Meanderings

Stalking trout with dry flies. Floating, wading, and camping along the rivers. Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Winter trips to Mexico.



Mar 12, 2019

Spring Ain't Springing

Thought I'd hit the river late this morning before the next "big" spring storm rolls in tonight.  Flow is an amazing 780 CFS.  I can't remember seeing it this low in many years.  Temperature was 36 by 11 am. That sounded good, but it was breezy enough straight upstream to riffle the surface.  And not warm.  Guess I'm too close to the southern branch of this March blizzard.

There was a smidgen of fish midgin'.  Not for long though.  The high clouds came over as the wind picked up a little more.  Caught a couple on a cdc midge, headed back to the warming truck, then down river to find a sheltered bank.  The thought was nice, but it still gusted right up the middle.  Midges were gone, some BWO's tried for about 45 minutes after 2:00.  Sun came in and out of those lovely high white clouds.  Caught a few more on the black Adams.

I'm kinda out of shape, got frozen feet twice, and have the whole spring and summer to deal with earth's design flaw.  So I didn't wait around for some mythical late afternoon BWO hatch that's probably going off big time right now, as the skies get more gray and the wind has seemingly stopped.  Guess I went too early to begin with or something.  It just wasn't that comfortable.

I saw some nice noses, made some wrist casts, bent the rod, and can maybe survive one more storm and cold spell.  Its supposed to "spring" into the 40's by early next week!  My free fishing days are numbered 'till June, even though the big lake is still frozen solid from top to bottom.  Haven't seen that in a lot of years either!  Back to winters I remember from decades past.
Should be glass smooth down there

Dream flow for dries

Wet fish, not wet hands



Not much protection on this bank either


This one flopped right up there like that!

Not smooth upon exit.  Probably 10 minutes later.

Mar 4, 2019

Baetis Season

The baetis are popping, witnesses say.  The Bureau is stabilizing the river at an optimum low level of 800 cfs in two days, so they say.  I have some days off in the next couple weeks while waiting for the ice to melt on the lake and finishing some boat re-construction.  I'm headed to the river when the snow lets up later this week and temperatures get above freezing, so they say. 
Here's the hot fly I just fished for a week in Campeche with one of the flies I'll try to fish (and see) this week on the Green.  Back to reality I guess.