Articles With the Tag . . . fall

Find feeding fish. Find the fishy water. These are the keys to putting trout in the net. But as the seasons change, so do the habits of trout. This film focuses on the shift between summer to fall.

Consistency on the water, day to day, requires an awareness of the shifts that take place, season to season.

Meeting trout in these times of transition takes some forethought and willingness to adapt . . .

Fall fishing offers renewed hope and opening opportunities, along with a change of scenery. As the foliage turns, so do the habits of wild trout. Our favorite fish loses some of its characteristic inhibitions.

More water, less light and the instinct to fatten up create unique opportunities for every angler who is willing to meet the trout on their own terms. While hatches may be sparse, the underwater game opens up to those with the skills to present a nymph, streamer or wet fly with precision . . .

I sat. And I laid the fly rod across my knees like a hunter’s rifle. I waited and watched. I scanned the river and sank deeper into the mossy earth until my breathing evened out.

My heartbeat slowed and recovered its normal pace, having accelerated on the walk in. I was warm and content. I sat with a stillness reserved for moments like these and watched only with my eyes. The silence calmed me until I could feel the blood pulsing beneath my skin. I sat, alive and aware, eager and anticipating, serene and satisfied all at once.

Thirty minutes following the morning alarm, an hour-and-fifteen on the winding roads, ten under the hatch of the 4-Runner, and twenty more minutes hiking through a dawn drizzle that taps on the hood of your raincoat, the atmosphere feels soft here — and still. It’s cold for a fall morning. As you climb the hill through a stand of oaks, headed for the far valley, puffs of warm air escape your lungs and billow forward. You outpace your own breath. Even as progress slows with the steepening hill ahead, your breath trails behind. And you push forward through the dissipating fog of your own carbon dioxide.

“Keep walking, keep moving up the hill. Make it there before the sun crests,” you whisper to yourself. There’s no point in getting up at 4:30 if you can’t get in an hour of fishing before sunlight changes the game. At the top of the mountain, you pause, seemingly for the first time since the alarm clock — not to catch your breath but as a reminder that all of this is not a race. It’s an adventure. And a good wanderer stops to look around once in a while.