The baetis begin to come, one by one, looking like little gray-sailed boats. They flip and flutter on the surface as the wriggle from their nymphal shucks and try to break the surface tension that holds them making them easy pray for the eager trout below. The hatch is on. As it builds, fly-catchers and warblers gather in the bankside brush, as the bugs start popping the birds begin flitting and flapping to pick them out of the air.
The scene stands in contrast from the early morning, when the midges provide a sporadic snack for the brown, rainbow, and native yellowstone cutthroat that inhabit Nelson’s Spring Creek —a legendary spring creek in Paradise Valley— a place so iconic and beautiful it’s the paradise you might create in your dreams.
But this place is not a dream. For forty-five years my uncle has made the pilgrimage to the spring creeks of Paradise Valley, and along the way discovered where the good fish hold, when the hatches will go, and how to tempt a fish to rise on this most classic and idyllic western trout water. This standing reservation has remained an unbroken rite of spring through four decades.
LINK (via: Sage)
