Home waters are small, comfortable and, well, home-like.
It usually happens around the Fourth of July, the day my ranch neighbors traditionally turn off their irrigation ditches. In an average year, run-off is more or less over by then. With the added irrigation water put back into them, the rivers and creeks rise slightly at this time. This surface-feeding frenzy lasts for maybe a week at most, more likely just a few days, so that the angler has only a small window of opportunity to catch it just right. I wait all year for this brief, magical time, and as it approaches I drive several times a day down to the bridge that crosses my favorite creek, eagerly studying the water for signs that optimum conditions have arrived, that prime time is about to begin.