 |
| Home |
 |
| Nobody but me. If only it could look like this in coming weeks. Not! |
So I’ve been debating whether to take the high road or the
low road in preserving this trip. The
high road is always best. The low road
is more realistic. But I’ll start with the high road. Everything is green! And wet. Summer is coming. So are the bugs.
 |
| #14 Dun Variant. Sparse. Realistic. Love the old school. So do the trout. |
The Fork was running a nice clean 600 cfs. No weeds, no people, and very few bugs or
rising fish. But there were a few. March Browns! Caddis. Nice to throw a #14 again, and have it be eaten
every time. Just not many targets, and
not many quality ones. It felt right
though, to be home again, and imagine 3 weeks down the (high) road.
 |
| Not much company here either |
Depuys was ok. No
weeds! A different river with no
weeds. I managed to find a fish or two
up in the slow pool until the wind came up late-morning. So, a few hours of casting to some sporadic
risers to midges. A few ate, and it was
a nice $80 morning. The re-entry run was like a lake, I assume due to the high
water on the Yellowstone? Got some Harrop flies at Anderson’s, and had a
good Blizzard at DQ! I like Livingston. There were a couple guys nymphing the
riffles, and . . . killin’ it!
 |
| Flooded due to high water on Yellowstone? |
The Wyoming spring creek I pass coming and going was windy
as hell both ways, and I didn’t see a single rise in two full passes up and
down it. Didn’t even see a fish.
 |
| 3 hours--No bugs |
The Beaverhead was as clear as I’ve seen it in years. No weeds. The bobber guys were killin’ it, but I never saw a fish rise in two days. So goes the Beav. in May I guess. But it sure did look nice, and the nymph guys were . . . well . . . Ya.
And there we have it.
I didn’t make many casts. $2.86
gas. Rain every day. A fair share of wind. Furnace running in the trailer nightly. Got
my Montana and Idaho licenses for the season.
Had a nice chat with Rene at the overlook. Grabbed some nice salmonflies for July from
Kelly’s before they sell out. Passed on
a new partridge and some other soft-hackle skins at Blue Ribbon, for now. Montana
is still there, though still quite snowcapped.
Most everything at flood stage. I
stayed on the high road, but I sensed my wheels might be going slightly out of alignment. I mean, I gotta fish, and it’s nice to catch
a few on occasion.
After lots of driving and meandering around with hours to
give it careful, deep thought, I’ve decided that if I ever exit the high road,
I won’t sugar-coat it with some kind of dry-dropper, denial kind of shit. Nope, I’ll put on a bright bobber like the
other clowns, and some bottom-dredging contraption under it, and rip the shit
out of ‘em. I have some distant memories
of the 80’s, one fish after another, and can probably still do it. Doesn’t look too hard. Sling, mend, jerk, repeat. Every hacker on the Beaverhead had a bent
rod. Nice fish too!
But those beads, God I hate the idea of using a hook with a damn
bead on it. That’s the ditch on the side
of the low road. And the idea of
crimping or otherwise attaching weight to my leader makes me want to puke. I won’t go eggs and worms. So how do I fish a sparse little nymph with a
fucking bobber but no weight? If I tie
some with weight on a hook, then they’re too fat, like all the nymphs I
disposed of decades ago. I guess I could
just fish the bigger freestones with big weighted stonies or the venerable Pat’s
Rubber Leg. But those rivers are all
flooding, so that wouldn’t have done me any good. Maybe a sparse, weightless nymph with just
enough yarn to suspend it in a long dead drift?
That low road is complicated stuff.
Well, the good news is that my next departure date is June
13. The Ranch. Drakes, PMD’s, Salmonflies, caddis, the usual
June menu of big bugs. I’ve got 4 days
in early July on the creeks. Lock! Silver Creek will be open. The high road
awaits. I hope the other rivers drop
into shape sooner than expected. I hope we are in for a few years of drought.
(I love drought years—not one river I’ve ever fished has dried up in the worst
drought cycles of my life!) Maybe I’ll rant in another post about that. But mainly I hope to keep steering straight
down the high road.
