Wrap It Up

That vibe again.  Trees lit up, and traffic lighter on greater Yellowstone area roads. The ranch lot at 9:20 is empty.  All great except that feeling of another season ending.  Ya, a different season replaces it, but not a good one.  A brisk northeast breeze blows down river, and very few risers.  Bugless, to my human eye.

I fish the slick above the platform and miss a couple good ones with the ant.  No eats in the tail-out riffle, though a good one came up a few times.  Down to the point, and there's a couple-three good ones showing, but I miss a few "cautious, lazy" eats.  

Now it's early afternoon.  I can be home by 9:15, easy.  The trailer's hairy and dirty.  Laundry bags are full.  Norman is antsy.  I have a shitload of winterizing to do before Thursday's season change. (bumper crop of tomatoes, greenhouse tear-down, watering shut-down, wood-splitting/stacking, a month of mail, etc).

I've fished three of my "big five."  I didn't feel a sharp pull from Livingston after a week on Silver Creek.  I did, but I was occupied somewhere else at those times, or they were booked full.  Dillon had its early closure this year, so that tradition is toast because I doubt they'll ever reopen it for that great October fishing I used to enjoy.

My favorite Gierach quote/dialogue is from an interview 12 or so years ago.  For me, its further, even sort of official, validation from a trusted source for the lifestyle I chose.  I've watched the interview on Youtube often, and it's really made the rounds since October 8.  "The Secret."

"The secret is to go ahead and do what you think you want to do, and not think in terms of, 'well, I'll spend the next 40 years making a living and raising a family and then when I retire I'll go fishing.'  I mean, if you want to go fishing, go fishing . . . You can't waste your life making money and then go back and buy that life back . . . By the time somebody can afford this, they're almost too old to do it . . . The guys who can do it are the guides . . . These guys will guide all summer (season) long and then when they finally get some time to themselves, they'll go fishin', 'cause they know how to do it!"

Thanks again John.  I'm going home from this trip, and soon after I'm going fishing!

Still running at 150ish.  Fish are there, I can see the wakes and occasional rise.  Bugs waning, maybe due to the season, likely due to the comfortable sunny and 70 weather.

One I got on the last morning on the MO, up in the good spot.

The hanger is in the house.  

These ae called Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes.  Been growing them for 7 or 8 years now. They make everything taste great.  Omelets, sandwiches, salads.  They're so good, I eat them like sweet little candy snacks. My greenhouse is a jungle. This is the back quarter of it, 3 plants.  I'll bring two or three inside and water them all winter in front of a south-facing picture window that lets them get sunlight for a good part of the short days.  I'll sprout next summer's crop too.  Greenhouse back up in late April.

From one plant.  I have 10!

Freezer is filling up, more still to come!  

Bull . . .

 . . . Pasture.  Ya, the spot.  The water has dropped even more since a couple weeks ago, but the fish are still there.  This morning they feed on tiny midges, but I just give them real food.  Quite a morning, good enough to get "MO'd out." Not quite, but the end is near for this year.

Part of the little island is high and dry now, but they're still fish all around it.

An easy wade down to the island surrounded by trout.

Mr. Blurp

I have a score to settle from yesterday afternoon. It has clouded up and the wind is down so there are some little blue wings on the water, mostly dead spent ones.  Yesterday afternoon I worked this fish for about 20 minutes, finally got him to eat a soft hackle, and missed him bigger than shit.

He's here in the exact lane again, the only rising fish around, blurping in my face over and over just like yesterday.

I position below my favorite rock and put the first cast on him perfect.  Nope.  I break his feeding rhythm three times. He won't eat the soft hackle, nor an Almost Dun, nor a Sri Lanka Veil.

I take a size 20 Adams, clip a bunch of the hackle off, and tweak the wings to one side.  It's definitely dead but still visible.  It takes a few drifts over him but he finally eats.

Into the backing and weeded, but I somehow get him back up through the slow pool and to me.

Send me to school, eh? Son, I've been standing below this rock drifting little dry flies along this weed bed going on 40 years. 🤣

Cloudy Bugs and Northern Lights

Is it the cloud cover or the water temperature? Do more bugs hatch in inclement weather or do they get stuck on the water longer? The questions are always posed and no one has an answer.  Don't know if you don't go though. 

Wade fishing's dream

After a scheduled maintenance morning in the big city, I spend the first afternoon exploring mid canon and fishing up from the tree. There's fish cruising around the normal haunts, leaving wakes wherever they go in the low water.  There's an occasional rise, but not many more than once.  I get a couple ant eats, and leech eats, and soft hackle eats. There's fish to be caught, but not much of a sunny afternoon hatch.

The clouds are here Thursday morning. They're not as heavy as predicted, but it brings some blue wings early in the afternoon. There's a pod of fish doin' it below the small western island at the tree.  I hook up, into the backing, and then into the weeds. That's how most of them go for about 90 minutes, but it looks and feels like the MO!  

This is a post hatch Bank feeder that I spent a good 30 minutes on both getting into position and then finding something he'd eat.

This is the one that finally fooled him.

I've seen the lights before when working in the Northwest Territories and Alaska, but I can't remember ever seeing them in Montana or anywhere in the rockies. They are out a little bit tonight.  

More Ant Fish

This morning I decide to try a little upstream from the logs. There's got to be some good fish up here, right?  There is, I just have to get in the water, be observant, and choose my drifts.  I find a few, seal the deal, and decide it's time for another move.  A cloudy day is coming in 2 days, and while it will probably be productive anywhere, that big fish tank up north is calling.  I'm going to get there a day early for a little recon and warm-up.

This is the low flow I've been fishing here this trip.

Nobody else in here all morning.  That won't happen in June!

For the ages

Based on yesterday, there isn't much urgency for Monday morning. I get to the platform at noon sharp.  Freddy is in the riffle and has reportedly caught two nice ones with nymphs.  He later confirms.  I get in at the slick and miss a great take on the second or third cast with the ant.  From there I decide it's time to migrate downstream to the point of rocks.  Santa Bill follows behind me.  I'm center river and he gets in a couple hundred feet below me to hunt the likely run center river.  I see him positioning, casting, and then I see a giant of a trout airborne and his 7 1/2 foot Echo three-weight doubled over. A couple more jumps and I think "holy shit." Even from that distance I can tell it's huge.

Suddenly there's a rise form to my left.  Hmmm.  I serve the ant in that direction, it drifts 10 ft, and then a toilet flushes engulfing my fly.  We're both hooked up.  I clear weeds from the line a couple times, lucky the fish is still on.  I finally net the beast. It's 23 to 24 inches based on the length of my net opening and the 20" mark on my wading stick.  Just huge, even for here.

He lands his and we rendezvous at a rock I'm sitting on, tired and shaking a little, processing what just happened.  I say to him, "we just caught the two biggest trout in this whole section of the ranch, at the same time!"  "That's the biggest trout I've ever caught not counting steelhead," he says.  He thanks me for advising him to switch his 5x out for 3x yesterday.  Neither of us had a prayer with anything lighter.  His measures 23 inches. 

Mine is certainly my biggest ranch fish of the year, and really as big as I can ever remember catching here in 40 years.  Day makers.  In some ways, trip makers.  I get some other takes and catch some other small fish but today is about this beautiful double hook up just below all the big rocks in the lowest of water with no one else in sight.

I can't hold this thing up without squeezing it to death.

Pictures will never do it justice..

 

Weeds, Puyans, and an Ant

Okay, so that fish I posted the other day is not going to be my last Ranch fish.  Three hours from Silver Creek to here isn't far enough to keep me away.  I gotta know.  I pull into Ranch View about 10:00 am. There's some horse trailer rigs, a couple of cars, and Fred's van. I take the van as a good sign. As I walk over to the river, Fred and his wife are sitting in a chair overlooking millionaires. Neither have waders on, not a good sign. A quick exchange of pleasantries and I head to the top of the run.

It's not happening, and I end up back down at the cliffs with not so much as a wake from a fish.  Dead.  Down here, every once in awhile one comes up, totally random and out of range. The drifting weeds are as thick as they get. Everywhere in the column.  I drove 3 hours last night, so I'm damn sure going to try and catch one. I finally try swinging the natural squirrel leech.  I'm getting chases and follows from some nice fish I can see through the weeds, but when they reach the fly it's already turned to salad.  Swinging anything in the water is futile.  

I finally get a few feet of a clean swing and scratch one out! I don't know what it is about the rainbows in this run of this river, but many are the most beautiful rainbows of anywhere I fish. Like I've said before, there's just something about a Millionaire's rainbow.

Late lunch time.  Next to nothing for risers, and weedy water, so now I'm thinking Livingston or Craig by dark.  Might as well go up to the log jam to park, have some lunch, and think about which one for tomorrow. 

Two cars and a camper in the lot.  I walk over to the platform where four people are standing.  Two guys in waders, and a man and woman in terrestrial clothing.  The two in waders, with rods leaning on the railing, talk about how the fish wouldnt eat anything. Not surprisingly, there's fish rising at the log jam.  Mostly smaller ones, but as I take a few steps down the trail and look across at the slick foamy bottom of one of the riffles, it sure looks like heads.  I step into my waders and negotiate the lava rocks to give them a closer look.

Soon I'm hooked up, and then again.  Two of the four observers leave after a thumbs up. I'm hooked up for a third time.  All big fish.  This is kind of nuts. Big ranch rainbows. I'm landing them bank side, out of the faster current.

The lady finally asks what I'm using, and I tell  it's a giant flying ant that I don't know the name of. "it's a Harrop pattern."  "I'll have to ask Rene about that," she says.  That gets my attention, as she accents his first name like friends do.

I'm already near the bank 30 ft below the platform. "Here I'll show you one." I explain I got the pattern from one of Rene's writings many years ago, but that I didn't think it was in any of his books.  I open my box and offer her one, and she thanks me for it.

We exchange names as is customary here.  "I'm Jennifer Puyans.". Wow. I do one of those double-takes and she immediately smiles and nods, "Yes, I'm Andre's wife!" We end up chatting for a good 15 or 20 minutes about a few things fly fishing.  AP styles.  Tying.  Whip finishers. Euro nymphing.  Traditions. The Harrops. AK. She says she still fishes all-wire pheasant tails (no thread). I tell her my favorite quote from Andre, "Don't take any shit from your materials." We both laugh, and she confirms that he used that phrase often.  I learn that Andre taught Mel Krieger how to cast.  Who knew?  So this is my brush with fly tying royalty on the Henry's Fork.  You just never know what the little walk to the platform, or a little fishing in front of it, is going to bring.

She departs, leaving Bill from Oregon and me overlooking the log jam. A big fish works on the far side of the slick.  "That fish is probably tougher than the ones down in the riffle," I tell him. "Let's see it," he says.  I wade out and stick the 20 incher on the big ant with the first cast and a long float.

 

I ask Bill if he wants a shot at the remaining two big heads eating out there, and he comes down off the platform and wades out to me.  "Do you want one of these ants instead of that little parachute you have tied on?"  That's a no-brainer.  I give him one and stand back as he wades to the fish.  A few casts and he gets ate but misses.  "I was looking down at my line when he took it." I know that feeling.

I go back down below and boil up two more killer eats but don't keep them hooked.  I'm fishing this thing on 3x so I have a chance in the weeds and current.   

The fish rise for the rest of the evening, but are wise or disinterested in the big ant.  I get an eat with a big triple double though!  One fish pigging on the tiny blue wings beautifully refuses both.  I get schooled with a mole on 5x. Sunset is now at 6:36.  Yikes.

One more look at the most beautiful millionaires rainbow.

Four More

The flow is low. The fair weather's been good except for a couple of windy evenings. The camp is always good.  It's a comfortable place.  Full of fish.  No shortages of challenging fish.  It ain't great but it's entertaining. It would take weeks to fish all of the available and productive sections from the preserve clear down below Priest.  I only scratched the surface.

After a few of days of mahoganies, this was pretty much the name of the game.  #20s, and that was really still too big.

I fished to this guy for a couple of hours one afternoon with not so much as a single take. He was constantly pigging in front of me the whole time. Went back to him the next day and still didn't get any love until I took the smallest mole in my box, trimmed it down, and tied it on a few feet of 7X.  

Most of this species was spawning or getting ready to, and I saw some monsters over some deeper gravel beds, but very few were feeding on top.  There were four giants from 20 to 24 inches I watched in that deep pump house run.  Didn't try to catch 'em.

Lotsa good fish

Spend a day down here at point of rocks throwing mahoganies at some fish late morning.  Best mahogany hatch on the creek, but short.

Favorite fall bug.

It didn't matter where I went, I couldn't get away from these things. The preserve, point of rocks, and even a little side creek.

Speaking of little side creeks, I should have fished it way more. It had somebody on it the last 2 days, but maybe next time.  It was great one evening.