Railroad Evenings

After leaving Wyoming Tuesday afternoon, I arrive just in time to see some brown drakes right on schedule as I enter the river about 7pm.  There are just enough bugs to bring some fish up and keep me casting for a couple of hours.  The cripple is the bug they eat.  Word in the parking lot is that this hatch had started up two nights ago.  Am I in the middle, or closer to the end?

Wednesday night starts slower, but I hang two nice fish waiting for the drakes, one on a beetle and one on the Galloup spinner.  At 7:30, the drakes appear and the fish immediately get on 'em, though not boiling by any means.  However, it ends up as the heaviest brown drake hatch I've ever seen, and I get schooled.  I have the whole run mostly to myself, with not a breath of wind.  This follows two brief, but heavy, mid-afternoon thunderstorms that clear the place out.

I never thought I'd say there were too many brown drakes, but the water is covered in adults, emergers, and nymph cases.  I don't have the right emerger, but I get some takes early in the hatch with the Last Chance Cripple version in a size 10.  The big cdc floating nymph works at dusk, but it takes me a while to get to that one. Hundreds and hundreds of duns float over these fish untouched.  So are the cripples, emergers, and soft hackles I'm serving that have worked so well in the past. So while it has been a few years since I have seen this hatch at its seasonal peak, as short as it is, I hit it "just right."  Sometimes the stars all line up, or in this case, the biggest mayflies in the river, and the west.  

Thursday is a day with winds blowing 25-40 all day long, and even though I get in the river at 7pm, and there is a decent number of big bugs, the fish aren't on 'em.  I see two fish rise twice in two hours.  The water stays riffled, and sometimes I  hear a splashing rise, but can't ever locate or get position on a good target.  

Friday night.  That's the night for parties, right?  Bingo.  Jackpot.  Home run.  It's classic partly cloudy and calm.  Not a warm sort of humid, but a cooler night with temperatures in the low 60's to start.  The drakes came earlier with the first real numbers and rising fish starting about 6:30.  I was in the spot by 5:00, so I got to watch the evolution from the beginning.  7:30 is once again when things sort of explode.  I have the whole upper side channel to myself and the fish are there, or they just moved up in there from somewhere else.  However they got there, it was a field day on the captive emerger.  I did get the first fish on the newer soft hackle emerger, but quickly changed  to the captive after the second target didn't eat it.  After the switch, I watched fish turn around to get the captive, sometimes eating it going downstream.  I never switched flies other than replacing a chewed-up one with a new one.

All big fish on these bugs, 20 inches and up.  Fatties.  Big beautiful Millionaire rainbows with ripped lips.  I only miss a couple fish all evening, the kind of evening I dream about.  The weather, the bugs, the fish, and the old guy with the stick in his hand are all on the same page at the same time.  There are lots of words to describe it, but really no words can capture it.  Two hours worth of perfection.

One interesting side note to all this is that the hatch and the fishing isn't lasting past sunset.  In the past with these bugs, sometimes it doesn't even get going until right before sunset and lasts well into the twilight and near darkness.  Tonight especially, as the sun went down the bugs disappeared and the water was completely flat without a riser to be seen.  For some reason this year, it seems to be starting earlier and finishing earlier.  Maybe because of the cooler weather?  Not sure.

Saturday night, the last night before moving on, is a pretty nice encore.  I have more company on the weekend night, but that is about the only limiting factor.  Another heavy hatch fills the air full of bugs and gulls. There are no fish in the side channel, but that could be due to human traffic around it.  I still have some water sandwiched between guys above and below me, and the captive emerger is the only bug I tie on, and never get a refusal that I know of.  Another 5-6 fish evening.  Nice ones.

And so goes the spectacle known as the brown drake hatch.  Its nice to know it still exists, especially on those cold October days when a tiny baetis seems big, and an even smaller midge might be the norm.  The recollection of evening sailboats and slurping rainbows warms the bones, and I look forward to the possibility again late next June.  The box is full of captives and emergers!

That's the one

This channel was full of fish Friday evening.  Not so much Saturday.

Pre-hatch fish catcher

Pictures don't do the bugs justice.  They're huge.

Light hitting them

Another pre-hatch fly

Got a few eats.  Needed this Wednesday night!

The gulls know.

This is the brown drake spectacle!

Dusk on a Saturday

This is the clear, overwhelming winner!

It got some eats and fish the first couple nights

Last light, last night.

This didn't seem to bother much, and it was still easy wading.

One of the rare daytime fish from Last Chance.  

As a post script, I did fish Millionaires and Last Chance/upper Ranch a couple of mornings each into the early afternoon, and neither produced.  There were some caddis around, even a green drake or two, but nothing with fins or scales seemed a bit interested.  Every morning I saw some brown drakes hatching and/or flying too, but again, not enough to get anyone's attention except all the old farts walking up and down the banks grumbling.  A fish eats a bug now and then, but it ain't happening.