Fantasy Fishing

32 days ago, on June 7th, I waded into the river at Vernon. That began this magical run I'll likely never have again.  I don't ever recall one this good for this long. Like DiMaggio's 56 game hit streak. Bonds' 73 home runs.  Ted hitting .406.  I just kept pinching myself wondering when it would end.  It never did until I pulled myself away in the heat of that last Mo morning, when the time seemed perfectly right.

The only day I didn't fish was in the middle of a 30 hour constant rainfall on the Beaverhead. I've been in the water with a bent rod every other day of this trip, even the evening after having a leaf spring replaced on the trailer. Fantasy fishing kind of stuff most of the days, all on my Big Four. Henry's, Wyoming, the MO, and the creeks.  Drake's and PMD's served daily, good hatches everywhere. Familiar stretches and new stretches.  Great flows. (Ya, it's a low water year!)

And weather?  For the most part it couldn't have been any better.  A little wind here and there, some rain showers as expected, but mostly just perfectly comfortable.  The hatch timing and weather pattern seemed to be couple weeks early this year. The first two weeks of June were very summer-like.  The hatches have been early.  But, the big heat has held off until, really, today.  I ran the air conditioner in the trailer one afternoon in Livingston before the cold front.  I ran the furnace on low a few nights in Island Park.

7 weeks ago I wasn't sure if I could drive or even see a fly on the water.  My Memorial Day weekend practice run was a bust. However, each day my brain/eye coordination adjusted from then to now.  I'm already thinking of next June, but there's little chance it can match this one.  Some records will never be broken.  

Just a little fishin' now.

Passing Kiss

My next destination takes me right through Wolf Creek. Damn straight I will fit a morning session into that.  I see clouds of tricos up and down the river crossing Wolf Creek bridge. I get to the turnout at 8:00 and get my shit together quick. Walking upriver, I see some isolated risers, very isolated actually. I get in at the corral and work down the river with the partridge and yellow early, and partridge and brown after 9:30 when the caddis come out. There's pmds on the water the whole time. Literally every fish I put the fly on eats it. It takes a while on some of them to get it just right, but I don't leave any without the eat. Some I don't land because I'm standing dead center in the current. Others I net in a calmer landing zone.  Love ya Mo.

Prime

I start off the first of five mornings here, slow moving with early risers.

This is still the best morning creek spinner of them all.  It shined every morning.

Just me and Wisconsin

It's an average morning, meaning pretty good and steady until some wind and weather move in and it slows down early afternoon. I come back for the evening spinner fall that happens.

Day two.  I pull into the parking lot a little before 8:00. TT and another guy chit-chatting, and we exchange good mornings and compare notes on yesterday's spinner fall. I ask TT about the popularity of the quail spider this year, and we start in. Well, he does! We go deep pretty quick. Skues, Halford, and Flymphs. The chalk streams. How to fish frogs and mice on this creek. ( I need to try this!) How the recent PMD hatch is just right, not too sparse, not too heavy.

Sally Hansens quick dry.  (They make that?)

Aldo Leopold's observation that certain aspects of nature will never be understood, and maybe we shouldn't understand all of them. Why do hatches happen when they do? Why do the fish sometimes eat them and sometimes they don't? We wouldn't want it to always be like that spinner fall yesterday afternoon. If it was, why even bother? But we know it won't be, so we enjoy it for a while.  

A neutrally buoyant pheasant tail emerger with foam underneath the wing case, and the pheasant tied in forward and folded back instead of tied back and pulled forward.  Creative.

I finally wander down just after 9:00. Just me and the creek, I'm lost in the zone. I have the whole place to myself. I respectfully engage in play with some particular fish. Now I know why I have so many flies, because it's fun to just reach in and try the weird stuff, a single this and a couple of those. I get a few eats and a hookup or two, then change it up. My foam patch is full. I stay pleasantly entertained right up until around 2:30 when things seem to slow down. I have PT for the shoulder and back with Mary at 3:30, so it's about perfect.

I always feel a bit like a kid in a candy store fishing the dun. It's easy to see, floats like a cork, and the fish usually don't eat them as good as all that emerger, spent, and cripple stuff.  So it sort of feels special.  It sure has worked this year.

It's coming.  Fourth of July cold front.

The namesake hanger.

They call it the PHD pool, probably because if you get next to or above the fish when it's bright, they don't like it. But I've always done well moving up the bank casting upstream. Bank feeder bank. I get out the depuy hanger and give it a mow. Three up, three down.  

I round the bend about 4:00 pm as the clouds are slowly coming from the west. I take a couple more fish. As I walk up toward the top riffle, all of a sudden there's spinners in the air.  Lots of them. They must know something.

The lightning gets closer, the riffle is boiling, it's damn near a fish a cast, but I got to go. The grass is full of pmds as I briskly walk to the truck. They're doing it back down the PHD pool.  It's 5:40, and the cold front is here. What a creek. What a country!

The iconic drive out.

A chewed up no-hackle is a great evening spinner.  It's just all over the place, just how they look, and just like the trout love them.

As I drive past the creek on bankers hours this morning, there's no cars at Eva's. I haven't fished there on this trip yet, and the report a couple days ago was no bugs. This morning was the one to try. I'm the only one there, fish work the top at 9:00, and I fish from top to the bottom flat from 9:00 to 1:30. Clouds drift across most of the late morning with on and off gusty winds, but I push through.

Passing showers, glancing but growing 

There's always some good fish holding around these rocks at the bottom of Eva's.  They're spooky and tough, just like I like 'em.  I catch one and miss a couple with a winged beetle.  It works here too!

2:00 to 4:30 brings some pretty serious rain and wind, but after lunch Im driving back to the creek after the clouds push east. There's three cars at Eva's, so I keep going to the fly shop where there's nobody. Fish where they ain't!  A big blue hole to the West let's the sun pop through and shine bright at 5:00.  This could be a good one.  And as Uncle Keith (Morrison) would say, "whaddya know!"  Fish up till sunset at 8:30ish. Under the powerline, and in last light riffle.

Last light riffle. This is the last place on the whole creek to lose the sun.  There's spinners here almost every night.

This is my hottest evening spinner on the creek.  Every spot, every night.  And it's easy to see.  Single wing, double wing, doesn't matter.

The forgotten section of the creek, the neglected middle. This morning there's multiple cars in the upper and lower runs, which I've already fished anyway. It's severe clear after the afternoon rains yesterday, and there's a little breeze. I explore the forgotten middle where I usually turn a big fish or two. You know, fish where they ain't. I pass a little beaver lodge where I remember one from a couple of seasons ago. Doesn't appear to be any bugs or risers at a quarter to 10, but from the grass above I see a couple fish in position. Yeah, there's fish in this stretch. Of course there is. I get a little creative and it works. Some eat the dun too.

By early afternoon I end up above the narrows in the big slow pool at the bottom of the fly shop run. Annie's they call it. When the weeds grow high in the water gets a little deeper, it's too deep and soft to wade. This year I can do it. Big fish move around in here, the biggest I've seen on the creek this week. They spook when I approach, but I get in and walk up the bank a little and they come right back into range within a few minutes. Ya, a little creativity puts some nice ones in the net. Fish the film, neutrally.

Riffle at the top of the narrows. I'm

Annie's

Full of big cruisers

I drive up to the fly shop by 6:00 pm and wade across the riffle at Barney's bench. They're doin' it everywhere. I move over to the shady side of the hill and cast back towards the shop side as fish chomp their way upstream into the shallows. Fish after fish. Just insane. Creativity, with the dun, jacked up no-hackle, and single wing spent soft hackle (I need a shorter name for that thing). Strong fish, backing fish. They quit around 8:00.  

Ankle to shin deep, and they move right up into it.

And here's the last fish from the last evening from last light riffle!  A fitting end to a marvelous 5 days.  

Slow and Clear

Day one.  About as good as it gets for 4 hours, 10-2.  I start fishing by 7:30. There's ample pmds to bring up every fish in the creek, but not so many as to make them selective.  It's easy to see the fish, and the flies I'm casting to them.  Just like Wyoming, only gin clear water, no weeds, and I didn't have to move 50 feet all morning.  

Happiness is . . . First one to the parking lot at 7am.

Gotta have that iconic morning view.

. . . In both directions

The flat is looking good, but it seems like the water level is lower this year.  There's hardly any current against that far bank, and there were no fish on that far bank today.  She's pretty skinny.

First fish fly, pre-hatch.

Early hatch fly, par for the course.

The way this soft tackled antron spinner was riding, I don't know if they were taking it for a spinner or a single wing dun.  Either way, they were taking it.

Had to do it later in the hatch.  Still deadly.

Smaller version with a partridge hackle, worked great.

And of course!

There's day one. It was 95 in the shade this afternoon, but gave way to a thunderstorm and rain at 6:00 p.m.  Didn't fish the evening spinner fall in the rain and lightning.

Day two.  More sunny and calm.  I fish a bit lower where it moves even slower.  I almost jinx it by catching a fish on the first cast around 7:30!  It works out however. I change flies more today, partly for fun and partly out of necessity. Seems like every time I change, I get a few eats. At one point early on I go to 6x too.  Sure seems to float better.  Again, I never move more than 50 ft until around 2:00 when the cotton hatch starts.  The one fish on the flat that I really want eats my dun in the morning and a loop wing in the afternoon, but I don't hook up either time.  I have a few of those today.

This cdc one-feather dun won the dun of the day. (Say that fast three times)

Never got to it yesterday.

Organza Timmy!  They loved it. #18.

Not a bad view out my kitchen window.

Ya.  Everything about it.

So a good opening act.  On to Depuy's tomorrow.  Weather coming tomorrow, and especially on the 4th.  Pmds have been adequate, but not heavy.  Word is it happened earlier this year, and might even be happening earlier each year as of late.  But, there were plenty of bugs and plenty of targets.