August used to be the “prime” month for many fly-fishers like me… now, in many places it might be rightfully considered the “cruelest” month of an angler’s calendar year.
Of course, that all depends on where you are and what you’re chasing.
Living for fishing in August
I used to think… if I could put one month of the year on repeat, and re-live it repeatedly, it would be August.
For starters, it’s my birthday month. And when I was a kid, I was all about riding a month-long celebration. Cake a week before at a picnic with family, you bet! Presents… didn’t matter if they arrived early or late. So long as they arrived in the zone, it was wonderful. Kirk-a-pa-looza started August 1 and lasted through Labor Day, as far as I was concerned.
Now, to be honest with you, I’ve reached an age when birthdays seem more like an accomplishment than a cause for celebration, but I’ll still take them, either way. After all, is there a better option?
August itself is wonderful on so many other levels. The meteor showers at night… the cooling of the atmosphere makes up for shortening days. It’s good to feel the first whiffs of fall on the breeze and bake in the sun during the last “dog days” of summer.
August is when the last blowout beach parties happened, before we all headed back to school. (When I grew up, school, including college semesters, started after Labor Day… I feel bad for any student who’s now a couple weeks into the first semester, trimester, or whatever.)
And fishing-wise, even though most trout anglers might rightfully extoll the virtues of prime “mayfly months,” I always dug August above any other month.
I relish the subtleties of throwing tiny trico flies early in the morning, Even more than that, I love fishing grasshopper flies. One, slow, deliberate slurp of a hopper by a big, wily trout can make my fishing year. I live for the hopper eat.
It’s on to September
But, alas, in many places, things simply aren’t what they used to be. (And that’s just talking trout.)
Wildfires abound. Water temperatures in the rivers peak, making it too hot to responsibly fish. “Hoot Owl” is a band-aid on a much larger issue. Might just as well go fish in a lake, chase pike, walleyes or even carp. (All of which can be wonderful.)
The real issue that killed August fly-fishing for trout in many places throughout the Northern Hemisphere is climate change.
Before you increasingly outnumbered (thankfully) climate-change-denying troglodytes attack me and say I’m full of beans, answer me this:
If you had friends all fired up to visit you for a for a rock-solid, hard-core trout fly-fishing trip, would you, in good conscience, tell them to show up—anywhere, from the upper Midwest to the Rockies, to the creeks and rivers in the Northeast or Southeast—in August anymore?
I wouldn’t.
And if you choose to plow forth with your agenda, forsaking the water temps and the survivability of the trout you might endeavor to catch… shame on you. You should know better.
You might get lucky, for sure, and catch a wave of favorable weather. And you might enjoy that window when the fishing pressure lightens considerably, when the school year starts, and many tourists head home.
But what I really have to say is, “Viva September! “
September is the new August in many places. Sad but true. Fish accordingly. And think about the things you might do to bring August back when you do.
I want healthy August fishing, nationwide. We need that. You can probably do more to help make that happen.
So do those things. Please.