Fly Fishing Insider Newsletter featuring The Fly Fishing Shop

> I got up to Merrill Lake Thursday evening and fished the north end. I got
> on the water around 6:30pm and found the typical eerie calm that precedes
> the hex hatch, where nothing else works and no fish feed until the
> maincourse arrives. I saw a few old hex shucks on the water, so I knew
> there would be big bugs soon enough. I pounded the willows with a #14 BH
> brown knee hackle and got one grab in an hour. I tried a sealbugger in
the
> deeper water and got one pull. I switched to a #8 Carey Special, which
has
> worked for me pretty well in the past on days like this, and I landed some
> cutthroats on it. Nobody else was doing much. There were six guys there
> at 7:30, but by 8pm there was a significant float tube hatch and I counted
> 14 of us on the north end waiting for the hexes. One guy told me the
hatch
> has been coming off for over a week. He also said there weren't many
brown
> trout around anymore, that the Washington Fish & Game guys had quit
> planting browns a few years ago, and that most of the fish you catch now
> are native cutthroat. He said the dwindling brown trout population
> probably was the reason for the greater numbers and size of the cutthroat.
> I managed to get several more cutts to pounce on my Carey while I yakked
> with this guy. He wanted to know what I was doing, because no one else
> seemed to be having much luck. I figured out that counting my Clear camo
> line down 30 seconds, then stripping it up in deliberate one foot pulls
> seemed to be the ticket. Maybe they take the rising Carey for a hex
nymph?
> Beats me. I've tried hex nymphs there before and I have yet to even get a
> hit on one. But for some reason the Carey consistently works. The hex
> hatch got going good around 9:05. I had strung up my floating line with
an
> adult dry fly at 8:45, and I didn't get a strike on it until just before
> 9pm. The hatch lasted until 9:40. It wasn't as heavy as I'd seen it on
> most evenings, but there were plenty of times I looked down to see a half
> dozen bugs around my tube. The feeding activity wasn't as frenzied or as
> explosive as I remember it a couple years ago the last time I was there.
> Maybe it's because there aren't as many browns there now. I didn't hook a
> single brown on top. I think I had a brown nudge me underneath on my
> sealbugger earlier in the evening, but that's just a hunch. I didn't see
> anyone else getting towed around by anything heavy, or even hear anyone
say
> they had a brown, so I'm guessing we all were hooking cutts--although one
> kid told me he had caught mostly rainbows. I didn't hook any rainbows, so
> I wonder if he knew what he was looking at. Most of the cutts I landed
> were 13 inches. Not bad.
>
> Anyhow, I can confirm the hex hatch is on at Merrill and I've got photos
to
> prove it. I heard a rumor that the hexes are up at Lost Lake, too. I
> might go up there next week some night. I dunno. There's so much fishing
> to do.
>
> Tight lines, Hank