Caddis Hatch

With the light all but gone I continue to throw my caddis imitating fly at the continually surfacing fish. I squint to see it before it is taken by a hungry brown trout. We fight for a moment before I pull him from his aquatic home. It is sad that we have to meet this way, but I admire him. He has outsmarted me many a time and it just so happened that this time I tricked him. I knew what he was hungry for. I carefully remove the hook from his mouth and hold him underwater letting him catch his breath. After a moment of rest he swims away.

This might be my favorite time of year to fish. There isn't anything like throwing a dry fly out on the water and watching a fish splash out of the water with an open mouth to take it. As darkness draws near, at this time of year, there is an amazing bug hatch nearly every night. The Caddisfly spends much of its life underwater. The cooling temperatures of the day usually trigger emergence where they break free of their underwater case and swim to the surface for their short 1-2 week adulthood. The last few time I have been out have been some of the best hatches I have been encountered. There are points in the evening where I am covered in caddis. They land on my glasses, tickle my ears, and get uncomfortably close to my closed mouth. Fishing while covered in bugs... I never thought I would enjoy it so much.

The Story

She had no idea it was coming. After getting home from Timp Wednesday morning I grabbed my paycheck and headed over to Wilson Diamonds where my good friend Matt Wilson works. Neena and I had stopped by a few weeks back on our way to the restaurant next door, so we both had a little bit of an idea of what she wanted. I was at the register pretty quick and it suddenly hit me what I was doing... I started freaking out inside. I walked out of there with a ring and everything got real... Really real. After getting permission the night before from her Dad, I started scheming.

The next day I tried to make things seem as casual as possible. We met at Costco so I could buy some dog food and we grabbed a bite to eat. The wind had kicked up blowing branches from trees and filling the air with dust threatening to foil my plan, but I was set on making it happen. She was being a champ and going along with my idea of going climbing in a storm. 

As we drove up to Rock Canyon the wind suddenly calmed, I definitely had some help from above. We have done the climb I selected a couple times now so it just seemed like a routine thing. As I climbed past her onto the second pitch the sun started to set painting everything gold. The minutes ticked by and it just kept getting prettier. I was surprisingly calm as she came up the last bit of the climb. 

I told her to grab her camera out of the bag and to snap some photos, meanwhile I was pulling the ring out of my pocket. I then proceeded to say a bunch of mushy love stuff and then I asked her. She cried and nodded her head a lot before being able to say yes. We are now engaged. We sat and enjoyed the sunset before heading down.