Dry Flies, Rivers, Trout & Tarpon.: 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.