Presentation and Imitation
It took me three years to learn the lessons of presentation and imitation. Suitable tackle was the start. My fiberglass Fenwick gave way to a longer graphite rod as I realized that accurate casting was the foundation skill. I had watched Phil Wright cast an entire fly line across the public green outside his shop in Aspen with just the tip section of a bamboo rod. That had seemed both a marvel and a novelty at the time. Now I realized that until I had mastered the mechanics of the long cast, I had little chance of success on Hat.
The need for an absolutely drag-free presentation lead to an understanding of leader construction. Then I discovered that if I cast above and beyond the particular trout I was after, lifted my rod and skated the fly into the trout's narrow feeding lane, I could get a perfect drag free drift that would often bring the trout up. This was a revelation and, if my fly choice was correct, my catch rate soared. If not, refusal followed refusal, even with perfect drifts. Fly selection became the mystery to be unraveled. I looked closely at what I saw in the air and on the water. I became a student of bugs. A whole new selection of flies, sparsely dressed and naturalistic, in sixteens, eighteens, and twenties, dominated my fly boxes. Hat Creek's clear water and easy flow gave the trout plenty of time to inspect the fly. Size, shape, color - it was astonishing to discover how a tiny change in one of these aspects could mean the difference between success and frustration.
Hat Creek wasn't waded in the '70s and the '80s, except at the Powerhouse Riffle. It was too deep; it simply wasn't done. If you couldn't reach a fish with your best cast, you simply sought out another fish closer at hand. There were always plenty of rising fish at the prime times. Sixteen fishable hatches - mostly mayflies, but with a half dozen caddis and stonefly species mixed in - meant that on any day of the season, something was hatching that would bring the fish to the surface, at least for a little while. Some days, from late spring into midsummer, the mayfly, caddis and stonefly hatches would follow one another in waves, a continually changing progression of bugs from dawn to dusk. In the dog days of late summer and near the close of the season in November, one might get a brief hatch, an hour of fishing when the light was low or the temperatures warmed enough to stir some nymphs.
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