The Park 4400 to 4250cfs

Its got a long ways to go, but apparently they're putting a large dent in the lake trout population, evidenced by a large reduction in the number showing up in the nets.  Good news, but the Cutts in their namesake river are still few and far between.  The high flows screwed me again too.  I couldn't wade out much anywhere, and the few rising fish I would see liked it out in the current for the most part, out of casting range.  There were drakes here and there, lots of caddis, a few pmd's, and callibaetis up above Le Hardy in the slower water.  Even saw the ocassional salmonfly.  Seemed the further down river, the fewer the risers.  Didn't see any at or below Buffalo Ford (now called Nez Perce).  It was all from Cascade up, in the slower water.

The flat above the rapids had rising fish both days I fished it, but mostly out of range.  Those that did move into range ate the rusty spinner nearly every time.  The late morning here was the best, with a little evening action . . . out of range.  Had a good evening, albeit brief after sunset, at Cascade after all the roadside fishermen left.  Too much water?  Still too few fish?  Not sure, but it has potential again.

For now, its about hunting single heads that are in range, and don't have someone else on them.  Cascade to Sulfer were getting hit pretty regulary, or at least walked by and observed.  On the bright side, there's some honkers in here.  All I caught was fat 18-22 inchers.  Saw some fingerlings, but not much in between.  Got one on a drake spinner, perhaps the last until next June.  Everything else on the rusty all days.  There were always some spinners on the water of some sort.

Just a little off the bank, and she's big and wide.  

First one on the drizzly first morning

Just enough spent drakes around, fish were looking for 'em.

Tough life.

Very late evening with a slow shutter speed.

#16 thread tail, only fly I needed.

Beautiful flat with one riser on the other side

Not a riser anywhere

None here below Buffalo Ford either.

Good evening caddis flights with no response

This was the area for the most consistency

Consistent light Callibaetis on that upper flat

What they were eating

Pretty cool place to fish.  Temps never reached 80.

Walking fly shop with shit dangling everywhere.  But hey, I'm covered and covered.

Can't Win

I was just looking back at this blog exactly one year ago, catching nice beautiful fish on flavs and caddis and pmd's in a wonderfully flowing 640 CFS Henry's Fork.  It was zipping 1,000 when I got here yesterday evening, and had been for a week. This morning they bumped it up another 150 so it is flowing nearly double last year's flow. You can sure tell because there ain't shit up, despite about the same PMD and flav hatch with caddis sprinkled in.  Like that old Olympia beer commercial said in a positive way, "it's the water."  Too much water, here too.  Chunks of weeds floating down river from bank to bank, and flotsam and junk covered the downwind bank on the far side when they bumped the water.  This is a recording. 

I did get a couple of eats on the flav soft hackle this morning before the water bump, and one this evening when it was too dark to see my fly, so I'm trying, I really am. It's a long wait until next June and early July, and I can't really say I'm looking forward to baetis here this fall.  Maybe mahoganies.  Maybe I'll get to catch some big fish on big bugs on the Yellowstone next week.

Its 3 a.m. and I'm laying here and can't sleep.  I look forward to this time period at this place for the entire year. Hardly a day goes by I don't think about it,  except for maybe my weeks in Campeche.  When I get up to work in the mornings, it's so I can be here for these hatches.  There's an old saying about having the rug pulled out from under you.  In this case, it's more like having the water poured over me.  There's other days, other trips, other fish, and other rivers, but they're just not the same. 

Don't Do It!

The damn Missouri.  I knew there would be bugs, so I had to see.  9,750 or some shit.  Today they dropped it to 8,000 and I couldn't tell unless I looked at the flooded vegetation and saw it was wet a few inches higher up.  Its still raging.  Sort of "Beaverhead clear" water too.  Floated Wolf Cr to Craig with an early launch at 7:30 and a 3:00 take out.  I hunted, stopped, waited, went down every side channel, and parked at every slow spot and known dry fly spot.  There wasn't shit, despite caddis and PMD's on the water all day.  I saw maybe 12 rises, and only one fish that was working.  The rest were one-timers.  I hooked it, but I didn't touch him.  There was one pod of fish rising in the scum hole on the inside of California Island about 3:15 on my way back to camp, but that was all I saw, and I didn't want to fish them from the boat.  You could only access the bank they were near from the road parking lot, and there was no place to wade out.  I didn't need a fish that bad.    No place to wade and the fish aren't rising.  And don't ever believe Headhunters' fishing reports.  "Dry fly time."  Sure.  Right.  What planet are they on?  There's an hour or so of an evening rise at dusk.  Face to face in the shop, its more like "The PMD's are fading, and the tricos aren't really going goo good yet, so its mainly caddis real early in the mornings or at dusk."  The truth.  That ain't what the blog and Facebook posts say!  Saw some evening risers last night when I got here.  Supposed to drop to 7,000 tomorrow,  but I don't see any difference that will make.

So here's a trip down the flooded Missouri at 8,000 cfs.  Don't do it!

Just below Prickly Pear Creek

Looking up at Ma and Pa's riffle

Ma and Pa's channel

The killer little island west of California Island, all covered up.

The killer side channel river left below CA Island.  It was movin'

There was one steady riser here.  Hooked and lost.

Don't Do It!  See you in September or October.

Warning:  Rant Ahead.

In the several decades I've been fishing the Rockies now, I've seen high water years, and years of continuous drought.  The best fly fishing is during drought years.  That's right, several years of drought, or so-called drought.  Dry years are perfectly normal, and so are these crazy wet ones.  I'm all for drought years.  Several in a row.  Lets see high flows of 3,200, dropping to 1500 by fall, like the good old days.  We are all still here, the fish are still here, the farms and ranches are still here, farming and ranching away.  Everybody still had running water, and stupid green lawns.  And the fish didn't die.  There ain't nothin' wrong with 4 or 5 years of drought.  I'm going to get a tee shirt made, "All About Drought, Say No To Snowpack."  Everybody will be fine, its been happening for centuries.  Longer than that.  It's time for some low water for the good hatches of June and early July.  Fuck tricos, baetis, and midges.  You can do that anytime, like February.   

Depuy's Resident-3 more days

Day 1-Now this is more like it, what a change. A bright sunny sky without a single cloud in sight,  the light wind blowing downstream instead of up, and fish rising from the get-go.  When I pulled into the parking lot Friday morning at Eva's around 8, there were midges flying in the air, a few PMDs, and what appeared to be some very light clouds of tricos .  There were bugs in the air. Now we're talkin!

I was in the water at 8:30 casting to rising fish . There were already a few pmd's coming down, along with some invisible bugs I assume were midges.  The pmd's never got heavy, but they were study all morning into early afternoon. After that there were still fish rising, again presumably to midges in late stage of emergence. I guess the bugs and the fish prefer obsessive Heat, but it sure is cool standing in the cold creek all day.  Though afternoon temperatures were in the low to mid 90s, I was never even close to hot until I got out of the water around 5. By then it was blowing pretty hard and I was one tired puppy. No lunch, no water, no nothing except casting to fish.

I do have this problem of developing a relationship with a fish that is hard or impossible to catch, and proceeding to try and catch it. I spent two to three hours trying to catch a nice rainbow that was repeatedly eating something underneath and occasionally something in the film. I got rejected by him a few times, but never got a hook in him.  Needless to say he cost me a bunch of hookups with other fish, but that's okay I enjoyed the battle even though I lost in the end. I think he was eating Midge Pupa moving up, but I never went there I stayed dry.  The guys eventually around me being guided,fishing dry droppers, were hooking up on the droppers a lot.

When I checked in this morning, Darryl inform me that there had been a bunch of cancellations for the weekend and Beyond. After I was in the river for a few hours this morning I got on the phone in between fish and secured Saturday and Sunday too. I mean, what better place to be on a hot sunny Montana weekend in July?

Loop wing had a lot of love on day one.  FOD

Runner Up

Surprisingly well taken

Worked for a few

For the extra needy.  It floats.

Day 2-Now I mentioned this one fish I couldn't catch yesterday.  It was time to settle the score.  Last evening, I went and dropped too much money on a couple or three of every floating PMD nymph and emerger that Anderson's had and I didn't.  There ended up being 26 flies in all, probably about 10 different ties.  I went through most of mine yesterday without a take, including that killer little crawling-out emerger.

This is what my fly patch looked like at the start of day two after going the rounds.

This is the son of a bitch.  Biggest fish in the whole run.

The target fish had this white patch on its nose, and it was very distinguishable in the water as he moved all around to feed.  Any fish that got close would be run out of the area, then he would return and resume feeding.  This happened every few minutes.  He would not let any other fish could within 3 to 6 feet of him!  On day two, I went back to the same run.  Today though, there was hardly any kind of morning hatch and far fewer rising fish than yesterday.  Very late in the morning there was finally a hatch.  I was able to get a couple fish on a little Griffiths Gnat before the hatch, and I caught a fish on the first cast of the morning on the yellow soft hackle greased up.  About noon-ish, guess who shows up?  So into the new assortment of flies, and I start trying a few.  He's eating exactly like yesterday, in the same large slot.  I finally got something over him that he took.  It stayed on, and we shook hands.  

Mr. White Nose, king of the pool.

He cost me about 2/3 of a daily rod fee, but I quite enjoyed going the rounds for hours the day before and a good hour today.  It felt really good that I could also go back to normal fishing and just enjoy catching a few.  I couldn't think about any other fish until I had this one.

This was the little floating nymph from Anderson's that he ate.  Dubbing, CDC case, partridge legs.  Nothing special.

The afternoon breeze came up again, blowing the wrong direction upstream, and the hatch dwindled by 3pm.  I made a move up to the middle section just above the pond before the incoming thunder shower, but only saw one rising fish and spooked it on the second cast.  I just can't seem to time the middle section right this trip.  Maybe I will go there during the peak of the hatch tomorrow.  Hard, but doable, if nobody's there.

Day 3-This one started out with that dreaded white cloudy sky again, actually a little darker than just cirrus, but still cloudy.  A perfect baetis day a couple months from now.  I took the plunge and drove straight to the middle section just above the pond and parked at the culvert.  Nobody else in sight.  From here I can go up or down to a variety of water.  I'll wait for the hatch and it'll be rip city.  right.  Nothing doing.  Finally, at 11:30 am, I headed up river.  The best hatches I've seen all month were the first two days up at Armstrongs, so I was going to get as close to there as possible.  Same creek, I know, but still.  I parked at the fly shop and walked up the PHD pool.  I saw some PMD's!  Not a lot, but there were a few fish up.  I took a couple small ones and lost a nice one.  I made my way down the PHD pool twice in three hours.   Heads were sparse, but at least I had something to cast too.  Couldn't see 'em though  They all did eat the crawling-out emerger though.  The upstream wind hit about 1:30 but I fished though it.  No sun today until 3pm.  It felt cooler all day.  Yesterday the creek was a relief, today it felt cold.  It was a weird day of poor hatches and no visibility.  When the sun popped out at 3 and the wind increased, the PMD's were gone, and so was I.  

Looking down towards the pond

Choice water, no bugs

No risers along "alligator" log.

And just when I  finally saw a couple fish rise, this obnoxious family had to go strolling up and spook the fish

Not sure why they call it the PHD pool.  I don't find it any tougher than the others.

This was a good position

The hanging version, with the body still dry

The down-wing or emerger version with the body dry.

Emerger with the body wet.

Had a classic eat here on the first cast with the hanging fly less than an inch from the weeds.

I swear, there were a bunch of rising fish just above the boundary sign for Armstrongs.

Seven of the first eight days of July on the creeks.  That was fun.  They're out of openings.