Fly Fishing the Stock Market: How to Search for, Catch, and Net the Market's Best Trades

CHAPTER 9

Terrestrials and Cut Banks

Iused to hate seeing the summer burn away and come to a close. June and July are probably the two most productive months for fly fishing in Idaho, mainly because of the temperature of the air and water, which is conducive to the most frequent and plentiful fly hatches. When August arrives, however, the temperature increases and the fishing tends to taper off. Many hot summer days have I sat on the bank of a river, baking in the sun, waiting for some fly-fishing action to start up in what appeared to be dead water. On some of those occasions I would swear there wasn't a fish in the whole river. That is, until I discovered the deadly effectiveness of terrestrial imitations: grasshoppers, ants, spiders, and even mice!

In 1974 on the Fall River, I had one of the most memorable days of fishing ever. It was a hot August day, with the sun beating down overhead. As I sat on the edge of the river in the tall grass enjoying the shade of a nearby tree, I watched a grasshopper hop on to a tall blade of grass, then proceed to crawl toward the top. As it continued to climb, the stem began to bend over the water. All of a sudden, I heard a plop! as the grasshopper fell into the current, followed by a whoosh! as a huge rainbow trout rose to devour the big, drowning bug. This fish had been hiding right under my feet in the shady water beneath the cut bank, which had been carved away by the swift current. The fish had been quietly resting in the sheltered, cool ...