It was their shoulders, the top of their heads or noses that were breaking the surface. Rarely did I see a mouth gulp or sip the Olives or Pale mayflies. They were mainly on Emergers. It made for challenging angling. I stuck to one fly. No dropper. Low riding and surface piercing patterns: a soggy Usual, Klinks, some soft hackles. Many drifts were ignored/ rejected. Luckily many chances and with that some success.
Everything was green. And the warm sun mixed in with the occasional shower/spring storm made for some amazing lighting on the land and water. It was spellbinding. And the daily weather transitions often kick-started or augmented the hatches.
heavy sky brown trout
What was suppose to be a fairly long trip turned into a short five day one as my car engine indicator light came on and stayed on. Kind of unnerving. I was advised to put duct tape over the light so as it wouldn’t bother me and to keep on trucking and fishing. In spite of that “sound advice” I decided to make a premature run for home. I didn’t want to get stranded on some muddy back road, with poor or no cell coverage in the middle of nowhere. Frustrating as heck as the river was alive. It was buzzing. And the wind was never an issue. And because of that I got to explore and fish the lower river more.
On the drive home from this place I always say to myself: “It’s the best hatch river I’ve ever been on”. It’s also incredibly beautiful.
“The Blue Jays won the bat flip contest hands down. Some of the best ones I’ve seen since Jose Bautista was at the plate. They showed-up, stood tall, faced the payroll Goliaths of the league and slugged it out inning by inning…best attitude, team spirit, comradery and most enthusiastic, loud and appreciative fans…all players winners in my mind…the most entertaining team I’ve seen in a long time “. — Bob
Road trip. Fishing, not Baseball. Last one for the trout season. It’s been sunny and blowing for weeks along the eastern slopes. The two conditions often go together in Autumn. The upcoming weather prediction was for 2 or 3 days of calm and overcast skies. A perfect set-up for a late season Blue Winged Olive (BWO) hatch. So I decided to take advantage of the incoming low front and drove due south in full sun and high wind, and woke up next morning under a heavy sky and best of all calm.
The riverside campground where I stayed in mid-canyon was empty. Harper was left off leash as there was no one around to bother. She chased squirrels and some deer, and nosed the fire pits. Fortunately no skunks showed up when it got dark. Most mornings it was 32f or slightly above. In the afternoon it was 40s or low 50s f. There were a few anglers around and some floaters. The fly shops were open but quiet. A great time to look at angling stuff. Local restaurants were closed.
The night is long at this time of year and daylight short, and dry fly opportunities brief. One or two hours in the afternoon, maybe slightly more, depending on the intensity of the hatch. My first day I experienced a weak hatch. The second day it drizzled a bit, was colder and the sky ominous looking. The hatch was strong. The river section I was on came alive, and I connected with size 18 and 20 parachute BWO dries. Rising trout on November 4th. It was a good day. So good I flipped my fly rod in the air.
” Black: the absence of light; the absorption of light”.
The clouds rolled in. Just for one day. So I took advantage of it as the dry fly season is winding down in my region. Soon local Brown trout will be on redds. Maybe some already are. With the overcast sky I was hoping some trout could be found rising to Olive and Mahogany mayflies. There were quite a few bugs on the water in the afternoon but unfortunately it was windy. I didn’t see a lot of fish surfacing but did find one decent one feeding just off of the edge of a current line. It ate a size 18 Olive tied with a black wing. The black wing allowed me to see the small fly from some distance even in the low light, high glare conditions. I was able to get the tiny impression on target.
When fishing wide open places I tie at least one third of my small dries/emergers with a black wing or post. I can’t fish what I can’t see. Flies that become invisible once casted are useless. When tying dry flies for rivers that tend to produce a lot of small bugs I pay attention to size, color, attitude (how it sits) in the water but just as importantly, or more so, visibility. I need to see where the fly lands to know if my cast is accurate; I need to see it tracking (drift) to the fish; and I need to see the trout’s response if I’m going to fish effectively. Put simply, I need to see it…
When I glance over various online fly tying forums I see many exquisitely crafted fly patterns (beyond my skill level) but many would be hard or impossible to see on a lot of the rivers that I fish. Maybe these tyers fish a lot of small water with streamside foliage and shadows that darken the water and therefore their dry fly patterns, even small ones, contrast well and show-up. A lot of the tailwater rivers I fish are not like that. They are broad and flow in wide open terrain and their hatches are generally small mayflies and caddis. And the dry fly fishing is usually best on overcast days which often means a grey, silvery surface and eye straining glare. That’s when a black wing or post can be helpful.
Surprisingly it’s hard to find fly shops even in big broad river destinations that have small fly patterns in their bins with black wings or posts. Most have some High Vis patterns in fluorescent colors but my eyes simply don’t pick them up as well in extreme glare as solid black.
Here’s an Autumn colored Brown trout that I caught on a size 18 Olive pattern with a black polypropylene wing.
Here’s a photo of a brown trout I caught a few weeks ago on a size 18 Pmd. Basically the fly was pale yellow thread, a small puff of light dun cdc for the wing to keep it afloat and to see it as it tracked to the fish, and a tiny amount of yellow dubbing below the wing to accentuate the thorax. A quick simple tie. The fly sits low/ flush in water. The trout was on the feed. Eating regularly; eating aggressively. Therefore in my mind a very makeable sizeable fish on what anglers would describe as technical water. I presented something similar to what he was eating: similar size, color and footprint/ impression on the water’s surface. No other anglers were around. The trout probably hadn’t been casted to that day. That makes things easier. And it was a low light, overcast day. All I had to do was make a good cast and get a good drift and hope my fly impression would past the test. I always get anxious casting directly from behind a fish; having to cast my leader over it. So instead I spent some time circumventing the trout, crossing the river and making a long down and across cast. I’ll choose that every time if the river and trout position gives me a chance to do so.
I got lucky that day: an aggressively feeding trout, a good hatch, no angling pressure, low light, a passable fly impression, and the small fly held…
” When preparation meets opportunity, luck happens”.
roman with a fine brown trout
Nine days of wandering around rivers. We went east, west and south. We never went north. It’s kind of a gong-show up there anyway. Too many campers, too many camping riverside, too many 4-wheelers, too many anglers, too many casting treble hooks, too many mangled fish, too many… For six of the nine days there were few bugs around; no real hatch. The insect apocalypse theory remained intact. It was mediocre dry fly angling in the beautiful sunny weather. Then the Weather Network and Environment Canada predicted a few days of cooler weather, cloud cover, rain or at least thundershowers. I checked a third source, AccuWeather. It reported the same. All weather sources were aligned and it meant a very strong possibility of daytime low-light conditions with precipitation. I thought, “It might happen”: the chance of a solid daytime hatch and fish up. Trout generally feel safer rising for insects when the dimmer switch has been dialed down.
brown trout
So on the first cloudy day I put on my rain jacket and headed for a river where I felt there was potential; where “It might happen”. I had not been on the one I selected for a month. Around mid-day birds started swooping and darting over the river. It looked like a hatch was developing and then shortly after it exploded. The main insect: Pale Morning Duns (Pmd’s). And the trout responded. They were up everywhere. Boils and bulges at the head of pools and sipping fish eating duns in the mid and lower pool sections. I got lucky. I got more than lucky as the event lasted for 3 or 4 hours.
rainbow trout
On the next cloudy day I returned with a friend, Roman. It was cooler and wetter. There was also thunder and some lightning. We got there just before noon. We waited and waited. There were showers all afternoon. We walked from pool to pool in order to stay warm. I wondered if it was ever going to occur. An old Yiddish adage came to mind, “Man plans, and God Laughs”. Then at around 3-3:30 pm, three hours after our arrival, the birds started working the river, Pmd’s began to emerge and fish started to rise. Big guys and gals. A repeat performance. Just delayed and briefer probably because of the cooler weather. The fish continued to surface even when the sun occasionally broke through late day. The brown trout glowed golden in the late afternoon light. After being wet all afternoon we appreciated the sun’s warmth. Then when the river became fully illuminated by the sun, it all stopped. The trout disappeared: “Now you see me now you don’t”. Like magic.
photo by roman
fast water carry, photo by roman
If you fish a lot you know it doesn’t always happen this way. Some rivers are easier to predict than others but in the end when dealing with Nature there are many uncertainties; many unknowns. Sometimes everything seems perfect but you don’t get a solid hatch, you just get wet…but that’s all part of it.
rainbow
harper, photo roman
So, “It might happen” ended up “happening” and we caught and released some wonderful trout on size 16, 18 Pale Mornining Duns…here are a few images…
There are three tailwater rivers in my region. On Opening Day I visited two of them to see what kind of shape they are in. Due to another low snowpack year the reservoirs that feed them are low. Early season fishing will be okay but late season it might get ugly: minimal flows, and if reservoirs come close to bottoming-out then silt will be in the water which will affect the sight-fishing.
One tailwater had no insects so I went to the other. PMD’s started in the afternoon on the second river and there were some large Caddis flies skittering on the surface. Both hatches were weak but there was just enough activity to get a few decent rising fish. The water was low and clear and the fish concentrated. I caught a couple of decent Brown trout on dry flies. One cooperated for a photo, the other didn’t. Here’s a photo of one and the type of flies I used. One pattern breaks the surface and dangles (emerger/dry). The tuft of white is simply Snowshoe Rabbit to keep the head of the fly afloat so it can be seen when riding in the current/riffles while the body hangs (unseen) below. Instead of rabbit I also tie them with polypropylene, deer hair or CDC. Some people use foam. The other pattern has the hackle clipped on the bottom and therefore it sits or rides low on/in the water. Kind of a Quigley cripple pattern. That’s the inspiration. Both are easy, quick flies to tie.
Opening Day… always special no matter how many you have experienced.
It was a 30 minute drive up into the mountains and the Cutthroat river. My car thermometer read 34c/ 94f. A smoke haze was in the air from fires in British Columbia (B.C.). It made the Rocky Mountains look like they were fading away. It seems B.C. now burns every July and August, and sometimes even into September. Northern Alberta too. My dog, in the back seat, was panting even though I had all the car windows down. I never use the air conditioning (AC). One exception was when I was driving home from a fishing trip in Baja in mid- June and was stuck for hours in border traffic in Mexicali city, Mexico. It was 42c/107f that day. Abby, my last dog, appreciated the cool air blasting from the cabin vents. She also appreciated the rolled-up windows as hundreds of border vendors went from vehicle to vehicle trying to sell their wares: hats, cool drinks, fruit, trinkets. Some had nothing and were simply begging. There were men, women, young children, and even very elderly people in the late afternoon 42C plus heat walking the hot asphalt trying to make a sale just 10 yards from the California border. This wasn’t an Acapulco, Cancun or Puerto Vallarta scene. Nor was it a depiction of idyllic Mexican rural life in a Diego Rivera painting. This was a “Behind the Curtain” look at Mexico. This was raw desperation and poverty I witnessed as I inched along the tall rusted metal border wall until I reached the heavily guarded portal that delivered me to the north. Justified or not, when I crossed the border I muttered to myself that “Mexico doesn’t look after its people”.
COLD
When I entered the mountain river at 11am my water thermometer read, 10c/ 51f. Almost half the air temperature. By 2pm the river was only 54f and my feet still numb. The stream had stayed cold in spite of two solid weeks and now entering a third week of extreme heat. One small creek that feeds the river was still flowing. Last year it was dry in late July. I thought that there was probably still some snow melting up high. It was probably one of many creeks helping the river stay cold when many lower elevation rivers were warming well into the 15c plus/60f and some approaching 20c/70f. Cold water in July and August is always good for trout and fishing.
The Cutthroat that I spotted in the slower flows were selective. I was able to fool some with spring creek type (barbless) dry fly patterns. Cutthroat are often regarded as being easy to catch. That’s not always true. Each Cutthroat stream is different and has its idiosyncrasies. There are no absolutes. The one I was on is usually quite challenging, especially as summer marches on and especially in the pools and slower sections. The river doesn’t hold a lot of trout. It is a quality over quantity river. Here are a couple of healthy fish that I connected with.
Back home from road trips. I’ve been fishing local rivers recently. All are now open for angling. Water levels are dropping and most can be waded. Run-off was gentle this year. That’s good. And it has been a cool, wet Spring and start to the Summer. That’s also good after several low water years.
Most rivers look good. The Dam controlled tailwater flows that I often fish, however, need a flushing to clean out the significant Didymo (Didymosphenid geminata) build-up but I’m not sure that will happen. Water capture and diversion for agricultural irrigation is the priority with Provincial Water Management, not the health of the rivers below the reservoirs. While angling in Montana this Spring I witnessed a planned flushing of the Beaverhead river which is a dam controlled flow (tailwater). I was told that in years when they have enough stored water in the reservoir a flushing is done for several days to emulate a natural run-off and improve the health of the waterway by dislodging silt and other build-up. Our tailwater rivers could benefit from such a practice.
Here are some images of trout caught on dries size 18, 16, BWO’s and PMD’s, and a few on a size 12 Caddis pattern. The rivers are slowly beginning to warm and insects are starting to emerge mid-day.
trout on dries 