Surface activity is less now and subsurface activity is more - but, from time to time, the trout still want the imitation on top. Midge hatches have been prolific and a few other flies are still being seen above the water. Believe it or not, a few slate drakes are still present along with a reddish-brown mayfly with grey wings. An angler's fly box should have: Slate Drake in a size 10-12, dry and sofy hackle; Light Cahills in size 14-22 (can be used for the cream midge); a heptagenia (pale yellow) in a 16-18; BWO's in sizes 16-20; Brown Caddis in a 14-16; Tricos in 18 (16 if you're lucky) and down to a 22; a white midge in 20-28; and some good nymph and pupa patterns such as hare's ear, pheasant tail, Prince, caddis larvae and pupa. An expecially good pattern matches the Rhyacophila - a free swimming green caddis called a rock worm.  Add to these a  green weenie, and a few buggers, muddlers, and sculpins. Some of the smaller larva and pupa are good fished as a dropper.

         Miranda Leigh Photo

     It is amazing the things you see on Pine when you are able to be on the creek almost every day. You see the exceptional, the big, the odd, and particularly, the beautiful. It doesn't matter what it is, it gets your attention because it is just different. What has struck me the deepest, is the rhythm of life occurring within Pine. As anglers, we are attuned to the hatches, wild flowers blooming, trees leafing, buds dropping their cases, water levels and temperatures, turbidity and acidity, and all according to a calendar of when each "event" should take place (and if it early or late). The actual rhythms I've observed for the last five months seem to be of constantly changing songs with different rhythms occurring simultaneously, building at their own pace, and in their own time - and, they miraculously go together to support life.

     The more I observe, the more sure I am that trout and insects have their own rhythms beyond those we, in our infinite wisdom, understand. Slate drakes the end of November...a trout holding in a shallow feeding lane a foot from a snowy log early on a late November morning...trout surface feeding from the Little Slate Pool all the way through Schoolhouse Riffle...November midges riding a breeze like miniature green drakes - beautiful to see, at conflict with the ideas most of us were taught about freestone streams in the winter, and available for all to experience.