Different Stretch

OK, so this is turning into a daily soap opera, but its MY soap opera.  I can't even remember the fishing in June this year without looking back.  There's nothing going on in the evenings unless I'm lucky, and I used that up the one evening at Osborne.  So I have plenty of time and battery.

This morning, I wasn't going to get a repeat yesterday's cloudy-day magic, or all the luck from the day before.  I needed a change of scenery too.  Forecast was for sunny turning windy, so I figured it would be a short day anyway.  One I needed, truth be told.  So I stayed below Ranch View, knowing it wasn't going to be epic or anything.  It did finally work itself out after a cold start that had me slipping on frozen wading shoes, and walking with my hands in my pockets.  Fall on the caldera.  

Cold walk in from the Silver Lake parking lot

Only to find weeds nearly covering the path into the main channel, and birds galore.  It was still cold, and I wasn't thrilled with my location.

The water below the confluence was hardly moving.  Too slow for me.

So I walked out, warmed up, and drove down to Sage Flats to cross the river and walk back up.

Of course, I ended up right back where I started, only on river left, and got in another mile of walking, wading, and sage busting.

Its now nearly 10:00, and not a bug to be seen, trico or otherwise.

In the distant shadow of the smoky Tetons.  That's Les over on the other side of those peaks.😁

I thought this riffle might have its own little hatch of something.  Nope.

I had to do it.  A mile of 6X and a #20 trico-ish thing.  They ate it though!

The current was slow enough to mess with the fish until they got a bunch of weeds on 'em and then I could run 'em down with the net.

This stuff made an acceptable landing zone for the 6X.  Yes, I'm upstream from where I first walked in (background), and then drove a mile downstream to walk a mile to get back up here!

It really was very green

The only one I saw all morning, on my waders

The last risers were here, just before the wind.

Like sands though the hourglass . . . 

One for the Books

Sometimes this river gives.  No morning wind, light cloud cover, not too hot, not too cold, no layering needed, a great run to fish, just enough bugs, willing participants, long tippets, big flies, no gulls, and . . . shall I go on?  The river seems to give less often in recent years, and I've seen it better in the past, but today was the best of the season so far.  All day, from 9 to 4.  Nothing to drink, no food, no pee break, nada.   Just catching, missing, losing, and refusing.  Lotsa catching.  It was complete.

It was MO-like, only at a Fork pace.  More methodical.  Stalk like a heron, get the eat, wrestle it out of the weeds a few times, get it to the landing zone, net and release (with a picture of a few).   By the time the moss was cleared from the fly, everything dried, and I'd catch my wind enough, the next victim would start rising from the spooked flat.  Each hooked fish would put 'em all down, but they'd come back up in under 10 minutes.

For a while it looked like I'd fish one fly all morning, but it finally got chewed beyond use and flotation.  I think I'll keep it on a patch, inside, for a year or two.  The mahogany count was just enough to see a couple at any one time, just enough to keep the fish looking for 'em but not selective, and just enough to fish a dun with success this afternoon.  Not many duns made it down the flat alive.

And to think that at 7am this morning, I was camped in another drainage, in another state, fully intending to fish elsewhere this morning.  Ya, right!  When I saw that cloud cover, I knew I couldn't be anywhere else.  And I damn sure know where I'll be in the morning for one last hurrah before the weekend.

Cool, cloudy start.  You could feel it.

First time I've tied on a Sri Lanka this season.  There was this one fish doin' it before I ever got in the water.  He ate it.  It didn't end well.  I'm not looking forward to #20 bwo fishing.

A perfect run.  Flat water.  Deeper drop at the bottom.  Fishy bank on the left.  Converging current in the middle.  Landing zone on the right.  The place to myself.

 A little angel dust powder, and they just ate it and ate it.  Pheasant, copper, and dark "bi=visible" partridge. #18 

It became tattered and working.

 We had some great times together, this fly and I.

Odd little spots of missing scales.  (That net is 20" inside length)

The flat stayed flat, and the fish kept coming up.

Fish were eating duns, so I took the opportunity

When the afternoon wind finally came up, the left bank was protected by the bluff and trees.  The fish were easy to spot, and cast to.

Upright duns!  

They chewed those up too!  Biots don't last like ribbed pheasant.

The best for last.  Mr. Tank.

Different Day

This river . . . One day it just doesn't work.  It makes a bad fisherman out of you.  Your luck just isn't there.  Wrong place at the wrong time.  Wind.  Something!  It does that.  Then the next day, it all goes right, at least under the given circumstances.  This morning the bugs, such as they were, came a little late.  The sparse tricos and occasional mahogany didn't last much past the wind coming up around 11:30.  But there was this little 50-yard stretch, down the middle of the river, channeled by an island and some weed mounds, where I found some heads coming up.  Just a little above yesterday's water.  They ate, and I netted every one I hooked!  How did that happen?  I had two misses, and a heartbreaking refusal to start the morning.  Same two flies.  It was a fun couple of hours, and I didn't even feel any back or shoulder pain!  

Heartbreak hotel.  First cast.  Killer refusal from a pig.  With a witness.

Yes.  Weeds and the barns.

That's a slice of heaven right there, or at least a damn fine place to fish.

They're long

Some were shorter

Another angle of Heartbreak Hotel in the wind

Beauty queen.  

That's Les right there!

Beginning of the End

Weeds.  Lotsa weeds.  Must be September.  Tricos.  Like I, or the fish, care about those.  Some are eating them I guess, but I ain't tying one on.  No sir.  It's 4X and Mahoganies for me.  There's a few showing, and a few fish are lookin' for 'em.  I hooked some big fish this morning.  They all found the weeds, and the 4X broke against such strains.  It ain't quite as easy as muscling around cutthroats in a tiny creek.  This is life in the weeds, at Millionaires, where the big trout live.  

Bumper crop

Which one you going to eat?

Its a damaged loop wing PMD.  Passed well for a Mahogany

Weeds and people, plenty of both

The last big bug of the season

Always works

I got this one tonight, somehow, after it did the weed dance.  21".

Hook-Jawed veteran

F(L)AT Cutties

It's been a while since I fished this one.  Not enough to remember what it looks like around each bend, but enough to remember the spot once I see it.  I've fished it all within the Elk Refuge, but this afternoon all I needed was just a short section of 8 or 10 turns. It does that in 100 yards.  There's a good fish or two on every 180 degree bend.  Its only open for 90 days, Aug-Oct.  I have to drive though busy Jackson to reach it, detouring from the route to all my other favorite rivers.  And I keep forgetting how such a tiny creek holds such big trout! 

Light smoke, but can still see the Tetons

Lots of these

Deep bend

And these

Fishy bend

Now we're getting somewhere

Wooded drop

Rising fish bend

My evening bend

All I needed

The Last Walks

Up and at 'em fairly early.  There are no crowds to beat.  The bicycle crowd is headed to the bridge and beyond, so I had the west-side grassy run in front of the ranch houses all to myself.  Long stories short, I got my ass handed to me, or fucked up big time, depending on who's judging.  The first big eat simply didn't get hooked right.  As it started the first move downriver instantly after the take, the hook pulled and my heart sank, thinking that would be my only chance with the bugless water.  150 feet downstream, right on the grass, I had my second take.  That one ate, turned, and disappeared with my fly and a few feet of 4X.  It happened so fast, I don't know what happened!  Now I'm cussing for a few seconds.  100 feet below that crime scene, I get a third fish.  This one is on, until it bolts downstream and then turns up into a thick jungle of weeds.  The pulses subsided, and I'm left with 15 pounds of weeds.  They've done this before.  OK, I did catch a few small fish at the bottom along the cliff, but these three fish will haunt me until I go back and get to see and touch one in September.  Maybe it is a sign. 

On the way home I stop at the spring creek I often fish coming and going.  It was really low, was full of weeds, and I briefly hooked one average fish for about 5 seconds.  I didn't stay long, as it wasn't happening either.  Could be a sign.  Go directly home, do not pass Go, do not collect anything further along the way.  

One fried wheel bearing.  One worn-out pair of leaky waders.  One found pair of Dr. Slick hemostats. One lost polarizing filter and attachment.  One little folder of forgotten non-resident fishing licenses at home. (Doh!)  Too many hot afternoons.  Little rain.  And as I made my last gas stop in Wyoming . . . I get an email from Montana FWP of more hoot-owl closures and full fishing closures across the state, including the MO from Cascade clear up to Holder dam (no fishing after 2pm.)  Yes, its time.  Come on September!

Alone Again . . . 

Last One

Not

Last Hookup