The Summary:

Few are gonna read all of this to get to my real questions. Therefore I am gonna summarize so I can get some answers. I am a newbie trout fly fishing. I had an incredible experience with a fly hatch and trout take in SE New Mexico. I caught several fish through no fault of my own. I now am hooked and have questions about how this truly works. I wanna ask the old hands these questions to be better prepared. How do you know what bugs are hatching? Do you go by the area experience; do ya try and catch some? How do ya know when the hatch will be? Again is it area or experience? Why do the trout ?gang up?? How long does a hatch usually last? How do you know what the trout are taking, that is the fly, the emerger or what? Are there books or lists of what hatches in what area? What about after the hatch. I did not catch anything for about 2 hours after the hatch, are the trout full, tired, both?

The Hatch Match and Other Musings: A Trout Epiphany

The date was Saturday, June 28, 2008. The time was local 7 to 9 am. The place is the Rio Penasco River on Charlie Mulcock?s ranch 54 miles west of Artesia, NM.
The story is this. I am 59 years old and love to fish. Unhappily for my fishing bug, I live in Midland, Texas. Midland is great for my other passion of upland bird, quail hunting, but takes a toll if you fish, water of any kind is 2 to 3 hours away and very subject to drought. I took up fly fishing two years ago because a friend of mine loved it and I thought I should try it. I started lurking on some fly fishing forums and reading all of the FAOL articles.

Did not take long to learn that the name Lefty Kreh means fly casting. So, got the Cabela?s starter kit and Lefty?s videos and literally within minutes, I am a fly caster (please note that although it is impossible to see on an internet post my tongue is firmly in my cheek at this point.

I then bought ?Fly Fishing for Dummies? and tried to learn something. What I learned is that there are more knots and parts to a line than I thought I could master. Bloods, nails, surgeons and more, would I traverse this knotty world. Pretty soon Perfection was not limited to my tying that knot as I could tie a shock leader to a fly line. Progress was everywhere.

Well, as a hooked person ya gotta have gear, right guys! The starter set from Cabelas is OK, but names like Sage, Winston, Tioga, Able and others sneak into your conscious mind. You?re watch the Outdoor Channel and all those dudes have these vests with ?bout 10,000 goodies hang?n off ?em and fly boxes full of a gazillion critters. Pretty staggering, ya go to Cablea?s wish list, load that sucker up with what ya think ya need, then click ?Move to Check Out? and gasp at the total. As a person married in excess of 35 years to the same wonderful woman, but a guy that never fly fished, it is truly impossible to say ?Ah honey, that?s that ole fly rod I?ve had forever?, it aint happenin?, there have been no old fly rods. Needless to say that at this juncture the old adage applies ?That when I die, I hope my wife does not sell my hunting and fishing equipment for what I told her they cost!? I soon had an oak corner rod holder with holes full of aluminum or canvas covered tubes with reels to match.

So, I am watchin? Outdoor Channel and reading American Angler and everyone is catching trout. That?s great, but I live in warm, actually, hot water country. I am also kinda happy with my state as a bass on the fly guy. It turns out thought that through sales and purchases of different oil companies I find myself employed by an outfit that has major producing operations in Artesia, New Mexico. Well Artesia is just a hop, skip and a jump from a place my buddy had be talking about for years, Charlie Mulcock?s ranch on the Rio Penasco. So I had a for real, cold water, western trout stream that I could even fish after work in the summer time.

My buddy and I join Charlie?s and for the first time I am gunna fish for trout. We go in March of 2008 on a beautiful day. The Rio Penasco is a smallish, stream feed river that runs throughout Charlie?s ranch. It is not a wading river as it has a mud bottom. It is beautiful clear and cold water that is never so large that you cannot cast from one bank to the other so not being able to wade is not so bad. The mud bottom precludes natural trout breeding and therefore the trout are stocked. Charlie keeps them in a holding pond year round and therefore while not wild, the fish are not just out of the hatchery.

My first trip is true beginners luck, truly. There is some rising and taking of something going on. I tie on an ?I dunno what? and catch two HUGE trout. Rise stops, tie on a homemade olive bugger and proceed to catch two more HUGE trout. All this catching is within about 10 feet of my initial position. Put on a red San Juan worm, walk five feet and catch a trout, cool, nothing to this. All this action slows, as it had to, and I wind up with one more hours later on a Prince Nymph. Not too shabby for a warm water guy, six big fish. I cannot wait to do it again.

For a variety of reasons, mostly weather and gasp work related I have not gotten back until this Saturday, June 28, 2008. We had been advised that the hatch would come off at about 7:30 am local time. We were there plenty early and both had two rods rigged. I had one rod with my fluorocarbon leaders and buggers and one ready for dry fly action. I caught two on my bugger and then noticed something.

This Saturday morning became my first real experience with ?The Hatch?. It turned out to be an awesome display of God?s marvelous creation. My attention focused on what at first was a smallish cloud of flying insects, remember I am a warm water guy and my mind did not at that time have the alarm bells to signal, ?The Hatch is On?, just sort remarked that ?there?s a bunch o? bugs flyin? around?. That was just about the time that it sounded like several of my Grandson?s were throwing clods of dirt into the Penasco. It did truly look like somebody throwing rocks in the water, but I could not see the rock fall. Finally, I saw the reason for the din. I saw a trout dart from the bottom where he in total camouflage and hit the surface and then in an instant go back to bottom. It hit me, this was ?The Hatch? and it was also ?The Take?.

Fish were literally everywhere hitting the surface.
If I am still capable of sprinting, that is what I did back to the truck for the dry fly rod. I have on one of the only flys I am capable of knowing what it is, I have on a Blue Winged Olive. I dunno what is hatching; all I know is that the stream is boiling with trout taking something off the surface of the water. This is not some polite dance of the fishes, this is a brutal winner take all free-for-all for food. Whatever is on the water these fish are going after it like crazy.

I do not know what is hatching, how can I get the right fly. I clip off the Olive and tie on something small and brown outta the box. Boom, another rod bending smash, much fun, lots of fight. Then it all stops again. I am about to panic, this hatch is not gonna last forever. I have to find what it is they want. How can I do that when I have no idea what they are eating. They are very small and seem to be brown. I go for the only other set of flys that if I catch something, I will know what they are. I had purchased a set of the ?Full Life Cycle of the Pale Morning Dun? from Cabela?s. Open the box and then as all newbies and maybe you experienced guys say to self, self, what?n the hell are we gunna throw. Select the PMD Thorax fly, just cuz really. Tie him on.

Pure joy is many things to many people. Pure joy comes in many forms. My wife, my children, and my beloved Grandchildren have all given me many minutes of pure joy. I am 59 and today PURE JOY is lucking into the fly that seems to be something these fish wanna eat, not eat inhale and then inhale some more. It becomes make a cast and catch a fish. I catch some really, 18? plus, large trout. One is so large he bends my hook straight. I am watching these fish. They are not single fish, there are gangs of trout. One gang hangs out at a slight bend in the river where the bank turns to a steel banks support. Another gang is holding all along this 6 foot stretch of steel retaining wall. Where the wall ends and there is a bush, there is another gang of trout.

This carnival of fish fun continues for 1 ? hours. Me and the fish are exhausted after it is over. You can see it start to stop. The cloud of flys begins to diminish. Then almost imperceptibly the rocks hitting the water also begin to slow. Finally, the air around the stream and the stream itself are quite.

Few are gonna read all of this to get to my real questions. Therefore I am gonna summarize so I can get some answers. I am a newbie trout fly fishing. I had an incredible experience with a fly hatch and trout take in SE New Mexico. I caught several fish through no fault of my own. I now am hooked and have questions about how this truly works. I wanna ask the old hands these questions to be better prepared. How do you know what bugs are hatching? Do you go by the area experience; do ya try and catch some? How do ya know when the hatch will be? Again is it area or experience? Why do the trout ?gang up?? How long does a hatch usually last? How do you know what the trout are taking, that is the fly, the emerger or what? Are there books or lists of what hatches in what area? What about after the hatch. I did not catch anything for about 2 hours after the hatch, are the trout full, tired, both?
I can see why y?all do this. It was truly an experience that you have to partake in to understand. It is God in all his glory in nature!