Trout in Frog Water

"It is good for the soul to follow through on your eccentric interests and mad inclinations"
 --Thomas Moore

missouri river

The trout were ultra picky. It was driving me crazy. Summer temperatures, 80F, in early May. One day it hit 87F. The full sun didn't help. It made things real challenging in the shallow, flat water I was on. And it was suppressing the Springtime hatches. But there were a few bugs on the water: some Midges in the morning and tiny size 20 Olives in the afternoon. Occasionally even an "easy on the eyes" big March Brown drifted by. There was hope.

missouri river

The trout were shy to rise and when they did feed it was subtle. They were mainly on emergers but occasionally some broke the meniscus. I thought they might be small as they didn't displace much water when they surfaced. I continued to watch as I've fished long enough to know some very large trout can feed like a Guppy.

It was tough to get close to them mid day. The low angled morning and late afternoon light allowed me to see better and get tighter. What I saw, I liked. Wading was also challenging. Take a step in the flat water and a wake travelled 50 yards.

missouri r, pelican pt.

I tried a variety of small fly patterns. Stuff that I usually connect with was often ignored. The rises were often irregular. There were no easy greedy rhythmic feeders. Many of the natural bugs that floated along with my impressions also received little attention. And then every once in a while a large trout would tip up and eat. They wanted what they wanted and I was trying to figure it out. I tossed cripples, spinners, hackle stackers, half hackles, no hackles... I thought about drag and tried different presentation angles...5x, then 6x tippet....then a black beetle, and on and on it went....multiple patterns, many fly changes.

creative river access from interstate hwy

Every night and early morning I tied different patterns and went back to the spot. Nothing was easy. I got blown off the water on two days, picked up my gear and drove two hours south to Dillon to fish a small public spring creek called Poindexter Slough. When the wind subsided I returned. My expensive waders started leaking like the Titanic. I was carrying an extra ten pounds of sloshing weight on my right leg. One day I lost three spools of tippet, then the next day my nymph/emerger box mysteriously disappeared. I haven't done that in years. It also seemed I was making every conceivable angling mistake: frequent line tangles, blown knots, snapping leaders. I pulled a fly prematurely out of a very big mouth.

Sometimes I timed my strike well but the tiny fly simply slipped out with no contact whatsoever, or I nicked a fish but unfortunately no hook-up. These are some of the tribulations of small fly angling. At times I lost complete confidence in my flies. In fishing, like other areas of life, confidence is often fickle. One afternoon I hooked a very large brown that I had been targeting. Late in the fight he circled me twice. As I was getting prepared to net him the 6x gave way and off he swam. I screamed, "No" and almost tossed my rod in the river.

It was mesmerising, shallow water angling. Some of the best and most challenging, slow water sight fishing I have ever experienced. The trout, mainly browns, were feeding in one to two feet of water. I spent the last four days mid stream in full sun stalking them on my knees. I even waded on my knees along the silt bottom to get closer and solve drag problems. The flies I tied became sparser and sparser. Eventually, they were simply a hook with a bit of thread, a slightly built up thorax region, two microfibbets for tails, and simple wings, tied upright or flush. A downstream and across presentation  (fly first) seemed to work best... sometimes! The odd cloud helped. I kept whispering to myself  "hang in there, browns are simply different cats." I did hang in there and made some connections.

missouri river brown trout

Hours on the river passed like minutes. Only the failing light alerted me it was time to reel in, return to the campground, fuel my body and sleep. I had to remind myself there would be another day, a tomorrow.

My last day there I fished a different location in the morning. Then I returned to where I had spent most of the week. A car was parked there and I saw an angler returning to his vehicle from the river. I asked the sixty year old plus fellow in the fully loaded Simms vest if he had been the only one down at the river? He replied there had been another fellow earlier but he had left. He told me where he had fished and that he had caught a couple. Then he said he changed spots and described a different location where he saw the odd riser. It was the location I had spent most of the week on. He said the fish there weren't interested in his flies and he wasn't even sure they were trout. He called the spot, "Frog Water ". We both laughed.

Here are some snaps of hard earned brown and rainbow trout caught on size 20 flies in "Frog Water".

missouri river rainbow trout

missouri river brown trout

old rainbow with frayed dorsal fin