It's Time
Son #2 called last night and left a message and invited me to visit him during the week of April 1st to spend a few days helping him with some work on his new house and to chase the Skwala Hatch.
I've ever seen that hatch and I'm so ready to test out the surgecally repaired right knee 10 months ago.
Have to build a new rod for this endeavor and have a 5wt blank in mind.
Hope you hit the hatch/emergence. Found skwalas a few times last April, then I lucked out and caught the tail end of the skwalas and start of the salmonflies on the same day last May; the fish were very interested in skwala flies until the big orange (actually rusty) bugs showed. One thing I found - although there werern't a lot of bugs out (never did see a skwala in the water and only a few flying), if there was any sign of them, even just shucks on the rocks and bushes, the fish were usually willing to take a dry.
Best of luck with the knee.
Regards,
Scott
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Based on my experience fishing the Skwala hatch on the Yakima River for many years, from mid-February through mid-April, you will not see a lot of them on the water or flying. Stonefly nymphs crawl ashore to molt into the adult form where they seek shelter and mate in the grass and brush along the shoreline. They become available to the fish when the females fly out to land on the water to oviposit or when males or females fall into the water (the Skwala's primary defense mechanism when disturbed is to let go and drop; hopefully deeper into the brush or grass, but often into the water). This occurs so often that trout will seemingly line up along the shoreline waiting for it to happen (hint: fish tight along those long banks, even if the water seems a bit shallow).
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