So
Much
Happens
So Quickly..

…this time of year. One minute
you’re cursing the last of the falling snow,
the next you’re watching the big muddy surge
of local rivers –– then suddenly: bugs.

Maybe, like me, you’ve been fly-fishing
our local rivers since January,
riding the roller coaster of aquatic insect hatches:

midges to little black stoneflies to blue-winged olives to caddis. And maybe unlike me, you were one of the lucky ones this spring floating down the river, fly rod in hand, getting caddis stuck between your teeth because you were grinning so much.

Regardless, we are entering the height of the summer insect hatches: flies on the
windows, pill bugs in the grass, ants up your shorts, a bee or two bouncing off your
arms as you mountain bike through the wild flowers, a few butterflies ambling
through crowds of strung-out music festival patrons. And in the thoroughfares of
Colorado’s major rivers, Pteronarcys and Ephemera, the salmonfly and the green
drake, emerge from their underwater worlds to begin the most visible cycle of their
lives.

The salmonfly is the bug of scoundrels. I mean, seriously, the fact that a
two-inch-long orange bug with black wings has found its way underneath your shirt is
enough to make you crazy, never mind the fact that the biggest fish appear out of
nowhere to dominate the feeding lanes and actually tear apart the surface of the river
to get at them. Additionally, a host of unnamed sources have admitted the salmonfly
hatch has caused divorces, fist fights, boat jams, drunken odes, deer-flattened cars,
and middle-of-the-night changes in travel plans. And as rumor has it, the flies taste
good deep-fried in tempura batter with dab of wasabi and a side of dipping sauce.

Along these same lines, the green drake, the working man’s bug (or girlfriend’s
mayfly), is an instiller of wild, bleary-eyed repetition and discipline. As much a part of
the summer as backyard barbecues and lawn mowing, with the green drake hatch
you can drive home after a 12-hour day of work, pick up your significant other, grunt
a few times, tie a fly on the end of her line and leave her alone to catch fish. You can
pull up beside the Colorado or Roaring Fork river and stand beside a pool suddenly
erupting with fish at dusk, and that makes this hatch nearly as coveted as the
salmonfly.

Ultimately, the reality that we don’t have salmonflies in the Roaring Fork Valley leaves
locals to obsess over the green drake hatch. Like any addiction, you pay for your
pleasure: following the hatch for more than a month as it moves upstream can make
you a zombie, fried by too many nights of “lightning rounds” in a row. It doesn’t help
that in Glenwood, chili cheese fries are the meal of choice for post-hatch benders, and
that late-night Carbondale only offers, if you are lucky, a dewy concoction of cold
leftovers –– and that beers in Basalt somehow become six bucks a pop. And it doesn’t
help that dropping down into the canyon near the airport in Aspen demolishes a pair
of waders in under a season. What I’m saying is this: you should probably fill out a
liability waiver during the drake hatch, and not the least because of your diet.

Every summer, until these two hatches occur, there often appears to be enough water
for even the most voracious, crusty and fish-headed of us to regularly find peace and
solitude, whether that means not running into another angler all day, or knowing that
there isn’t another fisherman within miles of where you are.

But keep in mind, once the green drake hatch starts, not only are you potentially
dealing with overworked half-starved zombies, but some nights there is nary an inch
of river to spare.

Yes, seemingly overnight fishing in the valley starts to feel like wrong direction
singletrack riding.

So to all of you water-dirtying, skunk-cabbage-stomping seventh son of seventh suns,
I say this: I would welcome you, but I have the feeling that, like me, you’ll already be
out on the water. So bring a couple of cold ones to make peace with whomever you
are bound to run into this summer. Salude!

Of Dogs and Men

Back from chest high marsh grass, willows
leaning over water. Window rolled down,

Scout curled on the seat beneath my fly rod.
Tonight, like other summer nights, I drive home

among tourists and drunks, flicking off brights
to one lone headlight, until I pass a cop car.

I should know better, and I do, Scout bounding out
across the floodplain, and me, too, chasing a drake hatch

past dusk. And when the officer thrusts his head
through open window, fly rod pressed against dash,

he’ll only smell sour breath, cold fish, and wet dog.
All of us lost in our niches of disregard.

– Cameron Scott

July 1, 2010