The Ignorant Angler

It's quite a change in venue, visiting the creek this time of year.  Especially when compared to the quiet starkness of winter that I'm accustomed to.  June.  Profusion. An explosion of life and color. Pastures green, trees and shrubs leaf and bloom.  Birds sing and chatter incessantly from the streamside vegetation.  A day on this, or any creek for that matter, is a spectacular experience.  And that is a woefully inadequate understatement.
In spite of verdancy, and the activity of myriad critters, one key element is lacking.  Insect life. The vaunted hatches that bring trout to the surface have yet to commence.  Other than a couple of wayward caddis, no bugs.  PMD's are allegedly still days to weeks off.  When they appear, so do the fisherman, expectant and hopeful.
So, in a day filled with hope, but lacking surface feeding trout, I nymphed.  Essentially the same gig as winter.  Dry dropper.  Beetle dropper (which I couldn't see worth a darn).  Finally, I resorted th…

Yesterday, Tuesday, with the temperature forecast for a toasty sixty plus, I had to make a run over to the Paradise Valley. I tried on Sunday, but gave up after a couple of hours.  Truth is, I spent most of the morning sitting and watching.  Lots of mallards.  Muskrats too.  Quite a few anglers. Not much surface activity by trout though.

This day, I'd try to hang in there for the full day.  Maybe take a break mid-day. Take off the waders. Stretch.  Today would have to last.  We likely wouldn't see sixty in southwest Montana again anytime soon.
It was twenty-six at the house, forty-three and blowing like hell in Livingston, and twenty-six at the Big House on the pond at DePuy's when I arrived a little after eight a.m.  The pond was still, fish were rising.
I drove towards Eva's, a warming hut on the lower part of the creek, but stopped on the edge of the field.  A small whitetail buck was out walking the fenceline, likely looking for a girlfriend.  The binoculars were h…