First Five

Back on the water the last five days after a short hiatus.  Its one of those market corrections again.  Fished Silver one day in the rain, hoping for that blanket hatch of blue wings, mahoganies, or something.  Not to be.  There were some bugs, but the bigger fish didn't seem to care.  I'm again reminded that fishing when its sunny and warm beats the hell out of cold wet hands, among other cold parts.  The water was higher than normal too, so wading was a bitch on the water I like.  The following sunny day isn't any better.  It was nice, however, to fish some clear water that wasn't filled with grass and weeds.  The salad was all still anchored to the bottom. With no reason to stay, the 2 1/2 hour migration to the Fork was in order.

First morning was pretty cold here too.  So were the fish.  There's some mahoganies around, and baetis every morning, but I've been just getting some stray shots at moving fish for the most part.  Some of the better chances and eats, I've just blown or missed.

This morning showed a little more promise.  Sunny, warm and glass calm.  I hooked the first pig I cast to (In exactly that spot at 10 am!), but he quickly and knowingly went right upstream into the weeds with my soft hackle on 5x and said see ya.  Four more fantastic eats followed in the next hour, with two to the net, right down memory lane.  Then the south wind came up.  I've actually been waiting for a windy day to see if the hopper hatch I saw a couple weeks ago would happen again.  There are still plenty in the brush and grass.  I didn't see any on the water though, and I went looking for a while this afternoon.  Still puzzling, 'cause it was blowing a lot harder today than that other one.  But from the south instead of North.  ???

So this week reminds me that its not all about the fish.  But ya, they matter, because I don't just go walking along the river, or on a trail, with no rod or flies.  The crowds are down, the pace has slowed a tad, and more patience is required between chances and shots.  There were a few fish up above the ranch houses the other day.  There were fish up below the parking lot yesterday, in that deep water, and tough to get to eat.  There was a bit of action yesterday evening below Osborne, just enough to keep in interesting.  Then that little magic hour this morning.  I'm basking in the very last of the 70's in these parts until June.  (That's low 20's in the north country, eh)

Sometimes I think it would be nice to not even carry rain gear.

Stuff great stories are made from, right?

Very few bugs, not many fish

More my kind of morning

Water is up.  Wader suspenders better be too!

Back home

Starting to get a little bit of color

Not a bad evening backdrop

Another evening backdrop

Frosty mornings at the pits, but not a bad way to start a day.

Here lives that monster fish that likes to rise to the earliest of hatches.  Les knows this fish too.  He ate it, up and across!  I wasn't going to get above it in these conditions.

And here fed my second chance of the morning, the one I made work.  Up and across the moss.

The Organza soft hackle is still working.

This same hopper is getting some teeth marks.

Chop on the water, flags flying, and the last eater, a one-timer on the hopper.  Whoops!

Hoppers Gone

Well, the hoppers aren't gone, the brush and grass are still full of them, but the water didn't have any.  Sunny, calm, and only an occasional riser.  A few times I found a fish or two that came up twice if I waited long enough.  Hooked five good ones on the hopper, which I kept tied on all day.  Landed two, weeded by three, deep enough into the weeds to leave me only with the fly and 5 pounds of weeds connected to the 3X.  The hopper might turn into a one-timer bug this time of year though.  Its starting to feel like time to move on.  Been here a week now.  Gotta do a quick trip home in a few days.  The mayflies are sparse, to put it mildly.  Hard to leave the tank rainbows.

Oh, today's the 15th.  The Ranch re-opens in 9 more months!

Fished it all day.  Five eats. I'll tie it with a slightly lighter colored foam, the wing a tad more to the side, some small front legs, and a couple of rear kickers, and it'll kick rear.  It did pretty good as is!

Holy Hopper Hatch!

OK, I don't carry or cast hoppers very often.  Next to never.  I can't remember the last time I tied one on, though there's probably some record of it on here someplace.  I don't ever recall casting one on the Ranch.  Beetles, ya.  Ants, of course.  I only own a few hoppers, but I remember putting 3 or 4 in my beetle box  five days ago when I got here.  I'm not even sure why.  Probably because there were a few empty slots.

Yesterday was cloudy and looked good, but there was no activity from mid-morning until the thunderstorms with a weak cold front rolled in mid to late-afternoon.  Nobody did any good, and I couldn't find a riser.  

This morning I walked down from Ranchview at 10:00 sharp.  Too early, but it was clear.  Downstream from the lot there was a little protection from the 5-10 north wind.  It still didn't look good, nobody was in the water casting, and I never saw a rise.  However, the air turned nearly dead-still as the morning ended, and I finally saw some callibaetis and mahoganies following the meaningless tricos on the water, but only one or two rising fish that didn't stay put.  As I made my way below the big island, a good fish came up twice in the same spot.  A mahogany soft hackle took that one and saved the skunk for the day.  My watch said 12:12 as I released it.

As I was doing so, I could see and hear a couple of large splashes 150 feet downstream of me.  As I made my way down, there was another fish slurping fairly violently.  What the hell?  This is the flat water where its usually hard to see a nose 50 feet in front of me.  Smutting sippers, but not these two.

I could see some dragonflies in the air, so I thought maybe they were eating one or two of those. There were some other crane fly-looking things flying around, so maybe one or two of those.  I have a few I bought for the Beaverhead a decade ago, but they're in the truck buried in some shit-fly box.  Meanwhile, these explosive eats became more plentiful.

What the hell are they doing?  Then I saw a lone hopper float by me.  Could that be it?  Then another, and another.  Before I knew it, I could see a hopper on the surface almost anytime I wanted, and there were a few trout taking two or three a minute.  Hell, sometimes two or three in 20 seconds.  I had a couple hoppers crawling on my waders.  The water was full of them!  How did that many get on the water so fast?  Most were not kicking or twitching, they were floating dead-drift.  I picked up a half dozen or so from the water, and they were still alive.  Dark, mottled wings sat flush against the brownish-yellow bodies.  I've seen cicadas on the Green like this, but not hoppers, and not here.         

I had only two each of two different foam-bodied patterns in my vest, and quickly tied one on.  The rest, as they say, is history.  I don't believe what I saw, on the water I saw it on.  For a while, a few fish actually became "selective," "picky," or whatever you want to call it.  They were letting hoppers float right over them and eating the next one.  No wonder they don't eat tricos!  I did get some refusals, and didn't feel like I had the perfect match, but I'll work on that in case I live long enough to see this again.  I even threw the hopper to a couple of subtle risers in front of the ranch houses late in the afternoon after all the mayhem died down.  They both ate it to end the most memorable day.  10 big fish hooked in one short afternoon, conservatively. 

So, maybe I won't be so quick to cuss the early morning breeze.  God, do I actually wish for it now? I'm still not convinced that's how they got there.  These hoppers were in the middle of the river, 50-75 feet off the bank.  I don't know how they got where they were unless they blew in way upriver and floated down.  Steve Guest said he caught six at Bonefish, a mile or two above me, so it wasn't just where I was.  But why doesn't this happen on all the windy days when the banks are full of hoppers?  And it wasn't that windy.  I've seen worse, more times than I can count.  

This marks the 40th year since my first visit fishing the Ranch.   I've never seen anything like this.  I've seen fish eat hoppers.  I've seen the hoppers along the banks every late summer and early fall.  But to have the water full of them, and the trout eating them like brown drakes, still blows my mind.  Now I'll look for it every day, although I don't know how I'll do it any different than any other day.  Watch the water for noses, or in this case, splashes.  Like the landmark you tell somebody about, "You can't miss it."  I'll keep a few more hoppers in the vest, and I'll cast one to every splashy rise I see.  I just heard somebody did pretty good fishing the banks of the Beaverhead last weekend with hoppers.  Maybe its time to join the hopper party.  I was right in the middle of it today.  Center stage.  

Pictures don't do these tanks justice.  They're all fat, and average 20 inches!

This is a simplified Charlie Boy.  Lieutenant Dan.

This is every hopper I own, plus a few crane flies, some dating back to the 1990's.  I'm carrying it tomorrow.

Junk Hatch

It's a smorgasbord.  First tricos.  Then some callibaetis.  A few mahoganies.  Some little olives.  A flying ant here and there.  Up in town, micro caddis late in the afternoon, with some more hatching tricos.  Not a ton of anything, but quite a mix, with just enough bigger stuff to bring some fish up in the slick calm conditions.  The rises on the smooth water are so subtle that I couldn't see 'em if the water had any texture.  Yet, they're 20+ inchers sipping whatever it is they're sipping.  Mostly mahoganies and callibaetis from what I can see.  

River left Pelican channel.  River right Millionaires.  Late days at Last Chance.  They've all worked. Today is day three, and the first day I've changed flies from the brown soft hackle.  Only because I needed a change of scenery.  It was working great.  I started today at 10:30 sharp, in the sweet glass run in front of the ranch houses, with the intent of crossing and working downstream for a change.  I needed to get the ducks and geese out of there, so I walked along the river and a hundred or so splashed their way airborne to some other pool out of sight.  Not five minutes after they all took off, I hastily stepped in and started across.  Suddenly 25 feet upstream of me is a rise.  What the hell.  As I'm casting upstream unsuccessfully to that one, another comes up 20 feet across stream from me.  Then another, this time downstream.  I guess I'm fishing here for a few.

Over five hours later, I've made my way up and down Millionaires a few times, had the whole run all to myself, changed flies twice, and spent most of those five hours positioning or casting to rising fish.  So much for wading to river left. They seldom rise twice in the same spot, and never three times.  Sometimes there's wakes when they move.  Some are unapproachable, while others rise a short cast away, like they're daring me to cast to them.  I do, but usually they've changed lanes by the time the fly lands.  Sometimes I get lucky and it goes over them.  They don't seem too picky if its dead and on target.  I gotta be patient, but one or two always seem to show themselves.

Sunny and 70's are supposed to yield to a 60 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms sometime tomorrow.  Just for a day, with a lingering chance the next day.  I haven't planned to move on yet, but it's September you know, and no plans should be made too far in advance.  I'm diggin' the above-freezing nights and warm sunny days.  Nasty is right around the corner, someday.

How about this?

Just a bit to the north.

I could probably finish out the season, in both Idaho and Montana, with this fly in two or three sizes.

I'm trying a new material for the body and tail this trip.  Organza.  It works!  And floats!

This guy makes a daily appearance late morning through mid-afternoon.

Pelican side channel in all its glory.  Fish were doing it just to my left here yesterday.

Evenings at Last Chance

I've never really fished this hatch much, or noticed too many here before.  They're eating them now.

Know when to fold 'em.

This is a Harrop Callibaetis Last Chance Cripple that I cut the wing off.  

A few slashing takes on this Harrop Animated CDC Beetle

I've had to deal with this crowding in the late afternoons.

I shoot this every year, but I'll never get tired of this view, this place, or its big wary trout.