You know it’s hot when you’re standing up to your waist in sixty-degree water and there’s sweat streaming down your face — and it’s only 10am.

I fished from 9am to 1pm today. My focus was on prospecting for bigger trout by nymphing the fast water. No bigguns’, but I did get into an assortment of lovely wild browns, one in the mid teens. I used the drop shot rig under a yarn indicator, with a size 14 olive Iron Lotus on the bottom and a size 16 soft-hackled Pheasant Tail as the top dropper. I adjusted between one and two BB shot, depending on the depth of the water and the speed of the current.

Now that is one impressive tail. Full adipose, nice little kype — this buck is a surely a wild thang. Taken on the SHPT. Why I like indicator nymphing: the indicator never went under with this guy. It was the slightest of takes, almost imperceptible. The indicator just suddenly slowed and twitched. Remember, it doesn’t cost anything to set the hook.

Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the full sun. Maybe it was the lack of hatch activity. But I blanked in three runs today that I was certain held fish. The other three I hit all produced. Go figure — I did better outside of the permanent TMA. The river was surprisingly busy for a mid-weekday.

If you are heading out in this heat, please don’t forget to hydrate. And while the water is still plenty cold, let’s do our best to get those fish in and released quickly.

A jewel of a mid-summer Farmington brown. I can’t decide what I like better: the halos around the spots, the golden belly, or the parr mark remnants.