Last Two Days of "Summer"

Eighty-degree afternoon highs in early October mean something is coming, and summer is ending.  That sunny heat sure does feel good on the achy body though, and makes the cool river that much more comfortable. Its been a few days since the start of this visit, and they have all been fishy ones.  Cool calm mornings and warm buggy evenings.  I've never been in love with midge fishing, but at least its reliable every evening and most mornings.  Very early mornings and evenings after sunset are lots of fun with the leech, and big soft hackles like the Sparrow and Carey Special bring speedy attacks in skinny water that keeps the heart pounding.  The drop from 4100 cfs to 3100 cfs is a welcome surprise this week too.

The last morning brings six perfect hours.  Overcast skies with a warm steady temperature and not a breath of wind.  The fish quickly get on the midges and indulge for hours.  The black hackled softy rules the morning, highly visible when cast onto the bright glare.  All of the other midges I try are eaten too.  As the sun comes out for the final time, the old brown number 16 organza soft hackle gets lots of eats all the way back to the trail up the hill.  Fish moving for it!  The whole day, from 8 to 2, is non-stop eats.  No witnesses or distractions.  Fewest boats I've seen all year.  One of those silly-good days.

Clouds, rain, cooler temperatures, and the big blue wing hatches are knocking, coming in as I leave.  My time this fall is short, basically over now, and I'm not feeling up to the challenge those conditions will bring.  So I've savored the last two days of summer and a final morning of fantasy fishing.  A fitting way to say goodbye to the state of mind known as the MO.  Dreaming of friendly flows in June or July.

SWEET!

The last few caddis on two warm evenings.

Didn't do a lot at "my" island, but the channel above was loaded.

A perfect morning here with a pod of fish up for 150 feet.

The first line of the end of summer

Approaching

Final approach

Even a little lightning in this one

Wind and a 20 degree temperature drop in minutes

The only brown trout I caught in 7 days of fishing.

Fun in the shallow shadows

Hello Old Friend!

Other than that early summer flood visit, I haven't seen the river in a year.  All roads lead here, the trout are as long as your arm (a lot of them anyway), and I can always find a few fish rising even on the toughest of days.  After helping another old friend who is moving nearby, I arrive at the magic 1:45 pm, when the fall blue-wings usually start popping good.  Instead, I find the wind howling downstream and hardly a bug to be seen.  So, I grab the five weight (a bazooka for me), tie on a few feet of 2x to the old tapered butt section, and attach the magic leech.  No spring creek sissy stuff here.  No sir, not in this wind.  Second cast in, I'm onto a 20 incher and into the backing.  There's no place like home.

Fast forward to three more fish later.  The wind is rippin' and I'm wading back across the channel to the truck when I see a rise on a narrow strip of slick water protected  from the current gusts below the big island.  A big beaver lodge used to be there.  What the hell, I'm here.

I turn around and make the trip back to the tip of the island and see the fish again.  Not quite sure what to do with my 2x tippet, I reach in the terrestrial box for a size 14 Triple Double and tie it onto the 2x with a loop knot.  A few cast later, I'm hooked up.  The another fish rises and eats it again.  One more eats in the gale, with no fishermen in sight.  Now I'm probably done, several fish ahead of where I should be in these conditions (napping in the trailer!).

As I get nearly all the way across the channel to the trail up to the truck, I look downstream along the bank where the gusts aren't hitting, and there's a couple of fish actually doing it!  They're coming up every 10 seconds or so.  I serve the big Triple Double, and one takes it.  By the time I land that one, there's a couple more up.  With no more takers, I get back to reality and tie on a couple feet of 4x onto the 2x.  I serve a size 16 soft hackle down to a couple that works.  Then I serve a number 16 Mole to a couple more that appear, and that works.  Did someone say these late season fish are picky?  Not this afternoon.  Its quite the interesting four hours.  I still love this old friend.  

The next day dawns cloudy with very light drizzle.  Just enough to get me damp once in a while, but not quite rain gear worthy.  Its cool all day, and the bigger bwo's gradually increase though the morning and into the afternoon.  It never really stops, as there is always something to cast to all day.  Most of the afternoon let me choose my target.  Moles, Almost Duns, and soft hackles rule the day.

Bwo's like this for much of the afternoon.

Nice fish on this bank all afternoon.

Biots get chewed up pretty quick.

Midge Madness

Three days on Armstrong's.  A little company on day one, but not bad.  Plenty of fish up all day, though it took until late afternoon for me to get my "fine and tiny" game on.  Day two brought one of those dream days.  Not a soul on the creek, not a breath of wind, and rising fish all to myself all day.  The mob showed up on day three, leaving me no rising fish until they all stopped for lunch.

I don't have a midge that most rising fish will eat.  One or two will eat something, sometimes even three or four, but then a change is in order.  I'm fishing the main pool with constant targets.  6X and sparse little 20's get the most eats.  Midge Moles.  Partial tufts of cdc on a hook.  The tiniest of little black emergers.  Micro soft hackles.  Something in the film.  Hangy thingies.  Did I say tiny?

There's fish rising right under my rod tip, but I still can't see what they're eating.  Whatever it is would make a trico look huge.  Fishing downstream results in a dreadfully low hook up rate, and when I do hook up, its usually bye-bye in the weeds. The tiny little points just don't stay in well.

But, it's highly entertaining, amusing, and mesmerizing.  Getting my ass kicked by trout I can watch slurp and slurp.  The challenge of Silver Creek has nothing on this place right now.  These fish have had flies drifting over their heads everyday, all season, and it shows.  They know I'm there, feed right in my face, close by, and dare me to try and fool them.  The eats came pretty regularly, all things considered.

After scouting Depuy's on that last crowded day at Armstrong's, I decided to make an appearance there before moving on.  Again, I had the whole creek to myself, all day.  The fish were up, and some PMD's even made an appearance along with some bwo's.  Never seen that in October.  It was a fitting end to my Livingston season.  At least, I think its the last visit.

Looking Good

More weeds than normal this fall.

East side of the creek is the fishy side.

Still some good ones in this pool.

Nobody here on the drizzly morning.

Fog not moving is a good thing.

Snowline dropped overnight.

First Five

Back on the water the last five days after a short hiatus.  Its one of those market corrections again.  Fished Silver one day in the rain, hoping for that blanket hatch of blue wings, mahoganies, or something.  Not to be.  There were some bugs, but the bigger fish didn't seem to care.  I'm again reminded that fishing when its sunny and warm beats the hell out of cold wet hands, among other cold parts.  The water was higher than normal too, so wading was a bitch on the water I like.  The following sunny day isn't any better.  It was nice, however, to fish some clear water that wasn't filled with grass and weeds.  The salad was all still anchored to the bottom. With no reason to stay, the 2 1/2 hour migration to the Fork was in order.

First morning was pretty cold here too.  So were the fish.  There's some mahoganies around, and baetis every morning, but I've been just getting some stray shots at moving fish for the most part.  Some of the better chances and eats, I've just blown or missed.

This morning showed a little more promise.  Sunny, warm and glass calm.  I hooked the first pig I cast to (In exactly that spot at 10 am!), but he quickly and knowingly went right upstream into the weeds with my soft hackle on 5x and said see ya.  Four more fantastic eats followed in the next hour, with two to the net, right down memory lane.  Then the south wind came up.  I've actually been waiting for a windy day to see if the hopper hatch I saw a couple weeks ago would happen again.  There are still plenty in the brush and grass.  I didn't see any on the water though, and I went looking for a while this afternoon.  Still puzzling, 'cause it was blowing a lot harder today than that other one.  But from the south instead of North.  ???

So this week reminds me that its not all about the fish.  But ya, they matter, because I don't just go walking along the river, or on a trail, with no rod or flies.  The crowds are down, the pace has slowed a tad, and more patience is required between chances and shots.  There were a few fish up above the ranch houses the other day.  There were fish up below the parking lot yesterday, in that deep water, and tough to get to eat.  There was a bit of action yesterday evening below Osborne, just enough to keep in interesting.  Then that little magic hour this morning.  I'm basking in the very last of the 70's in these parts until June.  (That's low 20's in the north country, eh)

Sometimes I think it would be nice to not even carry rain gear.

Stuff great stories are made from, right?

Very few bugs, not many fish

More my kind of morning

Water is up.  Wader suspenders better be too!

Back home

Starting to get a little bit of color

Not a bad evening backdrop

Another evening backdrop

Frosty mornings at the pits, but not a bad way to start a day.

Here lives that monster fish that likes to rise to the earliest of hatches.  Les knows this fish too.  He ate it, up and across!  I wasn't going to get above it in these conditions.

And here fed my second chance of the morning, the one I made work.  Up and across the moss.

The Organza soft hackle is still working.

This same hopper is getting some teeth marks.

Chop on the water, flags flying, and the last eater, a one-timer on the hopper.  Whoops!