Welcome to your ultimate fishing equipment resource


Butterfly-Fishing

I am not a misanthrope but I do shun thefollowed by the first. Then another took off
company of people when it comes to flyfrom a distant branch, which was followed by
fishing. When I have a stream to myself, Ianother from a white stone, and another, and
become more at ease, more aware of myanother  and  another.
surroundings, and open to nature's bounty. I
am not so busy chatting about hatches,They appeared out of nowhere and soon the air
competing for water, or enviously eyeing thefilled with hundreds of flickering,
skillful ease of a fellow angler's cast. Onefluttering butterflies, a sunlit, gleaming
downside is that there is generally no onecloud of moving, expanding purple space. They
present to confirm or deny the size andfilled the sky and danced as though engaged
number of trout I catch and release on anyin some secret papilonian ritual. I stood
given day. Even worse, when something trulyfrozen, heart pounding, as my breathing
incredible happens no one is there to verifyquickened. The multitude of butterflies, now
it. However, this is a small sacrifice fora shimmering, surreal entity, encircled me,
the pleasure such experiences in solitudeenveloped me in a mystical whirlwind; then
brings.lanquidly floated high above, stopped and
hovered as though poised on some mysterious
When I am on a stream solo, extraordinarylooming precipice, then as one fluid mass,
things happen. One experience I will nevertumbled off like air-born rapids down the
forget occurred while I was fishing a streamriver  valley  and  into  the  steep  canyon.
near my home in the West Kootenays of
Southern British Columbia. This particularI remained motionless for a long time after.
day in July was like most of our summer days:I kept peering down into the canyon in hopes
scorching. There was no breeze, no clouds, nothat the butterflies would emerge for an
shade, only the merciless weight of the sun.encore. My breathing slowly returned to
Thankfully, I was waist deep in the cool,normal but a strange, nervous tremor still
forgiving river, casting my fly toward a deeplay deep in my stomach. A slight breeze began
depression sunk into the opposite bank thatto stir, and the sun dipped low over the
created a bit of a back eddy. The fly settledwestern hills, taking much of the oppressive
a few feet upstream of the eddy but theheat with it. Suddenly off the water, a large
current soon floated it into the seam. Itmayfly emerged. I watched as another alighted
happened so fast - the splash, the set, theon the stream, drifting along on its current
trout hooked, played, and gently released - aonly to be swallowed up in a fatal splash. I
nice  sixteen  inch  rainbow.couldn't pass up a good Ephemerella grandis
hatch. I tied on a red quill dun and cast
As I continued working the water, casuallyinto the ebbing light, the sound of butterfly
casting into the riffles and holes, my eyewings  still  echoing  in  my  head.
caught a flicker of something in the air.
Turning quickly to my right, I focused myIt was a sublime moment and though the
gaze on the stunning, acrobatic convulsionsexperience may seem incidental to the
of a butterfly. The vibrant purple wings withfishing, I could not have witnessed it had I
orange sun-burst tips and white borders,not gone fly fishing. Wherever and whenever I
suggested a Lorquins Admiral. It dipped andgo, whether alone or with others, it is for
fluttered through the air until it settled onthe simple pleasure of being out on the water
a withered log at the edge of the stream. Iamidst the wonders of the natural world,
saw another, an exact replica, take wing andseeking fish, and, if truly fortunate,
stumble drunkenly over the water. It wasfinding butterflies.



1 A B 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 55 56 57 58 59 60 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 70 71 72 73 74 75 76