Dreamy

When this spot goes right, and I fish it right, there's no place more satisfying to catch a big fat ranch rainbow.  Or a bunch. I walk down just before the crack of noon.  Bugs are already on the water, and I see the rings of the fish I come here for.  Fish are moving across the flat and around the weeds leaving wakes that make me shake.  The pace now has slowed a bit.  Single session days have replaced the double feature morning and evening shows of pre-equinox summer.

From the first entry point, where two big fish zoom out away from me, each step is slow and methodical.  Its a no wake zone.  Weight is slowly applied each time my foot touches down.  The front leg falls slowly as the back leg is lifted equally slow.  Its more of a float along the bottom than steps.  No crunching.  Once in place, I try to serve the fly to an opening in between the salad of floating grass and weeds.  Like a crouton, floating over all the tossed greens.

The tippet has to be just right, long enough to not spook the fish with the leader or line, yet short enough to cast pinpoint accurate.  Drag is hardly a factor because the current is pretty much one speed in the whole run. It like a pond, only moving.  Almost like a placid saltwater flat when the tide begins to move the water. Everything has to float: Line, leader, tippet, and of course the fly.  If not, I'm doing laundry after every cast and pick up.

The fish are cruising, seemingly looking for a bigger bug amongst the tiny little baetis.  But sometimes one starts rising regularly, a moving and gulping every 10 seconds.  There aren't enough mahoganies on the water for it to be eating those so I go to the Sri Lanka.  In the larger size 18, who's to say they're not taking it for a mahogany emerger sometimes too?  The same can be said for the chocolate flavored mole.  Both are getting eaten.  The trout are definitely chowing down this afternoon.  Maybe they've adjusted to the string of cloudy weather, or recognized that the hatches are really coming now.  There isn't a breath of wind today, not even a stray gust.  Almost spooky.  When the flock of geese and bugling elk quiet down, its as silent as a river can be.  Unusual for here.

I don't stand and lollygag a bunch of dead drifts over the same lane.  I take one shot toward where I last saw a head, though chances are the fish is going to be a foot or two left or right of where that is. So I lead the bird and shoot, only I can't see which way the bird is moving.  I just see the rise and take a shot, a tad left or right, the sooner the better, while keeping any timing issues in mind.  By 2:00 pm, the mahoganies are easily visible.  Things are a little easier in this shin-high, calm, low-visibility, low-flow scenario.  The casting, wading, and slow straight drifts.  Bugs, trout, and silence blend all around, with a Teton rising in the furthest distance, as the afternoon drifts into evening. Dreamy.

First approach from the bluff showed big fish in their areas.

Bugs flying as I entered the dream.

Reflections all afternoon.

I never tire of it.

First of many

Starter fly.  Same one I've had going, only now the tail is gone.  They don't care!

They ate the #18.

Early in the hatch.

Midway though the afternoon.

Lotsa love on this shaggy Mole.

Even the adults got in on the play.

It stayed cloudy.

What a glare to watch a fly on.  But flat and big bugs!

You know its right when they're taking split wing duns.

Last fish of the afternoon, and fish of the day.

The exit, still glass calm, no rain, and fish still rising.  Know when to say when.