Fishing Journal-Week 6

March 15

I guess you get skunked sometimes. We arrived on the river a little early. On the water at 1:20 and the only bugs on the water were midges. Fish were not rising. About 2:20 I noticed a few BWO's flying around and soon after fish were up rising to them but it was time to head out. I guess we learned that sometimes the hatch happens a little later in the day. We will get to the river a little later next time.


March 17

It was a beautiful day on the river. There were not a lot of fish rising but there were a few. I spotted a few BWO flitting across the water when I arrived so I figured that was what the fish were risingto. As I began fishing with my #20 BWO Sparkle Dun I noticed a few of the rises were extremely aggressive. Every once in a while you would hear a fish absolutely flush the toilet on a bug. Those fish weren't sipping BWO's or midges. I then saw a small dimple just upstream from me and I flipped my BWO imitation up in the vicinity. It took a couple seconds for the fish to slam the bug, but it turned out to be an 8" monster. As more and more splashy rises went on around me I decided it must be time to switch to a Skwala pattern and see if that could be what was making the fish so aggressive.

Soon after I tied on the fly I noticed a good rise directly across the stream from me. I flipped the fly just upstream of the rise rings and watched it enter the zone. Sure enough, the fish took it hard. Then went on a series of good runs up and down the slow pool probably spooking nearly every other fish there out of the country. It was a nice 18" fish. After releasing this fish the surface activity in the run shut down. I really think that the struggling fish managed to rid the area of his fellow feeders. I fished the Skwala up into the riffles for another 15 minutes before deciding it was time to head out. Another good lunch hour.

Adios Amigo!