Hex Hatch

You say what?!!  What's all this hex hatch stuff in the middle of the winter?
Well remember when you looked in your hex hatch fly box for the last time in July?  I remember it well.  I remember all the details.  We were at our special lake. The bull bats and brown bats were skimming the water.  They were barely discernable as day turned to night. The air was dead calm and cooling rapidly.  A few of the giant yellow duns were still fluttering on the glassy surface.  Most were cripples and stragglers.  You had had one hell of an evening.  I had watched from my cat boat as you landed a dozen and lost that many more.  A couple had broke you off, including the last one.  You made a comment about it taking away your last good crippled emerger.  About then is when you spotted that giant trout sipping the hexes quietly from the surface.  You watched helplessly as the fish of a life time cruised confidently within easy casting range.  There was nothing you could do.  You were out of bullets.  Now is time to reload.

There are four stages of this hatch that the angler should be aware of: nymph, emerger, dun and spinner.

Hex nymphs can start leaving their burrows as early as 7:00 in the evening and a nymph fished along the bottom can get some strikes. Major feeding activity at the surface is the last hour at dark.
More about Hexagenia Hatches

We are located half way between the North Pole and the equator.  This gives us the perfect climate for trout, salmon and steelhead fly fishing every month of the year. Here is incredible diversity. Within a 100-mile radius, the landscape is divided by the Cascade Mountains.  The west half is rain forest.  The east half is desert.  Elevations reach from sea level to above the tree line.  There are lakes, rivers and streams in all the divergent climate zones.    And all are playgrounds for fly fishers.

The Pacific Ocean is to our west.  The Columbia River is to our north.  The world famous Deschutes is an easy drive to the east. Lesser-known rivers such the Clackamas, Hood, Klickitat, Wind and our own home water the Sandy River offer solitude and prolific runs of salmon and steelhead.  Within the Villages of Mt. Hood itself is nearly 100 miles of small mountain streams that offer wild trout fishing to fly fishers of all experience levels.  Many of our streams lie within areas of true ancient rain forests.

Most are in pristine ecological condition and have good populations of both rainbow and cutthroat trout.  These wild fish are protected by catch and release regulations. There are also many lakes and reservoirs in our region that are regularly stocked with hatchery trout from 8” to 12-pounds that you can keep. The big draw for fly fishers in our area is steelhead fishing.  We are in lower Columbia River basin.  No other region in the world offers the diversity of steelhead runs that ours does. 

Winston B2X8914 Spey Revisited 

I received my two new Winston BIIX Spey rods in late November.  They were both rated for 8/9 lines. Initial tests with an 8/9/10 WindCutter fly line made me conclude that the 14' model had kind of a "finesse" action suited to summer steelhead, floating lines

and small flies.  The other day while floating one of our local rivers, I found that this rod had mistakenly come along for the ride.  Once again the 8/9/10 WindCutter was tried.  It was rigged with the standard issue type-6 tip.  A moderately heavy tube fly was attached to the end of the leader.  After a number of marginal casts the line was switched to a 7/8/9 WindCutter.  Casts got worse instead of better.  Next was tried a 9/10/11 WindCutter.  Wow!  Suddenly the rod came alive.  Hidden power in the lower parts if the rod became unleashed.  Casts became smooth and powerful.  A couple of days later I handed the same rod/line/fly combination to Brian Silvey who proceeded to fire repeated100'+ casts across the river.  We agreed that this was a quite different rod than previous tests had lead us to believe.  Interestingly enough, the B2X trout rods perform at their best with size-and-a-half lines like Sage Performance Taper, Mastery GPX and especially with Rio's Rio Grand.  The B2X8914 Spey rod is proving to be consistent within the B2X design parameters.  Brian commented, "The two revolutionary aspects of this rod are it's lightness and how quickly it dampens".  We examined the handle/reel seat lay-out and found it very appealing.  Everything has the right lengths and diameters.  The action of this rod is not easy to describe.  It loads like a moderate action rod, but kicks over like a fast action rod.  A powerful caster will be very satisfied with this rod performance for throwing long bombs.  It is a long bomb rod.  It has a silky smooth action combined with a very light swing weight.  It is easy to time and easy to stop.  It is user friendly.  When it comes to Spey Rods, there ain't nuthin the matter with "user friendly".  Test will continue.  We will keep you posted.

Length: 14'       Line: #8/9     Pieces: 4