I thought I was on to something but all I’ve proven is that I’m a slow learner. Fiddling with textures and colors is fine, but revealing that brownline fish have an unnatural obsession with “oil slick” colored glass beads – is about as revolutionary as Mr. Wonderbread eating a Twinkie.

Ernie Schweibert could have told me in an instant; “Match the Hatch” is based on representing common insects with flies – to lull fish into eating.

Folded into the brown water paradigm, I’m looking at abandoning natural insects and attractors patterns in favor of the common food groups available to fish in the stink water.

Kicking over rocks and straining the result is normal entomology, which has proven antiquated and useless, what’s needed is to regroup and see the bigger picture.

Chrome and rust dominate the watershed, and I’m leaning on at least one of the essential food groups while pondering. It also explains the fascination with “oil slick” flies; like the Arizona, most of the best “holding water” was driven into the creek, and has been leaking for years.

Agricultural chemicals and methyl Mercury are more of an aura than a food group, it’s a basting agent like Soy sauce or Olive oil. I can easily counter with pure DEET, call it brownline dipping sauce.

Further investigation is warranted, as we’re thinking outside the streambed – the source of most of the crap we’re wading through …

The feathers are strictly a “don’t ask, don’t tell” – suffice it to say the effluent has grown long legs on our pigeons. It’s a significant faux pas to wear four white feathers, that’ll identify you as a trout fisherman.