East Lake was perhaps the best highlight of my week. Again, while we were there from about 8 am to 3:30 PM, we saw nearly zero callibaetis hatching, but swarms of spinners hovering over the surface. None of these spinners ever “fell”, meaning we never saw any on the water. The spinners were just hovering. It looks like a dance. Over the years I have noticed a very strange phenomenon of callibaetis spinners dancing over the lake waiting for duns to hatch and then swarming the duns for whatever reason. WHY? I have posed the question to professional entomologists and can’t get an answer. It would be a guess that these are male spinners “meeting” female duns and almost fighting for them as they ascend to the sky and trees. Again, why? All duns need to molt another time before they are sexually mature to mate. That last molt is to the stage we refer to as spinners. So what biological purpose is occurring here? And to sum up my point on the spinners hovering a couple of days ago, were they waiting for and anticipating the hatch happening? Did the hatch not happen because it was too windy? It’s hard to know, but I do know that callibaetis nymphs under an indicator, or drifted on an Intermediate Line was an effective method for us the other day. We also found some nice fish on Red Hippie Stompers and Beetles. Finally, we also took a throat pump sample of a fish at East lake and that fish had small (#18) yellowish water boatman in the sample. I thought that was an odd and interesting find to see in both places so far apart and at such different elevations.
Several of you said you did take the suggestion to go late and stay until sunset and that you loved the dry fly action you found. I’m jealous of that, but guide trip schedules don’t always fit with changing the times we go and come back for one reason or another. Finally, I talked to a friend yesterday about his experiences on East Lake lately and he has been doing well on a Callibaetis Soft Hackles fished under a strike indicator. Whether this is relevant or not, his callibaetis was ribbed with red wire and in his opinion the red wire was key. This is why fishing is so cool, because it is constantly interesting. I am going to start spending more time on East from now into the Fall with the right clients and the right days. I was impressed with what I saw except how hard it is to launch a boat.