Best fishing of the year

It’s time.

The best fishing of the year is happening right now.

But don’t hesitate. It will be over in a flash.

There’s a narrow window of time each spring when the rivers are clear and the caddis flies are hatching.

The hatch will continue once runoff begins in earnest, however, the angling opportunities will wash downstream with the muddy flow.

Hit it right and there will be rafts of spent caddis, thick on the river, making it difficult to keep track of your fly. Hungry trout, feeding on this first major hatch of the year, will at times, boil the surface.

Using a fly a couple sizes larger than those hatching makes it easier to keep track of which one is yours. Match the hatch too closely and you’ll be raising your rod at every swirl, and coming up empty more often than not.

Caddis emergers, fished below the surface can be deadly, but the action on top is too much fun to miss.

It’s a close-mouthed affair, not so much to keep the good fishing a secret as to keep the bugs out of your mouth. Clouds of caddis rise along the banks landing on your glasses, getting down the collar of your shirt, crawling in your ear.

You think it’s raining as you drive to the river, but it’s only the sound of caddis flies hitting the windshield.

The fishing can be so good, and the window of opportunity so narrow that it warrants calling in sick to work.

It never lasts long enough. Spring runoff always puts an abrupt end to the fabulous fishing. The water may muddy and clear a couple of times or simply blow out overnight and not be fishable again until July.

Catching it just right is simply a matter of not waiting. Don’t plan a trip for this weekend or next week. Go now. You don’t want to miss it and then have to listen to someone who didn’t go on and on about the great fishing they enjoyed.

Caddis flies will continue to hatch as the weather warms, but not in swarms, not in the clouds that cover the willows. You may have to look closely to see them.

At the moment they’re unavoidable.

So don’t wait.

Miss this fishing phenomenon and you’ll have to wait a whole year for another chance.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].