Sweet Summer Rain

It's been in the forecast for nearly a week. Huge cool down and rain.  Sometimes long-range guesses change, sometimes they work out. This one was pretty close to dead-on. Two days out, it says Craig, MT, 100% chance of rain. That doesn't read like that in a whole year, and especially on July 15th.  I've seen before what happens to the river, the hatches, and the trout, when it does.  

I arrive a few hours before dark to a light misty rain and nobody on the river.  There's pods up everywhere.

The water is covered with mats of pmds floating amongst the weeds and grass.  It's as if a convoy of food trucks have crashed into the river.

I oversleep the morning. When I wake up and look out my window at the Wolf Creek bridge run, its covered in rings of the rise. Adrenaline, the wonder drug, floods my body. I'm wide awake now! I've never made it from my trailer at Wolf Creek bridge to the barbed wire turnout so fast in my life. I grab two pop tarts, my sun shirt, barely remember to throw on some pants, and forget my rain gear as I fly out the door. It's not raining anyway.

Doin' it everywhere.

I'm down to the water just before 8:30. Its boiling. The dream. After a bit of schooling using a rather robust size 16 soft hackle, I go to the sparser dressings and smaller flies to Mo some down. 9:45, and I start to see some trico's flying too, but it's definitely a PMD game. By 10:00 things hint at quieting down, though there's still risers all up and down the river. It's not quite boiling anymore, but more of a perfect simmer. Trico's take over on the surface, but a PMD spinner still brings the eats. Now it's 11:00, and I'm finally searching for targets. The whole side channel is mine. The sun is starting to get brighter, and the water cleaner aside from the Missouri River weeds and moss that continually flow past. Now it's a spot and stalk game, more fun, each fish more rewarding. The pace slows a little, and it's so comfortable. The afternoon is a hunting game, but I'm still finding fish. Singles, pairs, and still a random pod.

Lower flow at around 4,200 makes for careful approaches and longer casts in the side channel next to build-a-cabin island.

What is perfection in July? Light cloud cover with a little bit of sun peeking through, 60°, no wind, and constant targets. Not a single splash and giggle floatie on the river. Very well worth the easy three and a half hour roll up from the Fork in the rain yesterday afternoon. A brilliant move if I might say so!

The spinner selection that all caught fish.  The left center grizzly hackle version worked best on the toughest drifts, just like on the spring creeks.  The old ratted no-hackle, especially when it became even more ratted, was a close second.

Steady until a 200cfs jump this afternoon.  Evening at Lone Tree sure was weedy.

They're out!  This one had a pit viper head and rattles.  It swam across the river from behind me. There is another one at the big turnout at Lone Tree, and one along the trail up to barbed wire.  The guy camped next to me also sees one, along with a black bear this afternoon between California Island and Lone Tree.  Watch those steps.

Sunrise and back to reality, this time at PhD trying to get out of the wind this morning.  There is a short window.  Mostly it's tricos blowing across the river.  Same with the pmds tonight, but they are out there in the salad.

Correction: in an earlier post I said the great summer hatches are gone. Not so fast! There's always some magic in a rare summer cold front. I ran the furnace in the trailer that first night!