Bacchus, the Roman god of feasting and excess, would be proud – the orgy is in full swing and the sheer visual gluttony of the event makes focusing on the details of trying to get everything right even harder. 

Separating the continuous splashy grabs of over-eager young‘uns from the confident, rolling takes of the big fish is like trying to pick out the salient points of breaking news on a radio station full of static...

Bacchus, the Roman god of feasting and excess, would be proud – the orgy is in full

swing and the sheer visual gluttony of the event makes focusing on the details of

trying to get everything right even harder.  Separating the continuous splashy grabs of

over-eager young‘uns from the confident, rolling takes of the big fish is like trying to

pick out the salient points of breaking news on a radio station full of static.

Trying to lengthen tippet while consistent rises just off to the side of my field of vision 

rattle my concentration. So amped I blow a simple blood knot. Start over, hands

shaking. Substantial rise a little farther out and I almost drop a whole fly box into the

current. Christ, this is insane. I really didn’t need that third cup of coffee. There are

more caddis than I can count going down the back of my shirt, several that have made

it below the belt and another is trying to find a direct passage from my right ear to

the left. I’m coming unlgued. Anyone who thinks this can’t be an adrenaline sport has

never fished a Brachycentrus blizzard like this.

BIG rise about 40 ft. out, head and back leisurely

breaking the surface like a miniature

humpback whale coming up for air, of a size

no longer concerned by the hovering threat

of osprey. Tough cast - lots of conflicting

currents in between, and I’m already tits deep.

Need to get that fly at least 5 feet above that spot with a clean drift. Inner voice tells

me to wait, breath, slow down, reposition if necessary. Of course, I ignore all of that

inner sage advice, and fire a cast that lands no more than a foot above where that

fattie rose last. Well, that’ll put him down….

and then water erupts, the fly vanishes, and somehow, in spite of my ineptitude, it all

somehow comes together.