Fish were splashing on Caddis emergers. I landed one fish and had another nice take but it was one of those slow risers I could see coming from a mile away and I just couldn't help myself and jerked the fly right out of it's grasp as it broke the surface.
June 8
Another crazy day with fish up chasing caddis emergers. I used a Harrop's CDC Caddis Emerger at first and had a nice little fish take right off the bat and another carbon copy a few minutes later. Then my fly was getting a little water logged so it began to sink in the riffely water. As it swung around a boulder submerged at the end of one drift I had a vicious hit that snapped the fly from my tippet. Taking that as a sign that maybe I should give a soft hackle wet fly a try I switched over to a Brown Bailey's Spider. I proceeded to hook up and land three more fish in a short order. A very productive 5 fish lunch hour, but none of them were very large. The next generation of hogs that currently are about a foot long, fat, and full of spunk. A lot of fun on a three weight.
June 9
Today I tried something new. Mornings. I had recently tied up a few PMD spinner patterns and was itching to give them a try. Spinners are a phase I have not had opportunity to fish often since I do so much of my fishing in the middle of the day. I decided to see if I could get up to the river at first light one morning to see what the chances were of finding a few fish up slurping spinners.
I was late getting out the door this morning but when I arrived at the river there were a few fish rising. I pulled into a good slow stretch of water where a fish was working up the bank and noticed immediatly a few Spinners bobbing about over the calm river. I got into position and put the tiny fly in the area the fish had last fed. It did not take long to loose the low riding fly in the low morning light but I had a pretty good idea of the area it was in. Suddenly a subtle swirl broke the still water in the area my fly had last been seen and I brought the rod tip up. Sure enough a nice pull surged against the rod tip.
A few minutes later I landed a nice 19" Brown. What a way to start your day.
Fish to hand
Out of the net
Getting ready for the release
Getting Stronger
And he's off.
June 10
Ok, I had so much fun yesterday morning I thought I would try it again. Right off the bat I found a few fish rising in a slow stretch of river one hole down from where I caught the nice fish yesterday. I found a steadily feeding fish and made a cast to it with the same PMD Spinner pattern that worked the day before. Sure enough the fish sucked it down. I landed a nice 17 inch fish. As I was pulling this fish in a slightly larger fish must have thought it was playing as it darted around with the hook lodged in it's lip as everywhere my fish went the other fish chased right behind. It was kind of funny to watch.
I then drove up river until I came to a flat stretch where I found many fish rising. I waded in and cast my spinner to a few of them and got no response. I then examined the water and found it was full of emerging midges. These fish were on them big time. As I broke out my midge patterns again, something I haven't had to do since early spring, I was reminded how depleted this section of my fly box was from the winter and spring fishing I had done with them. I tried a couple patterns with no luck, and then decided to try a CDC wing adult midge pattern. First cast it was fish on. It was a nice little 15 inch brown. Time was running short so I made a few more attempts at a couple fish but they were not interested. Then as I was working back down the river back to my truck I found an actively feeding fish in perfect position to make a try at downstream from me. I let the fly drift down and true to form the fly was taken. But on my hookset I managed to pop the tippet off on what looked to be a very nice fish. That's the breaks, but this midge hatch was incredible and is evidence that I need to focus on tying up a few more of the little black bugs that I have a tendancy to forget about once our weather warms up. Obviously the fish haven't forgotten.
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