Sinking

It can be a tough time of year.  Mahoganies are about gone.  Olives are out in the afternoon/evening but the bigger fish aren't on them too great.  Its sunny and comfortably warm.  Record warmth in fact.  No wind to speak of.  Its great, except for the lack of big heads to cast to.  Those will come with the next weather change bringing clouds, showers, an cold temperatures.  I'll go to the MO and fish 'till I drop.  But what to do now?

Earlier this season I was comparing fly patches with a friend I've shared parking lot and bankside conversation with for many years, as well as trading a rising fish or two.  We were talking about sparse soft hackles for selective fish eating mayflies, and big beetles for bank feeders.  Marking fish rises for hoppers. Who was fishing where.  Just comparing bugs and situations while waiting for something, anything, to happen.

He pulled a leech-looking thing from the patch and told me how he and his brother Rusty were fishing them just under the surface to the one-time risers of mid-summer at the Gravel Pits.  He said they were eating it for a damsel larvae, and some days they really came after them.  I said wow, and he gave me a couple.  They had a bead, on a jig hook.  Not Ranch material, but Ed and his brother fish here most of the season and an hold their own against most anybody.

Today, I exited Millionaire's pool up the big rocky cliff around noon, and then turned around to gaze at the big resident fish down there that call that pool home. They were not rising, but looked awake and a bit active. As I stood there, a guy with a cane rod wearing camo was working downstream toward me from the ranch buildings.  He appeared to be casting down and across in fairly quick rhythm.  Kinda odd, I thought.  Might as well watch and learn.  As he continued closer to the big rock outcrop, I thought he was swinging a soft hackle of some sort.  He'd cast, hand-over-hand some line, twitch the rod tip a few times, and repeat.  No false casting, just a pickup and cast, and a pretty graceful one at that.

Like this was going to work on the slow, mirror smooth water of Millionaire's pool, and the highly educated fish that call it home!  Right.  Well, before I knew it, he missed a good take.  Ten casts later, he missed another one.  As he approached the rock outcrop where I could see a good fish holding right below me, he cast just above it and let the fly swing with the little twitches.  I watched the fish move a good two feet and grab the fly.  This one he landed, and I waved a thumbs up and moved on downstream of the perch to let him enjoy his catch and fish on down.  The whole time I'm thinking, I wonder what kind of soft hackle he's swinging.

The man never appeared further downstream.  I could see several large fish not far below the big rock outcrop, so he likely would have had more eats.  As I went walking back to the lot, we met on the trail.  I asked him what the fish he caught took, and he showed me what looked like the same green leech that Ed had shown me earlier in the summer, minus the bead head.  I said that I had heard those things work here, and he said he had missed a few fish before I saw him, but that he only needed one fish today anyway.  "It's not how you're supposed to fish here, but sometimes you have to when there's no fish rising."

And just like that, I started digging for the two flies Ed had given me.  I found them in a Trouthunter container, and proceeded to trot back to the river like a kid on Christmas morning.  I wasn't sure it would work, but I know what I just saw.  The rest, as they say, is history. They wouldn't leave it alone.  They'd miss it and hit it again.  They wanted it.  Big rainbows.  The ones that appear in this run for the brown drake hatch, and sometimes for mahoganies or PMD's.  Those big beautiful ranch rainbows.

The shame of it all.  To stoop so low on the hallowed waters of such dry fly tradition.  A jig hook, with a fucking bead on it.  Talk about a hypocrite.  But I've always said I fish dry only because that's what I enjoy.  Well, I enjoyed the hell out of swinging this little leech!  I haven't stuck fish like this outta here since brown drakes in June.

It was pretty easy for most of the afternoon.  Maybe this is what it feels like to get a hooker. Euphoria  while its happening, and scuzzy afterward.  But it was great watching the wakes coming after that little micro leech, and seeing pig after pig tearing all over the place.  I hope I don't make a habit out of it, but then again, there's probably worse ones.  At least I wasn't using a bobber.

All in an evening's work

Ten without the bead or jig hook.  Guess I'll have to test 'em!  👿