The Hex

I've been sitting in cafes and bars that dot the flat, sand country of central Wisconsin in the early evenings. I'm waiting, reading newspapers, getting online where there is WiFi. Yesterday, I had a mishap in the stream and strained an already tender muscle in my thigh. Today it is very stiff and painful. So it goes...

For those that don't live around here: about the time the sun takes the final dip and the wind still and the temp cools, massive anvil-shaped clouds erupt on the western horizon. Then comes the hail, the heavy wind, rain and frequently a tornado. Towns have been leveled. About every third car has heavy hail damage--image if the hood of that car was your head. Living here can be dangerous--especially this year.

As I wait, I flip from news blog to NY Times reading the Op Eds for what I already know, that early November headline: Obama Kicks The Shit Out Of Crazy Old Bastard! I've never been so disinterested in politics in all my life as I am now. So, back to the other stuff.

I sit in these cafes. I go out fishing in the morning for little brook trout. I come in, I sip coffee, I lie around and do nothing. I wait.

About this time of year a mayfly emerges called Hexagenia Limbata. The Hex. It's that mayfly that brings out the snowplows to clear the bugs off of the bridges over the Mississippi and other rivers. It's going to emerge any time now. I've seen a couple here and there, floating downstream like little paper sail boats twirling on the dusk's black-orange reflection

There are trout rivers around here that get the big hatches: The Brule, White, Namekagon, Tomorrow, Prairie, Mecan, etc. I've been fishing one of these, and another that never gets named. These are all slow moving streams in their upper, trouty reaches. Quiet rivers slipping slowly through spruce bogs and alder swamps. Big trout live here. Big, big brown trout. Fat, lazy brown trout that sit underneath root wads until dark and come out and feed on other trout, frogs, mice--whatever gets in their way. Really ugly brown trout with broad, buttery sides. The kids of fish that get really excited when the big bugs descend on the water to lay their eggs by the tens of thousands, and do so only in the dead of night. This is night fishing. It's so quiet. Except for the whippoorwill's call, the cackling raccoons, the skunk. The fireflies are thick, spooking in the mist--the Ojibwa dead walking the swampy blackness for a time when their world and ours come together.

When all goes right the bugs come off the water right at dusk. They flitter above the water, a river of bugs parallel to the stream. The trout begin to rise. Little ones splash, the bigger ones slurp, the giants appear later--their sound is a toilet flushing. Everything goes wrong when it's 1am and you actually hook one of these things! Or you get sprayed by a skunk! Or an unseen, unheard black bear bellyflops into the pool you are fishing to scoop up handfuls of giant yellow mayflies that carpet the surface.

This is the Hex...

Bring the skeeter repellent and check for ticks.