Dry Flies, Rivers, Trout & Tarpon.: The Classroom

There are fast flowing rivers and creeks. There are tailwaters, often slower and clearer. There are spring creeks with clear water and a mix of currents. Then there's Silver Creek. I've never seen anything like it. Slow moving nearly everywhere. Water as clear as it gets. Trout that see you coming before they see you, or hear you, or sense you, however that works. And good luck casting a fly to them if they're paying attention. When they get distracted I can get a fly to 'em, but more often than not it's dragging or not floating naturally in the jumble of surface currents created by weeds growing everywhere.

Some of my regular haunts like the Ranch and the Missouri are child's play compared to this place, where you get schooled all day by 12 inchers. Sure, it can be easier with a good hatch of larger bugs like pmd's or mahoganies, and maybe some cloud cover. But right now it's sunny and calm with size 25 1/2 baetis on the menu for the most part. There is an occasional mahogany coming down, but the fish are experts at recognizing the real one from a really good fake one. Nearly every natural that drifts over some fish ends up breakfast. Nearly every imposter gets ignored or occasionally refused. A refusal is almost a victory.

So a little ways into my fly fishing journey I've had to learn and adapt again. I do that to preserve sanity on The Preserve. I've never been a proponent of fishing two flies. Not a hopper dropper, not two nymphs, not tandem streamers, and not double dries. But, I can't see these tiny-ass little baetis I'm using at the distances I need to deliver them. And they're so tiny that they're hard to deliver, even if I can miraculously see the damn thing. There are few close range fish, I'm casting 15 to 25 feet of fly line, plus 15 ft of leader and 6x tippet. So what's a blind man to do?

I guess it's pretty common for people to fish a larger dry with a smaller one behind it. It's often mentioned with trico fishing. So I decide to tie on a size 20 CDC baetis emerger (Sri Lanka/Veil Emerger), and attach some greased microscopic flies that a fish might actually eat just a few inches behind it. The tiniest soft hackles I have, the ones that have been working at close range in other waters. Harrop's CDC emergers #20 and #22 that always work so well on the Livingston creeks, again at closer range. Some old #22 and #24 rs2 type emergers from my old Deckers box (1980's), tied so bulky that the hook gap almost doesn't exist. Finally, some #22 pheasant tails that I did not tie. I also have some little TT pheasant tail, half-in half-out gizmos from Livingston a few months ago, made for this. Well whaddya know!

The two flies together definitely help the leader with something to turn over. Two flies, one being a huge size 20, actually go where I want them and I'm able to make some decent pile and reach casts. The dropper is so short, 6-9 inches, that any rise 6 inches or less from the "big" emerger is an eat nearly every time. I rarely get an eat on the visible Sri Lanka, but it isn't spooking fish and sure makes it easy to figure out where the tiny dropper is floating.

Mission accomplished, though I'll admit it doesn't quite feel the same as delivering one fly and watching it get chomped. After several days of mostly getting my ass kicked though, it sure feels good to bring some fish up. Made me giggle like a kid again a few times. I get some bigger fish eats and even have a hook in a few, but just can't get one to hand. The tiny hooks pull free, and a couple just take off either over or through the weeds and bye bye. I don't think the flies will float with 5X, at least not good enough in these conditions. 7X would probably work really good, but why even bother?

In the end, I still leave defeated. I raise only a few big fish in nearly a week, but touch none. I fish to some nearly every day, usually to be refused or totally ignored. On this last day, I spend the whole morning and part of the afternoon in the 80 or so feet of the big boy run above the pumphouse. They swim, eat, and just show off right in front of me. A couple of real monsters don't rise at all, and a few nice ones sip for hours. I hook none of them, just some of their offspring. I even tie on 8 feet of 7X near the end, still to no avail. Maybe I'll return to see if there's more mahoganies, or an epic baetis hatch under cloudy skies. Something to give me a chance.