The Waiting Game
It’s 9:30 PM. We are somewhere on the outskirts of Grayling, Michigan. The river I’ve been standing in for two hours is eerily silent. The other three guys I came with have been sitting on the bank for the last half hour, trading stories, and waiting. I walk over to join them. We are all waiting for something to happen. I glance into the sky as the sun settles. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, maybe a sign. I spot a few isonychias and brown drakes fluttering about, but the fish below the surface don’t seem to care. Even as I watch a couple of these large bugs sailboat down the river. Nothing. The surface remains still, apart from one or two small rises. I don’t even make a cast.
I’m cautiously optimistic, because it FEELS like there’s something coming. It’s as if every fish in this stretch of river knows there’s something better, something BIGGER. How else could a hungry fish pass on a brown drake struggling to get off the water? I call this the calm before the storm. The silence is deafening, but I remind myself to be patient. Two of our group members make it back into the river. Standing in position, just to wait a little longer.
Just before 10, a man walks by as he leaves the river. He tries to strike up a brief conversation with the last member of our group, who is more than half asleep laying down in the mud and reeds. I hear the man talk about how it’s been a slow night, aside from a 15 inch brown he had lost just a few minutes ago. There was no response from our sleeping beauty. I’m sure the man was confused, but what can you expect trying to talk to someone who is laying down on a river bank consisting of ankle deep mud. Eventually the man gave up, walked through the reeds, and disappeared into the forest. Our buddy never remembered talking to or even seeing the man.
I couldn’t help but think that man should’ve waited 15, hell, even 10 more minutes. It’s not even 10 o clock! This time of year the fishing is all about the wait. Some nights even well past 11. And our wait was about to be over. Sure enough, around 10:10 there’s a sizable gulp just downstream of me. “Nice trout” I said to my buddy next to me. I look down at the dark water, still waiting…but there’s something there. I flick on the red light on my headlamp, and I see it. A blanket of huge mayfly spinners. Each 2 inches in length, almost like small dragonflies. There’s a sound of wings fluttering past my ears, as these giant bugs crashed into the water like kamikaze pilots. The wait was over. The hex are here. Now we start fishing.
The river lit up with large rising trout. I realize our buddy who was sleeping on the bank didn’t make it back into the river. "Hopefully he at least made it back to the truck”, I thought. They kept coming, gulp after gulp, suction after suction. Patience is key here. Remember it’s black…the water is black, the sky is black. The tiny bit of moonlight might help you pick up some ripples from a rise, but for the most part you aren’t seeing these fish, just hearing them. 5 minutes into it, I hook a relatively small brown, maybe 12 inches. We send him back.
It’s 10:30, the rises seem to be deeper sounding now. These fish are bigger. There’s a gulp just upstream of me. “That’s what we’re here for,” I said. I make my way up stream trying to locate the sound. I find it, in maybe 8 inches of water, just over a rods length in front of me. Next rise I’m on him. He feeds, I plop a size 6 dry fly just upstream, right in his path. I hear him again…judging by when and where I casted my fly, that has to be me. BOOM! It was! A nice 16/17 inch brown trout, feeding recklessly right in front of me. That’s Hex season. That’s why we wait. And to think, this was just the first night of our trip.
Hex season in Michigan can be a magical time. But it requires a lot of patience and a lot of waiting. If you’ve heard about it, you’ve heard the same tips and tricks from everyone like, short, thick leaders, short casts, etc. But I’ll be honest, nothing can prepare you for the adrenaline rush you get when those fish first start hitting the surface. This is not the time to be fumbling around your box looking for a hex pattern to tie on. This is not a time for panic casting. You have to pick your battles. And even when the fish are feeding, you might want to wait. It’s dark, you can’t see the fish or your fly, and you have to figure out your distance by sound, still making accurate casts. Flailing a fly around in the dark isn’t the best course of action. Don’t just smack your fly down a million times hoping for the best, take the time to get it where it needs to be.
I will impose some beginner knowledge on people getting into hexing. First…DON’T LEAVE. This whole write up was to explain the waiting game that is hex fishing. Don’t be one of those people that sits there from 7 to 10 just to leave right before the river blows up because you don’t see anything, and don’t think it’s happening that night. I say wait it out until 11:45 or midnight at least. Second…don’t put too much emphasis on seeing bugs. That means two things, don’t start casting a million times just because you see hex flies, you still need to listen and cast to the fish actually feeding for you best chance. Also, don’t leave just because you don’t see bugs. Even if they aren’t out in large numbers, big fish will feed. Not every hex night is a storybook hatch. Our last night this year we barely got any bugs, and yet we landed the two biggest fish of the week.
The bottom line is, the hex hatch is all about waiting. And I’ll be honest, the wait isn’t always rewarding. But when you are rewarded, it’s guaranteed to be a big one. So if you’re really trying to get into this hexing thing… welcome to the waiting games.
-Nick