When the green fuzz appears, the fish really start to move. Today there were hoards of red horse and suckers massed in the current at the outlets of several lakes that I visited. Large mouth bass and hybrid sunfish were stacked just downstream of the spawning fish, no doubt gorging on sucker eggs. They ignored my flies.
The quaking aspens are the first to pop their buds. To green up. To return from six months of dormancy.
I remember as a kid, listening to my Grandfather and his cronies telling fishing tales. One old grizzly guy says, "When those "popple buds are the size of a mouse's ear, you better just drop everything and go after speckled trout!" Truer words.........................
The same applies to panfish in my locale. The bluegills run into shallow water from their winter depths and the crappies are not far behind. They are picky biters until the water warms into the fifties. They reject a fly as fast as they take it. A strike indicator could help, but I am not a bobber guy.
This evening there was a blizzard hatch of large black chironomids and the fish were taking them just below the surface. For a few minutes just as the sun dropped below the trees, the lake surface did a little boil.
A big, buggy, well munched number 8 stonefly is just the ticket. Easier to remove than a midge emerger. Small flies and low light and eager sunfish make for trifocally challenging releases, so a bigger fly is a better deal.
Hybrid vigor of an old fighter touching the magic ten. Split tail might be the result of some earlier angling encounter. Perhaps we have met before.
