The Fall River is a consistent and good place to head this week, with some good hatches of 2 small mayflies including 18-20 BWO’s and #16 Pale Morning Duns. Fish emergers, cripples and duns with fish rising during the hatch and match your nymphs to the pre-hatch activity you can’t see, but you know it’s happening by watching fish behavior. Are they moving around a bit suspended above the bottom? Are they making little moves to the right or left or slightly upwards? Can you see them “wink”? Wait, what is a wink? In trout terms this has to do with their mouths and an observant angler watching trout feed on nymphs will notice their white mouth open quickly and close quickly. A wink of sorts. Sometimes in clear water you can actually see the fish kind of chew the nymph they just ate too. God I love trout.
Besides mayflies, Ants and Beetles are good choices and there are some caddis coming off, plenty of tiny black midges, a few small stoneflies and a lot of solid nymphing action with eggs, perdigons, 2 bit’s, zebra midges, MOP’s, PT’s, slum lords and other micro jig streamers like the Croston’s Minnow and Daniels Mini Gulp. Stripping a Zonker or small streamer on a sink tip is a fun way to explore the river and you have the opportunity to move fish that might ignore other offerings. Call it the meat sweats, but meat moves them.