The Ignorant Angler

An opportunity. The creek books a year or more in advance for the prime dry fly fishing period. There was a last minute cancellation on the spring creek on Monday.  I grabbed it.

It's still PMD time. If they want to show.  By 7:30 a.m. spinners were dancing in the sun.  It took a while for them to start dropping.  Hatch?  So-so.  Actually not much.  I'd heard that it had been inconsistent. As far as the catching goes, it was no free for all.  By mid-July the fish have been worked over pretty good by a number of credible anglers.     The fish have seen all manner of patterns and presentations, some good and some not so.  I got some nice ones.  Pretty much all rainbows. But, as I said, I had to work for them.  No one pattern was the clear winner. 
I took a break at 1:30 when a squall came through. It was burger time anyway.

I was back creekside in an hour.  The squalls continued to roll through.  It rained and/or hailed, on and off for the rest of the day.  In and out of the ca…

There's no shortage of folks on the Missouri now.  It's clear but still a little high for wading.  Just a tad over 8000 c.f.s yesterday.  I had to go and take a look just to see for myself what those water levels meant. Well, what it means is that it's fishable for a wading angler, although one needs to pick their spots.  Boaters on the other hand have lots of spots to choose from.



The biggest issue is not in finding fish, but rather in what happens after hooking one. They're just harder if not impossible to chase with the deeper water and flooded banks.  So one hopes, as I did, often, that there's enough backing.  One fish took me down to the last few turns of the spool before the knot gave out at the fly.  I was relieved to see the fly line after having recovered my backing.  That fish might be to Great Falls by now. 



So, it's PMD time.  Finally.  A sparse hatch yesterday, but there were plenty of spinners. They kept the fish interested and eating on top for…

I drove down to the Henry's Fork yesterday and spent a few hours poking around and taking pictures.  Here's the first PMD that I've seen this year.  I've tried to get a handle on cripple type patterns for a long time but  couldn't quite grasp the half nymph, half adult part of the imitation.  Well, this particular bug shows the justification for tying two toned cripples.  If anything, I've found that perhaps I should be tying the back end even darker.  

This is the infamous year end summary, sort of along the lines of the Christmas card with the letter stuffed inside.  I'll omit the photo of the dogs with fake antlers.  Some of you may remember Gene Hill . He was a well known outdoor writer,  and, I'd wager that he's still popular with the wingshooting crowd.  He occasionally wrote a piece for the sporting magazines titled "The Annual Report". I'll credit him with the title of this piece and absolve him of any responsibility as regards the content that follows.
Well, let's see, I still fish with a camera slung over my shoulder, and rarely hike without it either. Admittedly, packing an SLR is a pain, but I still think it's worth the hassle.  When I look back over the year or years, I can pinpoint dates that an event occurred.  Aha, fish that day, bugs that one, a seventy degree March day and so on. So, I can plan out my annual fishing trapline based on my meager experience with hatches, water conditi…

They're called pale morning duns, not pale crack of dawn duns.  Standing in the water at 5:30 guarantees that not much will  happen until let's say, ten.  I learned that lesson a couple of weeks ago on the Missouri.  Yesterday, different river, they arrived later.  Much later.  Like in the afternoon.  I was starting to sweat it, literally.  No bugs, no fish activity, it was hot as hell too. Thankfully the bugs eventually showed.  It's impressive when the bugs start hatching and the fish get on them.  A lifeless stream surface can suddenly bustle with fish breaking the surface. 



While waiting for the vaunted hatch, I watched and tried in vain to catch one sizable brown trout. For hours.  It was content to sway in the current and grab bugs as they drifted by.  I attached some fine netting to my trout net, caught a few PMD nymphs.  Actually the screen job was unnecessary, the nymphs were clearly visible.  I thought, piece of cake. I'll get him lickity split.  I tied on a…