The Day of Small Things
By Neil M. Travis, Montana/Arizona
As the days of summer begin to wane the size of the hatching
insects seems to decrease in direct proportion to the shortening
length of the day. Back in the days before time I remember
looking forward to those late summer days when on Michigan's
Au Sable River the first Tricos and Pseudocleons* would make
their long awaited appearance. The Trico imitations were tied on
gold-plated Mustad® 7955 size 28 hooks, and I still have a few
of them in one of my fly boxes.
Those Tricos were the little guys, Tricorythodes stgiatus, and
a true size 28. On early July mornings when the mist was beginning
to roll off the river and the overnight chill still clung to your skin like
a damp cloth the tiny Tricos would begin to hatch. Along flats where
cedar trees spread their branches over and into the tannin stained
water of the Au Sable the Tricos would begin to rise like the morning
mist. As the sun rose higher in the eastern sky the dance would become
more and more frantic until the entire mass fell to the surface of the
stream. Tiny rings marked the spots where the current concentrated
the little flies into a cafeteria line for the waiting brown trout.
For the angler that preferred to sleep in Pseudocleon anoka*, a nice
big size 24, was just what the doctor ordered, and on many days from
late July until early September they would begin hatching in the early
afternoon and continue until after dark. The tiny duns were olive green
and the spinners were a greenish gold, and since the duns and spinners
were often present at the same time, especially just before dark, the
angler had to look carefully to see what the trout were eating.
I vividly remember a particular bend on the Mainstream of the Au Sable
where a deep pool formed against the log cribbing that lined the bank in
front of a streamside cabin. I believe that Valentine was the name of the
people that owned the cabin so we called the pool Valentine's. Above
Valentine's Pool was a long flat overhung with cedar sweeps on the
South bank and on the North bank a jumble of fallen Jack Pine and
Cedar logs provided excellent cover for the many brown trout that
inhabited this stretch of water. Tricos hatched in abundance on the
flat in the early mornings, and in the afternoons the Pseudos would
pop just upstream from Valentine's Pool, and drift in great flotillas
along the log cribbing. When the conditions were right the brown
trout that inhabited the recesses under the cribbing would slip out
to feed on the mass of duns and spinners floating through the pool.
I can still smell the delicate scent of sweet fern on the warm summer
breeze, and the delicate rings that marked the location of so many fine
trout feeding with unhurried abandon in the fading light of another
summer day.
During the 60's and early 70's the Trico and Pseudo hatches
marked the last of the 'Super Hatches,' those mega hatches
that are so dependable and consistently produce outstanding
angling opportunities. When these hatches began to fade we
knew that summer was at an end.
This was all in those days before time, when I wished the season
would hurry on from the Hendrickson hatches of late April to those
delicate Tricos and Pseudos of late summer. Somewhere between
then and now time has become something not to be hurried, not to
be wished away, but something to savor like a finely aged steak or
a delicate glass of wine. I still savor the tiny fly hatches that mark the
beginning of the end of the warm summer days, but I'm not as anxious
to see them come as in those halcyon days when time was an endless
commodity to be spent at one's leisure. ~ Neil M. Travis, Montana/Arizona
*[Pseudocleon has since been reclassified and placed in a new genus – Plauditus – but to me they are still Pseudocleon]
From A Journal Archives
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