Calendar says we still have whole month of summer before us so the question remains valid. I recently read a section of the Orvis’ Guide to Fly-Fishing beginners (by Tom Rosenbauer) when it is argued that fishing in warm and shallow water is perfectly possible and even “can offer the most interesting fishing of the season”. The author gives a piece of advice how to succeed in these conditions, this can be summarised as follows:

• Fish at the dawn, when the water is coldest
• Keep your profile low and movements slow, wear camouflage clothing
• Look for fish in fast riffles or behind the boulders, don’t omit entries of tributary streams
• Use small flies, 18 size being maximum
• Light rods (below 5) and tippets

I can well subscribe to all this with the caveat that it doesn’t guarantee anything at all, at least in the local rivers. I know parts of the Upper Sure where no tricks can help you when the water temperature is above 20 degrees and the sun is shinning strong. Apart from it, don’t expect anything bigger than 20-23 cm in a water which looks like this:

Yes, I know some places where fish stay whole year but these are very rare and are normally overcrowded. I also noticed that sometimes when nothing else works trying natural size mayflies brings surprising effects, exactly in the summer. Nevertheless, hot summer is definitely the worst part of the trout season and I cannot really guess how can it be considered the ‘most interesting’ one.