Mayfly season began for me on Ascension Day… this day is in Germany also celebrated as “Father’s Day” (I know it is a different date in other countries), and so it is one of the few days when no lengthy discussions with my wife are necessary to go fishing. Probably she is just happy, I am not going into the pub like so many others.
The day started with the obligatory morning mass which was taking place outdoors, and although I don’t like these religious ceremonies and just attend them out of solidarity with my family, this one was different: A mayfly was sitting on the pastor’s robe, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it! I was seriously doubting my atheist worldview, because this just had to be a sign! And wasn’t a mayfly hatch something like an ascension after all? My hopes were high for the afternoon!
Full of confidence, I was walking along my little stream a few hours later, enjoying the sun and constantly scanning the water surface. Here and there, a mayfly was taking off, and a few trout had already discovered them. It is a wonderful sight, when a brown trout seems to hover towards the fly from below without the slightest steer of water, and sips it from the surface with great precision. Besides, I was able to take pictures of hatching mayflies, which keep fascinating me year after year:
But as with humans, there seem to be different characters among fish: some are a little more energetic when they feed, and some even take the mayflies by jumping out of the air. Others are constantly patrolling the banks and pluck the mayflies which are stuck in the vegetation on the edges.
Only when a fish seemed a little better, I dared a cast. During mayfly season, it doesn’t make any sense to cast to every rise: first, because you don’t want to pull a hook into the mouth of every small trout, and second, because accidents with deeply swallowed flies do happen, and it is a pity if you then have to kill this fish. But at the same time it is possible to cast selectively to the large trouts if you happen to find them.
The day ended without any big ones, but it was a great day after all, and mayfly season had only just begun. Since then, I have been fishing several times for a few hours, especially the late afternoon and early evening hours and Saturday has been so far the highlight among these sessions. 
For the first time, I had seen two really good fish, but they were hard nuts to crack! One was standing almost motionless in an eddie, and whatever I cast to it, it wasn’t reacting. Maybe it was almost paralyzed from eating all day… I kinda know this feeling from Christmas…
The second big fish was permanently moving relatively fast, and I lost sight of it several times. Every attempt at casting into the path of this beautiful brown trout failed.
As the shadows were growing longer towards sunset, I walked back home but halted suddenly, as I saw a big rise, with a big back fully out of the water, a motion almost like a whale. The first cast resulted in a powerful take and gave me the fight of the year! A massive fish, in fact more massive than any trout I have ever caught. A dream of a fish! And great to know, that the stream still hold surprises like this!
