Farewell to Fall Colors

On this river anyway.  Time to move on.  Always very hard to leave this one.  Had a busy and productive final morning after a decent morning yesterday.  The afternoons and evenings aren't really happening, despite calm and cloudy conditions the past two days that had blue-winged-olives written all over it.  Next week, when the snow flies.  Probably.  It's been getting better.  I've got other waters to fish though, and only another week or so to get to them, or at least try.  I'll run out of time, as usual.  Never got to Livingston.  No return via the Henry's Fork.  Countless other coulda shoulda wouldas.  But I have a plan, and good memories of October on the MO that will have to get me through until June.  JUNE?  Oh, the finality of it.

Big fish hanging out in this near-slack water every morning.  Lots of 'em.

Never get tired of walking down the hill to this view.  

The fish in here are spooky in the summer at flows of 6500.  Now, at 3,000?  Oh boy.  

For the baetis and midges.  Not enough of a hatch for selectivity.

Another view I just never get tired of.  Every walk in holds promise, especially cloudy calm mornings like this.

The approach to the pig pen.  This morning, it was full of tailing rainbows.  That's right, tailing in the ankle deep water.  Long casts with 10 feet of tippet and a dry fly nobody would believe.

The weeds make resting the fish possible 'cause I sure can't get my hands around a lot of them.

This . . . this is the dry fly.  That's right, grease/powder the head, cast above the fish, dead drift it to 'em, a tiny little twitch or two, and lookout!  So maybe its an emerger.  Maybe its a dead leech.  It has a miniature resemblance to a particular tarpon fly I use.  Whatever the case, it worked wonders in the slow shallow flat of the side channel.  No stripping, just drift and twitch.  Fun stuff.

And look what else worked!  I twitched this one too.  Thanks Bob!

The pig pen.  Still a little current, and a riffle way up top.

Looking down from the riffle to the confluence with the main river.  Sweet spot.

Not to ruin a good post, but this is one of the things wrong with fly fishing now.  Drift boats turned into jet boats, running up and down the MO.  Drift boats floating though the Ranch on the Henry's Fork, one of the last great wade-fishing sections in the mountain west.  I know, they both still fish great, but the atmosphere is waning, and rising fish are being disturbed in ways they once weren't.  Disappointing trend.

First 5, or Last 5

First 5 days on the MO, and the last 5 days of fall, or summer really.  It's been near 80 every afternoon under sunny skies with warm winds.  I've savored every bit of heat, 'cause my only source of it outside between now and June will be in Campeche.  River is low, weedy, and a little on the slow side.  

Early morning, pre-hatch streamer fishing has brought a few big fish.  I'm mostly sight-fishing to them. They're not rising, and there's no bugs, but I can spot 'em in calm shallow water.  One cast usually works.  They break for the fly leaving a V-wake and a swirl.  It happens fast.  Hold on baby.

Mid to late morning has some rising fish to olives just before the wind comes up.  Seems like the two coincide within minutes.  Then its tough for a while until evening when some fish rise again.  I've hooked a few steelhead-like fish, even landed a couple-three.  Most of those have come on the leech or Kreelex. There's more garden variety 14-18 inchers on the dries, with an exception or two.  Contrary to the fly shop buzz, I'm finding the big fish in super-slow water.  Either on the shallow edges, or right in the middle of the deepest holes.  I guess there aren't enough bugs to get them to hold in much current.  Yet.

I took a little side trip on the middle day to a nearby prairie river I scouted a little last fall.  It was a nice break, and different.  Saw a couple of nice fish, and the intel says there's more, but never hooked any of 'em.  It's a tailwater of sort, so I need to go back and find different access maybe.

Rumor has it there's some storms coming overnight.  Rain.  Snow next week.  Cold.  Fall turning to winter.  I'm staying for a taste of it, to see if it turns into BWO madness.  Hell, even just a good hatch and some big fish up regularly.  I have the gear ready.  The bugs.  The rain jacket.  The layers.  Gloves.  My brain, well, it'll just have to deal with it now because I'm afraid there's no turning back.

I'm sure going to miss summer, and Indian summer.  (can I still say that?😛)

First morning to a favorite run

No wind!

To Myself

High Bridge island.  An easy wade to it.

Don't know how this stud stayed against my hand.

A Bull Pasture sunset

Weeds help to hold 'em a little

Dry fly fish

If a brassie is the larval form of a Mepps spinner, then the Kreelex is the streamer form of a Mepps spinner.  They've been eating it!  I used to fish these for salmon in the 1980's, we just called 'em Flashabou streamers.

Have to have a big ole sunset fish at Lonetree with the truck in the background, right?  

Clear, warm evenings

The "Almost Dun."  I finally learned what it's called!  Been a baetis killer here for years and years.

The prairie river

Really low, but wadable and fishable at 150-ish cfs

Bridge pool, or pretty close.  They're always good/

Froggy water

Riffle-pool.

This bluff pool made me think of Bob, and some of his prairie waters.  Lots of hunting and scanning.

It got impossible to spot fish once the sun started to sink.

Back "home" at the ladders.  Skinny!

This tank was steelhead-like at about 22 inches.  I had the camera zoomed in and didn't know it.  Doh!

There were a bunch rising here, in the ole glory hole.

And on both sides of the riffle

The smoky skies made for a better hatch morning.

Typical dry fly fish

The side channel was ankle deep.  Good luck approaching one of the huge fish holding in it.

Fish were Silver Creek-like spooky.  I mean, gone!  One or two casts.  Big wakes.

This surface swimming mini-leech got some killer eats

This is where I often fish.  Not this year, not until I got down around the bend

This tree is always glowing this time of year.  

More spooky shallow water holding some pigs

Tis the season for the still-unexplainable Sri Lanka emerger

There's one on the Mepps, errrr, Kreelex.

This deep slow pool was kind to me

Chromer

Here it comes.  The first clouds I've seen in a week.  The PHD run glowing and hosting evening risers.