a beefy trout after being prompted by the auditory splash.
Around 11:00pm we decided to call it quits, with trout steadily rising only feet away from us. By the light of smartphones, we waded the 150 or so yards downstream to where we had crawled out of the woods. Dean spotted a clearing in the trees just downstream of this point and to our surprise, a well trodden path back to the car. This served as a luxury on our hike back through the woods in the dark of the night. The bushwhack in only added to the experience.
Back at the car, we swatted bugs and stripped of our waders. Dean pointed towards the sky and we looked up to see a crisp starry night, not shrouded by a single cloud or faded by light pollution.
The question on the drive back remained, had we just fished our first hex hatch? No, we had created our own.
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The Path Less Fly Fished 