An O Report

On Tuesday evening we arrived on the river at about 3:30 and pulled into a spot I figured would be good for this time of year as it has a lot of slower deep water where the browns would be feeding instead of spawning. I was not overly optimistic though about our chances as the wind was howling at 15-20 mph straight back up the river and the temps before wind chill where in the low 40’s. For some reason little mayflies do not like to hatch in these conditions so I did not expect to find fish feeding on the surface.

As luck would have it though, this stretch we were fishing happened to be a nice bend in the river that was just slightly sheltered from the wind. The wind was still blowing harder than I would have liked, but it was more manageable here. In this single length of river there was actually a decent hatch of midges and a smattering of Mahogany’s coming off and quite a few fish noses up peppering the surface. The midges were tiny, a pattern somewhere around size 26 would have probably done a fair imitation, and the Mahogany’s where sparse enough I was fairly certain that wasn’t what all the risers were after. I decided to go with a nymph rig with a bead head pheasant tail as my top fly to try to catch those fish looking for the Mahogany nymphs and a small Zebra Midge pattern for my bottom fly. Sure enough this was the ticket. It took one cast to hook into a nice 18 inch brown that took the Zebra Midge. It was just the beginning of one of my better days on this river.

The First fish of the day through a dirty camera phone lense

The Mahogany hatch did not last long as the wind was still a factor but while it was on I did catch two fish on the pheasant tail nymph. After about a half hour I did not see another mayfly and the rest of the fish I caught all took the midge pupa imitation.

The air temps where chilly and the wind didn’t help take the chill off, but with the fish eating constantly it helped take the edge off the weather. With 11 fish on the day I was determined to make it an even dozen and with the action as steady as it had been I figured I wouldn’t have to wait long. Sure enough, as the sun dipped quietly over the horizon, so dipped my indicator slowly under the rivers surface and another big trout took the tiny zebra midge. The chill was reaching bone deep and I knew this was going to be the capper on the day. I brought in a perfectly proportioned 20 inch brown much quicker than I would normally try and horse it in, and released it swiftly back into the frigid water. As we walked back to the truck my lower legs felt like lifeless blocks of ice but the smile on my face made up for that. It was another fine day on the water.