Welcome to Eye of the Guide

Part Twenty-six

1998 Photographic Review

(Great Photos, Please Be Patient)

By Al Campbell
Photographs by Al Campbell, copyright 1998

Jason Bick-Spring Creek
As fall arrives glowing with color, it's nice to look back on the flyfishing year we enjoyed. It seems like only yesterday I was standing in a light layer of snow waiting for spring and trying to catch a fish.

Spring eventually arrived, but winter was slow to release its grip on the Black Hills. Our last snowfall was June 6th. Yup, I was flyfishing that day too. A little snow can't stop a dedicated fly fisherman. Caught a few fish too, some nice ones.
Black Hills Rainbow

Summer is the season most flyfishers wait for. Hatches of mayflies

PMD

and caddisflies are best this time of year.

Caddis

The weather is warm and sunlight lasts past bedtime. This is dry fly fishing weather. The upstream drift replaces the nymph and wet fly drifts of winter and spring.
Summer on Spring Creek
If only summer could last a few months longer.

Autumn Fishing

Now it's autumn. The trees start changing color in the Black Hills a little earlier than many other places. The water levels lower and streams clear up after the summer rains that replenished the land but fall less frequently this time of year.
First it's just a few trees and bushes that change color.

Beginning to Change Color

By mid October the trees are ablaze with yellows, reds and oranges.

Full Color

If you pick your days right, you can still enjoy warm temperatures that last 'til sunset.
Autumn Sunset

Autumn fishing is back to nymphs and woolly buggers if you want fast action. There are a few hatches of mayflies and sparse caddis hatches this time of year, but it's hard to beat the results a big woolly bugger will produce.

Black Hills Rainbow

Hooking a fish this time of year is a photographer's delight.
Autumn Hookup

No other time of the year delights the eye more than autumn. But, autumn will also pass. The color has already passed in the higher mountains of the Black Hills.

So now it's back to tying flies, building rods and other things that keep us dreaming of spring. I'll still be fishing whenever the days are warm enough, but dreams of spring and summer will bless my nighttime. And when I feel a little discouraged, I'll dig out the slides and look at the summer that just passed. I'll feel a bit warmer, tie flies a bit faster, and dream of summer a little harder every time I view the year I left behind.

That's why I'm sharing a little bit of my year with you; so you can dream with me on those cold winter nights that hover just around the corner.
~ Al Campbell

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