In the summer of 1991, a few months before I left for the United States, several friends and I spent a week camping at the entrance to the Resava River canyon. We pitched our tents beside the river, watched birds, talked, and enjoyed the long summer days in the beautiful surroundings of Mount Beljanica in eastern Serbia.
I was the only angler in the group, so each afternoon I would fish near our campsite in the Resava canyon. I was greeted each time by an extraordinary hatch of tiny stoneflies.
They were an almost luminous yellow-green, closer to chartreuse than yellow. Small insects, perhaps size 16 or 18, they drifted and fluttered above the water in remarkable numbers. Their colour was unmistakable. Even after all these years, I can still picture that brilliant green against the darker landscape of the river canyon.
One thing I remember particularly well is the sheer abundance of the hatch. These were not occasional insects drifting over the water. At times, the stoneflies appeared in such numbers that it was difficult to imagine I was witnessing some exceptionally rare species. Surely, I thought, this must be one of the more established members of the local stonefly fauna. But then again, who knows? A species can be locally abundant and still have a rather limited distribution, and the taxonomy and distribution of Balkan Chloroperlidae leave room for questions.
I have always believed that the insect was Siphonoperla torrentium, known in older literature as Chloroperla torrentium. Its remarkably vivid yellow-green colour and relatively small size seem consistent with that identification. Yet I cannot be entirely certain.
Serbia is home to several members of the family Chloroperlidae, including Siphonoperla neglecta, S. transsylvanica and Chloroperla tripunctata. More recent research has added Chloroperla kosarovi and C. russevi to the Serbian fauna. Could one of these have been the insect I watched emerging over the Resava that June?
I have no specimen, photograph or field notes from that summer of 1991. I have not fished the Resava in June for decades, either. Most of my later visits were in May or August, so the opportunity to encounter that particular hatch again has never presented itself.
Perhaps one day I will return to the Resava in mid-June, armed with a small fly box containing a few chartreuse imitations. I would love to see those little stoneflies again, and perhaps finally put a name to the insect that made such an impression on a young fly fisherman more than three decades ago.
For now, the mystery remains. And perhaps that is part of its charm.
Inspired by that memory, I tied a simple fore-and-aft pattern and called it Absinthe Sally. Its design owes something to several classic patterns that have influenced my thinking:
Renegade
Sierra Bright Dot
Double Badger
Suvodolka (classic Serbian pattern by Jovan "Jovča" Petrović)
Knotted Midge
Each has its own character, but they share the appealing simplicity and versatility of the fore-and-aft approach. Absinthe Sally is my own small addition to that tradition, inspired by a stonefly hatch I have never forgotten.
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