Blog Migration

An important note to my readers and subscribers.  Blogger has become a nightmare for loading pictures and managing new posts.  That's the main reason for the recent delays in posting, and lack of much thought into them lately.  So I have migrated the site to WordPress (like the rest of the world already has!).  I've used WordPress for my business website for many years, so I'm familiar with some of it. 

 The new URL is simply Jims-wanderings.com.  Similar, but different!  I'm not sure where the subscription link is on the new site, but it's there somewhere.

The migration software I used only allowed for 20 posts to be migrated without a fee.  That catches everybody up, and then some.  Maybe at a later date I'll migrate all of the nearly 500 posts I've made over the years.  They will remain on Blogger for now.  I'm working on getting a redirect working from the old site url to the new one.  That may make the older posts from last year and before inaccessible for now though.  I suspect I'll be paying the fee to have the whole old site moved if the new site proves so easy to add and edit posts and photos.

All future posts will be made at Jims-wanderings.com.  It'll be a work in progress, but the migration seemed to have worked very smoothly.

It's still a lock!

I've been hearing all the doom and gloom reports about the best dry fly river in the U.S. for a week or two now. There's no bugs.  It's too hot.  Too low. No caddis this year.  Didn't see any PMD's.  That's what you said!  You too!😃  Ok, it's not that I didn't believe ya.  But, it's the MO in June. Flows are low and steady. I mean . . . 

I get here on a very warm late afternoon, way ahead of any cold front or cool down.  Into the water a few hours before dark (Does it ever get dark here in late June?).  It's not boiling or anything, but there's caddis flying.  Pmd's float on the water, both dead and alive. I find some heads, though I do have to walk around, look closely, and be patient.  I send some rising fish to the dentist.  It's anything but dead.

The next morning, there's no wind and guess what's in the house?  Early too, 7:00.  Fish are up on the hatching tricos, way before the 9 am spinner fall.  Those are done by 10 am, and up comes the wind.

Morning shadows

A few clouds

Zebra Hanger/Shuttlecock/Mole.  Whatever you call it, they ate it.

Old reliable when I must. (Its only the end of June!)

These bastards are at the tip of every island I fish.  I hook up, and here they come.  I lose two fish to them.  Should have broke them off, just like we do with tarpon when the sharks come after them.  

A good evening follows.  More caddis and pmd's.  Not too crowded.  Weather's getting ready to turn cooler and "torrential rains" in the forecast.

Next morning I briefly engage with two or three steady risers for about 45 minutes. They aren't eating the caddis this trip. I lift on a couple of eats that are close to my fly, but don't think they ate it. The trico hatch never really happens for some reason.  Last night, there weren't any on the truck.  That should have been a sign I guess, but how did this morning's bugs know there were no mates?

The rain comes, though not quite torrential here.  Constant at times, but I get another window at Build-a-Cabin Island this evening.  It's good, with constant targets and eats on the Galloup spinner until dark. That fly has been the evening winner for a week now.  I have the place to myself.

If I rolled up its pant legs, I could almost drive the truck out on it.

I usually catch a fish out of that little puddle when there's water flowing over it.

It rains all night, and is still raining at 7am.  I walk outside the trailer about 8:30 and the rain has stopped.  A walk to the bottom of the ramp at Stickney, and the back eddy is full of dead tricos.  Shit!  What the hell?  I zip upstream a short mile to the money bridge and quickly get in the water to little pods of fish goin' to town.  Guess I missed part of this too.  It lasts later this morning, up until about 11am, when it blows again and things go quiet. There's baetis in the mix this morning too, which is what prolonged the rises.

The two lower islands are covered now.  They were high and dry a day ago.

Look what they did to me, all over a couple days of rain in a drought year!  3200 to 4650.  You can't tell me the lakes were too full!  The fish didn't like this either.

The water is noticeably rising this morning.  This can't be good.  I do fish the evening at PHD Island and get a few.  Once I ran off all the damn pelicans of course.

From a dry botanical garden to underwater.

It's a wonder there's a damn trout left in this river.  And no, they haven't always been like this.  One here, a couple there, not flocks of 25 at the tip of every single island between the dam and Craig.

Another afternoon and evening of rain clear out overnight.  The following clear morning looks and feels like the reports I had been getting last week.  Hardly a bug or a riser in sight.  Rising water?  I do manage to cast and catch one fish just before giving up, so technically, I've still not had a day here in recent memory without catching something.  It was a decent one too.

Connections

Change is inevitable in a 45-year fly fishing career. The learning never stops.  Preferences change.  There's new discoveries, and uncovering older things that might have slipped by.  Take the connection from fly line to leader. 

I started, like most, with the simple nail knot. It worked, and I considered a long leader to be 12 ft including the tippet. There were a couple of different nail knot tools, one I settled on that worked very well, so it was also a quick solution.

Then there was the needle nail knot. Cleaner, because the end of the leader came out of the center of the fly line, but it still had the bulk of the leader wrapped around the fly line to secure it.  I could coat it with UV glue or Pliobond to make the lump smoother, but there was still that lump 12 to 18 feet up from my fly.  The little tag end of the leader always seemed to snag on a guide or tip top.

In most recent times, all the new fly lines come with welded loops. Hey, keep it simple, put a loop in your leader and connect the two quickly.  I even played around with trying to make my own welded loops in lines that I had previously cut the loop from to use the nail knot.  If you need to change leaders, the loop to loop is a quick easy change.  Since I use furled leaders, this connection is actually quite smooth, but there's still that lump there going through the guides. With my standard 7-8 feet of tippet connected to five or six feet of furled leader, I still have to wiggle the rod and pull to get the whole mess out smoothly

So some years back, there was an article in Fly Fisherman from the late, great Dave Whitlock about a knotless connection.  I can't remember, but I either skipped over it, or read it and poo poo'd it because I didn't need anything like that at the time.  Somehow earlier this year I stumbled upon a YouTube video from someone doing a demo of this connection.  It sort of stuck in my head, and I wanted to try it and see if it really worked. No knot, just a little super glue?

The video made it look easy, you simply run a needle up through the braided core of the fly line, then put the butt of the leader through the hole, super glue the end of the leader and pull it back into the fly line. Just like the needle nail not, without the knot. Does that really hold?  Just super glue a quarter-inch of butt section in the braided core of a fly line?  The kids in the video say it works. The idea comes from Dave Whitlock. That carries a ton of weight.  Gospel, if you will.

So far I'm liking it. I did it to one fly line, and the change was immediate. So smooth and easy.  Now I've done a second and third.  The connection is beautiful, I can hardly tell it's not one piece as I pull the leader and fly line through the guides and out the tip top. I'm going to give it a fair test. Big beaverhead browns on 3x.  Montana steelhead on the Missouri. A 2x nylon leader with a streamer on the end of it. What's the worst that could happen, I lose the fish of the season and the leader to go with it?  Life will go on, and we're not talking tarpon fishing here.  I'll report back, but for now, I'm all in on knotless connections on the four five and six weights. 😬

It's a thing of beauty I tell you. While fishing, it's hard to tell where the line and leader intersect unless I look.  The picture makes the expanded fly line look larger than it really is.

Jack

 

This is Jack.  That's short for Blackjack.  21.  Inches that is.

Jack and I became friends, or at least we got to know each other really well.  You see, I caught Jack today. I saw him in a foot-deep flat, and it only took a minute.  There aren't a lot of 21 inch fish in here. He makes my day.  But, . . . the story is only beginning. (Man I wish I could have Keith Morrison reading this!)

Fast forward a day.  I'm staring into the same riffle, 6 feet lower, and Jack is back. There's no mistaking him, the largest I've seen all morning. It's noonish and he's on the feed. He lets no other fish near him in his riffle. He eats on the surface, then underneath, chases an intruder away, and returns to eat some more.  This pattern continues endlessly.  About 20 minutes in, he eats my CDC pmd emerger. Nothing but air. Strike one.

An hour or so and some fly changes later, he eats my grizzly hackle dun. Strike two. I think he eats a Timmy too. He certainly refuses it a couple of times. We're a couple hours in now, getting to know each other very well. More fly changes.  There's really nowhere to reposition on the little creek. He keeps rising in range. Perfect range. He's very careful, moving left and right, up and down. 

I've spent the better part of my afternoon with Blackjack. One of us is going to win, the other defeated. I'm sore and getting tired, taking 5 minute breaks to rest, retie, and come out for the next round.  He has some decent sized friends rising around him, but for now it's just me and blackjack.  At precisely 2:30, Jack eats my TTPT.  Tom Travis Pleasant Tail. The emerger version, half-in, half-out, down to 5X.  It's pretty quick, I win, and we shake hands. I love jack. He, and others like him, are the reason I still do this.  The day is complete.

Thank You Jack.  I loved our engagement. Sorry about the mouth.  I do love you.  Hope you have a great summer and there's plenty of bugs.  Maybe you'll have some other fish too. Watch out for them pointy things. Bon appetite.

After I temporarily relocate Jack from his room, some of his younger brothers move in. You know how siblings are I guess.  I think that is rude of them, so I remove a few of them from Jack's room on my way out the door. 

As a postscript, I revisit Jack's house a couple days later and he's still there.  I do serve him a Timmy for a short while with no eats.  I stick one of his smaller brothers, and move on.  He gave me more than I could ever ask.

This is Timmy.  He's messy, floats well, and is very visible.  Everyone  likes Timmy. (Charlie Craven pattern.)

Piggy Bank

Cloudy evenings make for long, late fishing evenings.  Caddis and pmd's on the menu.  Every night, and one last clear morning, bring fish working right up the bank.

The Piggy Bank before sunset.

Sweet spot

Missing Link

Bush one, bush two, and bush three

'Bout Yay Big Bush

Caddis in the house, but the fish are eating pmds.

Drakes and Drakes

Well, I damn near don't make the opener. But the night before, I'm able to re-load and head north after burning rubber home from Craig four days ago and tending to the Fort. There's no traffic this time of night, just antelope trying to hit me as I crawl through Wyoming. What a roller coaster week.         

I pull the late-nighter and make the Millionaires parking lot by 7:00 am on 2-3 hours sleep. Not recommended, but in a blur, I'm here. Half blind and wore out before I ever slip on the waders.

My head is still somewhere else besides the Ranch. My body objects to every step. My fly isn't in clear focus.  On this morning I don't belong anywhere else though.  

Just a few steps in, I look down, and what the hell? It's a big brown drake. I even see a few more. Must be leftovers. That's promising, but there's little else. I stay at the downstream tip of the upper island for a while then proceed to work my way down Main Street. Perfect. Nobody else here. There's already some . . . guy . . . fishing the sweet spot between the lower islands. But a couple hours in, all I've caught is cold. Its nippy this morning. No bugs, no heads.

A little before 11 there's a few big bugs. This time green ones. I get a couple of big eats and blow those. A couple of beat up smaller ones salvage the morning. This isn't green drake water, but I don't have it in me to move up river to the faster water where all the gulls are going at it.

The warm clear evening brings the other big drakes, brown ones, on opening evening. I can't recall the last time I've had both drakes in the same day, and never on opening day. There's some fish up for about 3 hours before dark, though not as many as one would expect given the number of bugs. I blow most of these too, but manage a couple to hand. So not a bad opener given how I got here. 

The second morning starts out looking pretty nice, and when I hit the water at 8:00, there's dead pmds in various stages all over the water. Some fish occupy the lane between the two lower Islands and I get some eats before it's over by 10:00. The wind rips, and that takes care of that. The gulls work green drakes later in the morning, but I never see a fish take one. It's a blowout until evening. 

The wind lays down, and here come the brown ones again. Quite a few of them. Again, there aren't a ton of fish taking them, but enough. And then there's this one. The gulps are different than the other eats I'm seeing. I get the eat and it's instantly obvious it's a different class of fish. Two complete empties of the reel, and I get out of the current to shore.

22 heavy

So this third morning I'm not going to be late and miss those pmds. Right. I'm on the water at 7:00, but it's a different hatch. Brown Drake's are all over the place at 7:00 in the morning! What the hell is this about? The fish aren't on them other than a couple of smaller ones splashing around, but the gulls are making a scene and the water is really loaded. Must be leftovers coming out of the trees from the big hatch last night. I see no sign of pmd's like yesterday. The brown drakes are done by 8:30 or so, and I'm done by 10:00 because the wind has come again.  

This evening there's a light to medium west wind blowing across the pool. The gulls are finally beginning to get active about 7:00 pm. 7:30 and the water is covered. The wind won't lay down and the surface stays choppy, so only the gulls are eating. 9:00 and it finally lays down a little. There's some one-timers. The bugs are as thick as I've ever seen them. It's surreal. No steady rising fish though. Its just weird. Sure has the appearance of low fish counts. 

I get up a little late this morning, but make it to the river at 7:45. Not a breath of wind. But, not a breath of bugs either. No brown drakes, no gulls, no pmds. A quiet, glassy, dead river. I struggle to understand, but I guess no one ever will. Maybe that's why we do it, because we'll never quite figure it out, not even close.

So it's 8:15 am. Waiting on a morning hasn't worked yet. I can wade out and make Vernon by 9:00, and I do. It's a 20 minute, one mile walk up to the rock, which puts me there at a perfect 9:20, when the hatch started daily last year. I make it to the minute. It ain't happening.  I guess the red flag was that I was the only vehicle at Vernon when I got there.

My final night back at millionaires, and the gulls make a 7:20 appearance en masse. Out of nowhere, there's a hundred. Then quickly several hundred. They coincide with the first bugs. The hatch comes off pretty good, but it's short-lived. Tonight it's over at 9:00 despite perfect calm conditions. Bugs gone, birds gone. There's a couple of one timer small fish rises, and that's it.  

I guess there's worse places for shitty fishing.

This is the flow at Vernon. A little elevated, but still clear and wadable most places.

And this is the Ranch.  Higher than the last couple of years, but about a normal flow. And it's been steady since the opener.

So the mornings are slow except the second one. Every day except the opener and day four is windy. The brown drakes are getting thicker every night, but it doesn't work in any kind of wind. But then again, it didn't work on the last night with no wind either. There aren't a lot of fish showing up around Millionaires. I probably missed the green drakes at Vernon last week. Seems like I've pretty much missed everything for the last two weeks.