Well the weekend seemed long at times, but way to short overall. We started off the trip Friday with a mid day departure. After frantically tying flies all week, to say we were anxious was an understatement. We arrived into my mother in laws house at around 10:30, sat up to tie a few more #18 caddis, had a beer, and slowly trickled off to sleep at about 11:30…
4AM came WAY too quickly, but sure enough by sun rise we were stream side rigging up. Mike decided that given the low light conditions, and his natural love to swinging flies, he’s swing a tube fly down through the run first to see if he could coax any fish to chase…
3 casts later he had his answer…before I even had my leader on my rod…
He persisted to swing through the run and land 3 fish fairly easily. I on the other hand went with a caddis to a dropper soft hackle and wound up with 3 of my own to match his numbers. We spent the rest of the morning casting caddis, needhami’s, and a few cahills to rising fish. Many fish took the flies willingly, but as the sun rose and fishing pressure increased, the fish were starting to shut down. Anxious to check out other parts of the river, we decided to hop back in the car…bad idea.
We proceed to each access point up stream with anywhere from 2-6 cars parked. Apparently we weren’t the only ones looking for some early day action. We quickly turned around in hopes that our last spot wasn’t taken. Luckily, we were able to jump back into the stream (where we had just left from) and land a few fish before lunch…
After lunch, it became apparent that our main issue for the weekend wasn’t going to be mid day sun or even other fishermen, but rather the obnoxious tubers, canoe’s, and kayakers that held little stream etiquette. It’s beyond me how a company can allow people who have no regard for nature, or the things around it, to abuse such a wonderful resource with littering, etc…but they some how get away with it…
Luckily what we noticed though was that many of the fishermen were starting to get discouraged by this also, and were taking off for their local picnics, and family get togethers. We decided to hang while the last waves of people ran down stream with their Styrofoam coolers, and study the water to see where fish maybe holding. Sure enough, as the last of the tubes started going down stream, the fish began to rise again to the sulphurs and ISO’s that were now beginning their nightly dance along the water’s surface. Saturday evening wasn’t a spectacular hatch in our particular pool, but we were able to coax a few more fish out of the water. Most of my fish ended up coming on a sulpher nymph below a parachute, but we won’t argue with catching…
Overall on Saturday, we had a great day. We ended up netting about 25-30 fish in about 16+ hours of fishing. To say that we were tired was an understatement. We did both manage the classic brookie, brownie, and ‘bow combo.
Onward home, eat, beer, bed…3:30 wake up…
I had some mid day family plans, and with the lack of action during the day Saturday, Mike decided he’d come back and rest while I finished up my appointments. The morning blew. Mike got one fish on a summer/winter caddis and that was it. We fished for about 5 hours and got nothing…to say we were disappointed is an understatement…
We were on our way home to the house at 10AM and not sure that we’d even come back in the evening. We had some thoughts of paddling around a local pond for some bass, thinking that we should be able to at least get them to eat…
As I finished up my commitments in the afternoon, I called Mike to get the final call. Back to the river it was for one last shot. Despite the kick in the balls from the early morning session, we weren’t going down that easily…
We arrived back to the water with a MASSIVE amount of sulphur duns. We spent the next 45 minutes catching and landing 6 fish a piece in separate runs before getting together to reveal our success. Just as the sulphurs started to end their dance, we started making a few changes…different flies…and landed a few more fish, but nothing seemed to be consistent. No rhyme of reason…
Then the waters opened up, and fish just started rising…sure enough, in the dimming light we noticed the sulphurs had made their way back onto the water, and it was nuts! We ended up each landing about another 3 fish and with the dimming light; we lost and missed many more. For a morning that absolutely blew, we ended the evening with a fairly epic sulphur hatch that landed us about another 15-20 fish for the evening…
Overall a great weekend. Now for the pictures of the players…
As Mike awaits my arrival on Sunday with a brew in the garage...
More pics coming in days ahead...gotta get some off Mike's camera also...till then...
