A trio of anglers trudging away from the pool said they hadn't done so well on what was probably their last day of fishing of the 2007 season. I said that my brother and I had done pretty well. The next question was predictable.

"What were you using?"

"Midges. Size 20."

Looks of astonishment. "Midges? Size 20?" They had seen big fish porpoising in the current, but couldn't figure out what they were after.

Well, duh. What else do you see hatching in late October? There are no caddis fluttering by. No Mayflies. No nuthin'. Just midges, so small it's easy to miss them even though there might be hundreds of them in the air. And the fish are homing on them in the water, seeing little else that you might fling their way. Size seemed to be important. Color seemed to be important. Size 20 blue-winged olives, fished just beneath the surface, carried the day.

The good thing about using midges at a time like that is that you get plenty of hits. The frustrating thing is that not every hit translates into a hook-up. The tiny hooks don't always catch enough lip to hang onto, just enough to prick the fish and throw him off his feed for a while. But when you do hook up, and bring a fish to the net, the little fly is usually sitting right there on the outside edge of the lip, easily removed if it doesn't simply fall out by itself once the pressure is off the line.

Some of the salmon, hook-jawed males, were so bronze they looked like Brown Trout. Spawning colors, I guess. And the occasional male Brookie was as beautiful as the autumn foliage. It's a wonderful time to fish.

Now the foliage has fallen, the branches are bare, the flyrods are in their tubes waiting for spring. The time for the tying of flies, the retelling of fish stories , the dreaming of a fresh season, has come.