As I write this the date is August 7th. Just like that we are down to the last 10 weeks of the season. How did that happen? The spring was weird with a lack of hatches, a lack of surface feeding trout. June fished well but then July rolled in. A tough month to begin with, mix in three heat domes, climbing water temps and fishing, well, became pretty slow. Fortunately the weather has settled to a more normal pattern. Terrestrials are active and so are the fish. 

Most days I try to fish somewhere in that 11am–4pm time slot. If stream temps are running high I will slide that window up, more like 10am–2pm. I tend to target smaller streams whenever possible. On such streams slapping a terrestrial down in the center of a narrow piece of water can bring fish charging from any direction. It’s not uncommon on small water to have more than one fish moving towards your presentation. It’s a race and it’s always entertaining to see who gets there first. On larger pieces of water I like to cautiously wade upstream in the middle of the stream bed. It becomes a hunting game to pick likely looking holding areas in which to cast to. Being in the middle of the stream allows me to fish both left and right banks. 

Currently, as I have for several decades, I’m fishing four main terrestrials. A hopper, cricket and ants (wet and dry). There are countless varieties of these patterns available to today’s anglers and I can’t say if one is better than another. What I will tell you is I like simple patterns and I’m not a fan of foam. (The dislike of foam,for actually catching fish, is another post at another time) 

I’m a huge fan of the Letort hopper and the Letort Cricket. Simple patterns that require minimal materials to tie. I carry hoppers in size 8-14 on 3X long hooks. Body colors of cream, yellow and olive. Crickets in size 10-16 on 2X long hooks due to their shorter bodies. I will tie some of the #16 crickets with peacock herl bodies instead of the traditional black dubbing in order to imitate beetles thus eliminating the need to carry a true beetle pattern. The #10 cricket is usually fished at last light when I’m hoping to entice that one feeding fish along the bank who shows at dark looking for a bigger morsel. My ants, size 12-18 have the traditional two segment bodies. The dries have the hackle in the middle and the smaller(18) have wings of dun colored deer hair. The wet ants in size 12-16 are tied on heavier wet fly hooks and usually have a little lead, .015, under the rear segment of dubbing or a black bead for the front body segment. I place the black hen hackle either in the middle of the shank or behind the hook eye. I don’t think the fish care either way. 

Confidence flies, go to patterns. I love fishing this time of the year because most of the time , just like streamer fishing, I’m hunting fish that I seldom see. My success, or lack of, is based on my ability to read trout water and my acquired knowledge of where fish should be. So that’s what I’m up to, during the day, for the next month or so. Evenings? That’s a different post for another day.