December Dry Fly Fishing

I have a little streak going.  Last February I told myself I wanted to try and catch a fish on a dry fly in every month over the next year.  So far I have been on track.  February through November I logged fish on a dry.  December is when things can get a little more tempermental.  The weather is frigid, the fish are conserving energy, and the hatches are sparse.  I had scouted the river last week though and found a spot with fish rising to midges in the middle of the day. 

So today I decided last minute to take bit of a break and see if I could be so lucky again and try casting over these fish to see if I could add December to the dry fly streak.  Driving up the canyon it was cold and foggy.  Not the bright sunny day I had seen last week.  It turns out I still found a pod of rising fish a little lower down on the river this time.  I quickly rigged up and headed down to the water. 

I tied on a #22 Harrops Transitional Midge pattern, my favorite midge dry fly, and made my first cast into a foam line that I had seen a couple rises in.  Sure enough as the fly slipped right down the sweet spot in the tail end of the drift a snout rose and engulfed it.  I set the hook and felt the hard tug of a nice fish for a couple seconds when the small hook pulled free.  Although disappointed I was still happy to know that this fly was acceptable to the sporadically feeding fish here in the run. 

I moved up the run and made several fruitless casts to areas where fish were rising.  Finally I had another short hook up with a fish on the outside edge of the run.  Zero for two on takes was not good, and wouldn't keep the streak alive.  As my frozen toes and the hands on my wrist watch told me it was time to head out and get back to the office, I notice a very subtle feed up in the choppy nervous water higher in the riffles.  One more cast I decided.  It was almost impossible to spot my fly in the choppy water and the feeds here really blended in with the broken surface.  As I followed the area I figured my fly to be I saw an ever so subtle swirl that did not appear to match the rest of the current.  I brought the rod tip up and immediately felt the solid tug of a hungry brown trout.  As quickly as possible I brought the writhing fish to the net and the smile on my face widened.  She was not the prettiest fish in the river, a 17 inch spawned out snakey female, but despite her lack of girth she was full of spunk and very healthy.  I watched her dart away and mentally checked the December box in my head. 

I love fishing those heavy summer hatches, but there is something very rewarding about catching a trout on a dry fly in December.