It was probably 30 years ago but the visuals will never be forgotten. Usually the hexagenia hatch has very little of that. Even with a flashlight those big browns are all about the rise and the fight in the dark. This night was different...now, the big flies either come or they don't. And, its a guessing game. Down here in southern Wisconsin it is earlier than up north and I've recently heard of accidents caused by so many they have to bring out the snowplows to clear bridges and stretches of roads. The first week of June is hex time on Black Earth creek outside of Madison and it was my closest place to find them.
I had grown up dreaming of the hex hatch on the Mecan in central Wisconsin...the box of big mayflies next to the cash register at the local sporting goods store told me the hex was on. It was years before I got to explore that river but my very beginnings of success at flyfishing come from there. Somebody finally let the cat out of the bag and told me BEC had hexagenias, too. And, it was only 10 miles from my house. Fruitless, would describe my early ventures at dusk chasing the hatch...it was the hatch not the trout. The trout would come up if the hex was on...Years later after some success on that driftless stream where I had fished for trout like religion...I finally saw the light. Literally...I had found a place to access away from the dozen or so cars that would park at every bridge looking for a sign of anything. It was not known hex water and I would cross the stream at an old cattle crossing and walk along a cornfield downstream to a slow, silty stretch behind a chiropractors office and the back yards of a couple of houses.
I approached the slight slick of a riffle just above the flatwater...my timing was good and just a little light allowed me to get a bearing on things before it went dark. I just stood and watched along the bank and waited. At first, nothing...like so many times before. I'm always prepared for nothing when chasing the hex. Then, something...big, too. Fluttering over the opposite bank...it was hard to see for the light coming from the houses on that side. Then another...and another...I stepped off the bank into the the water to get in position. I heard a rise...ploop. Then, a small fish made a showy rise trying to gulp the almost 3 inch long mayfly...the big ones just suck water. Ploop...
As I was stripping line to cast, some folks from the houses with the backyards on the other side of the creek, came out and made some noise while having a beer and I was sure they would ruin my hopeful fishing. To make maters worse, they lit a roman candle. Then fireworks...on the water, too. Hexes were everywhere...in the air, on the water, and being taken by trout. Big trout...and their rises reflected in the most brilliant light show I've ever seen. The hex was on...
I cast to risers in reflected reds, yellows, blues, and brilliant whites...and, caught trout as long as my arm. All the while, the revelers carried on...Big trout take time to play but I muscled them to take another. I knew this couldn't last. I hooked big browns rising less than a rod length from me and others in shallow water over a pod of nymphs rising from the silt. All in the brilliant reflections...
One extra large brown took me downstream into some willow lined water away from the silt and my Hardy screemed 20 feet of line...it was enough to make the light givers take note. Someone else had been part of their celebration...without them knowing it. Now they did...and stopped. No more fireworks...no more hexes, and, no more trout. But, forty five minutes of a once in a lifetime event. The hex was on...
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