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Fishing in the dark

Suddenly, without having much spring or early summer angling, the dreaded late summer dog days are upon us.
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Longtime night fishing pal Dwayne Schafers claims bragging rights with this brown landed during a recent night-fishing trip. What appears to be a damaged tail is in fact a piece of mud.

Suddenly, without having much spring or early summer angling, the dreaded late summer dog days are upon us.

Rivers and streams are clearing and dropping fast, and the days are too hot and bright for most stream fishing, especially for photo-phobic brown trout.

Many of the fishing-deprived are asking about dog days options. One is to head for cutthroat country. Cutts love bright sun, and in their high country, the waters are cooler and the best insect hatches occur later than at lower altitudes. Son John and I are planning an early August float trip, probably on the Elk River near Fernie, B.C. for cutthroat and possibly bull trout

Low country anglers should get out in the morning and watch for the clouds of tiny, mating Trico mayfly spinners that can bring on big rising trout and drive anglers crazy with the technicalities of trying to match the hatch, then tie on the miniscule imitations.

Also, lower down, never pass up the odd and occasional cool, overcast and drizzly day that can invigorate the trout and bring on good late hatches of pale morning dun or early hatches of blue winged olive mayflies. Veteran Bow River guide Barry White recently told me that he expected a recent forecast for a dull and drizzly day to perk up the slow fishing on the lower Bow.

High country or low, we all await the fishing bonanza that gradually comes on as the dog days cool somewhat and we start to get into the fall terrestrial insect “hatches,” especially grasshoppers, but also beetles and ants.

For many years my dog days diversion was a siesta in the hot afternoon so that I’d be able to fish long after my bedtime. Over the years, night fishing has given me many of my most memorable moments and, incidentally, also many of my largest trout.

Contrary to the night fishing cliché, I have never done well with big, heavy wet flies “that move lots of water:” my best night fishing has been on dry flies, some of them so small that you marvel at the trout being able to see them dead-drifting in the dark.

Many caddisfly species hatch all night long, and one full moonlit night on a medium-sized Central Alberta stream I took several big browns ranging from 46 to 86 cm simply by dapping a #16 elk hair caddis onto the water surface not more than 10 feet from me. On a dark dog days night on the Red Deer 15 years ago I took my largest ever brown trout, 76 cm, on a #14 white-winged caddis imitation.

My best night fishing has invariably come during hatches of some of our largest aquatic insects. The mating flight and egg-laying run of the salmon fly, our largest stonefly, occasionally takes place at night, however I have never mustered the guts to wade the fast, bouldery stonefly waters at night.

Our second largest mayfly, the brown drake, generally starts hatching about the time the sun tops the trees and can go on all night, although the best hatch of this species I have ever fished started about noon on a dark and drizzly day. I hooked and lost what would have been my lifetime best brown trout just after full dark during a late July brown drake hatch on the Red Deer River.

But the hatch most hard core night fisherman chase is North America’s largest mayfly, “the Hex,” short for Hexagenia limbata. It occurs, generally in July, in a very few Alberta rivers and streams that are closely guarded secrets by the few who know about them. The hatch usually starts when the last light fades in the northern sky.

The Hex hatch is a spectacle and scene I may not see again. I retired from night fishing after taking some nice browns two years ago. I decided I am no longer up to the hazards of good Hex water in broad daylight, let alone stumbling around in the pitch dark: high, slippery banks with deep water directly below, and soft, muddy stream beds, fences and coiled barbed wire that attack like snakes, and buzzing, blood-thirsty mosquitoes, not to mention releasing hooked bats without risking rabies.

But the rewards can great. My long-time night fishing companion, Dwayne Schafers, had his best night season ever this year, spending two weeks of long nights at it and taking many large brown trout, including one of slightly more than 66 cm during a Hex hatch, his best ever on a dry fly.

For Dwayne and me it has always really been all about the millions of those big, beautiful Hexes, a miracle of nature I miss so much that next year I am heading out just to hear again the rustling of the millions of Hex wings, maybe even the glops, grunts and splashes of an old friend and a big brown slugging it out below me. . . .

Bob Scammell is an award-winning outdoors writer living in Red Deer.