The Ontario year is divided into six months of steelheading and six
months of bad fishing. Back in the doldrums of mid-winter, I decided
that those meagre cousins of the steelhead would pay for their
relatives' summertime retreat. Four bugs would decide it. I selected
them, I studied them, and I tied them. True to form, the steelies
retreated to their deep-water lairs, leaving their progeny and lesser
cousins to their grisly fate.

Work was over and by a dint of planning, the car also held, amongst
the flotsam and jetsam of assorted computer bits that tended to rattle
about the trunk, a little 2/3 wt. toothpick of a rod, a ridiculously
tiny reel and a bunch of little boxes filled with itty-bitty flies.

I pick out the scene for the impending slaughter -- a 50' stretch of
steam that in places could be spanned by one of my two-handers. It's
Rhyacophillia water, cold, clear and well oxygenated. On goes a dry.
Within the first couple of casts, a willing brookie impales himself,
then another, then another. I feel ridiculous catching fish that are
smaller than many of my steelhead flies. I feel ridiculous waving the
toothpick. I stop.

In one of the boxes there lies an experiment -- a traditional nymph
modified as a CDC emerger. It has never been wetted in anger. I tie
it on and toss it out in front of me to see how it rides, but before I
get a clear view of it, what would prove to be one of the two better
brookies of the day inhales it. At least this fish had the decency to
be bigger than one of my pike flies. A gorgeous little bugger he is
too . . . . He gets released with my thanks.

Being CDC of course, it didn't float worth a damn once slimed but that
didn't stop more of his little brothers and sisters from taking a
whack at it and in the process, falling victim to its point. Too
easy. While this may be GRW water, Hydropsyche rules Southern
Ontario. Off comes the sodden emerger and on goes the tan, early
season, dark phase Cinnamon Sedge. Bang! It's barely in the water
and it's in a brookie's gullet. Only a bankside tree temporarily
interrupts the finny parade to my hand. In the span of about an hour
and a half later, some 30+ brookies and 2 steelhead progeny have felt
the insidious prick of steel and the alien rush of warm air. Too easy
- I leave.

That was OK for a tune-up - now bring on the browns. After all, a
boy's gotta do something useful until October rolls around -- the
season when the real rods are uncased and a worthy opponent once again
swims the big waters.

Peter

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