Small Flies On the Big Mo

 

The weather changed on the Missouri River last week. Fall arrived and with it came an amazing Tiny Western Olives hatch. There were millions, no billions, of them and the fish were up on emergers mainly and some on duns....small flies, big fish. How do you get a rising fish to eat your impression when there are endless naturals around? Persistence helps. I also got off of the main flow into a slow, slow side channel where fewer naturals were drifting. My fly then had a chance. Before that it was exasperating...my small fly was like a single grain of sand in a vast desert. I tried a slightly larger Olive pattern but with little success. I then tried an ant and a beetle pattern...forget about it! Emerger on a swing...not much better. A big fly with a dropper...no. I was becoming unhinged. Pods of big fish around and I couldn't get connected. In the side channel I was lucky to land some good fish on dries: size 20 and 22 web wing and half hackle patterns. You have to be a bit lucky hooking up with such a small fly, light tippet and trout who use the extensive weed beds to their full advantage.

Before the weather changed there were few bugs around and no top water action. I got into some great fish sight nymphing in the bright sun. I did best mid morning with the sun at a relatively low angle. I stood river side still in the shadows with the sun behind me. I was able to get up real close to shallow water feeders who often didn't see me as they were blinded by the sun. They responded to tiny nymphs. It was challenging, fun fishing. Some hooked...some spooked.





size 20/22 olive tied with web wing

 

 rainbow on small fly

 

rainbow caught on size 20 olive

Sun Valley

Here are some photos of Sun Valley, Idaho and Silver Creek...


road to creek

flat water

creek rainbow

 

High Desert Trout

 

Silver Creek Idaho! What a beautiful place. If I had to choose one river to fish for a complete year this challenging creek would probably be it. I have yet to hit it when "The Hatch" has been on. I got one half day this trip where a brief low front came in and Tiny Western Olives made an appearance for a couple of hours, and I got a glimpse of what the creek has to offer. I managed some nice fish and a Rainbow that took me into my backing. The rest of the week was brilliant sunshine and few bugs. I relied on a terrestrial pattern to connect with fish. It was slow going: cautiously walking the creek, spotting trout and trying to get them to rise to a black beetle. The Browns seemed hunkered down on the clear days. I located some good ones but they wouldn't commit.

I planned the trip 3 weeks later than last year hoping for some cool inclement weather. Like last year, however, it was Indian Summer weather: upper 70's F and blue skies. I'll keep going back until the stars align. What a great cocktail: Sagebrush desert, crystal clear water, and trout!

Trout on the Plains

I drove out of the mountains and onto the flats to fish a promising tailwater river south of where I live. The couple of times I have been on it this year there have been few bugs and the trout slow to rise. I managed several mid-sized rainbows in fast, shallow water and a couple of missed fish but nothing really large. Most seasons I feel I have a good chance at raising a biggie if I spend a full afternoon walking, spotting and covering good holding water. No such luck this year. I did locate several large fish from a high bluff. They were deep and showed no interest in my grasshopper pattern. I didn't fish sub-surface. The river had a decent flow. The water clarity and temperature...perfect. The Cottonwood colours...perfect. There was no wind. A good breeze might have been helpful when fishing a grasshopper pattern.

trout spotting high up

While hunting for trout some horses and donkeys tagged a long.

 bee hives in the coulee

On a Twitch

I've been in Montreal for over a week visiting family, recently returned to Alberta and got a chance this afternoon to visit a local tailwater river that I've been fishing consistently all summer. Water levels are much lower now. It was cloudy earlier in the day but when I arrived at the river the sky cleared-up and I fished in almost full sun. The PMD hatch is almost done but I managed several mid sized rainbows and a good brown on what is left of this small pale mayfly. By late afternoon the wind kicked in and the weak hatch completely died out. I walked some distance looking for fish but saw none. Things got difficult with no bugs on the water. I decided to fish a side channel with a grasshopper. Several weeks ago I spotted two browns there. I got one prospecting with the hopper pattern. It was an aggressive take just off the bank on a twitch. Here is a pic.

tailwater brown

side channel

The next small fly hatch will be Olives (baetis). This mayfly will show up as Fall progresses or when inclement weather strikes.

While in Montreal I drove one hour south to the foothills of the Adirondacks (upstate New York) to visit a river that I learned to fly fish on and where I caught my first trout on a dry fly. It was great to see it again. The region is very beautiful as is the river. Water levels there were extremely low due to a summer of intense heat and little rain. In a future post I'll write more about this special place and the trout fishing there.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday!





portal to south

I had family visiting all week. It was the first time this summer my wading boots completely dried out. I finally got a chance to fish Sunday afternoon but only for 4 or 5 hours. I spent most of my time driving and then river walking. The actual fishing time seemed minimal. I checked out a tailwater river south of where I live. There was a lot of traffic on the road and smoke on the southern horizon. I thought there must he fires in Montana, Idaho or BC. Haying was going on in the fields. Hawks were perched on bales. As I drove through what I call the Portal to the South, grasshoppers hit my windshield. Things looked promising.



haying

When I arrived at the river I checked out a spot near where I park. I often get a response from a fish there. On my second or third cast a large rainbow chased my grasshopper a short distance then gave up. I casted back to the spot where I initially raised it and he surfaced again and took it. After the initial run he seemed to get lazy. I eased up and well, he got off. That was the only fish all afternoon that came up for a large terrestrial pattern.

I hiked downstream a distance and like a hawk perched on a high point: a bluff. I spotted a buttery coloured trout occasionally rising to PMDs in the gentle flow of a side channel just up from where it entered a deep and sizable pool. I watched this soft section for awhile and figured out an angling strategy before dropping down the 20 foot bank well upstream of the fish. I then circled behind it. Everything was going well when an Oarsman in a blue raft with two anglers (possibly friends but more likely clients) called out from a distance that he was "coming through". I glanced back over my left shoulder and told him to go behind me as I was on to a good fish. He yelled, "what do you want me to do...I'm coming through here!" Shortly after I looked back again and the raft was almost on me. I reacted quickly and waded out of the way. As they drifted by I said, " thanks a lot, now my fish is gone". He said that he had no option. I said he did "have an option". I told him that they could have simply got out of the raft in the 1 foot deep water just upstream of me and walked/guided it behind me at the head of the pool. Then they could have jump back in and resumed their float. He said he "didn't want to do that" and I replied "no kidding, instead you pushed me off the water I was fishing". By then the raft was in the deep pool just below me and drifting away. The oarsman ended the discussion with,"F-You". Surprisingly I did not return the F-Word ( I must be maturing). The two anglers with him said nothing the whole time.




side channel

 bluff, main flow and side channel

I waited awhile, saw no fish and decided to use the adrenaline pumping through me to hike further downstream. The next pool had people fishing it and so I walked further. The pool after that, my favourite spotting pool on the river, also had people on it plus the ominous blue raft. I checked my watch and thought this was going to be a tough day. I started thinking about applying for Russian citizenship and moving to Kamchatka: good fishing, few people...

I headed back upstream. I returned to the pool I was on earlier and went through the same routine: sitting and surveying from the bluff. I spotted an impressive rainbow sipping on PMD's just below where I saw the other fish...again in the soft flow. It was swaying back and forth in order to get a consistent meal. When I dropped down to fish it I spooked the buttery trout I saw earlier. It was just 10 feet away a little higher in the side channel. I had failed to spot it while watching the other fish feed. I fished to the rainbow with a size 18 PMD tied parachute style. After several casts I hooked up and he turned and went straight downstream at a bonefish pace and kept going. It was fun to watch. He jumped at the tail of the deep pool. Fish are like people, some simply have more spirit than others. He was a good one. I had him on for some time and kept pressuring him, and then slack. The hook came out.



side channel soft water and main flow in foreground

Soon it was time to head back to my car. All the pools upstream had anglers in them. I have never seen the river this crowded; usually I see nobody. There were three fellows in wet suits doing some sort of stream analysis...maybe biologists. There was a family pick-nicking on the bank. There were several trucks parked on ranch land next to the river.

Although I didn't take the river temperature it was cool. The flow was typical for August. The water clearer than I have experienced in the past. It was perfect water for sight fishing. I spotted several large fishing feeding on PMD's in a back eddy along a cliff wall that I had no chance of fishing without a boat or repelling gear. Grasshoppers casted nearby drew no attention. PMD's were the main bug and all the fish I saw feeding (surface) were on them. There were many grasshoppers along the banks but with no wind I saw none in the water. I saw some flying ants.

Although it was a tough afternoon it was good to get my wading boots wet again. If I go back it won't be on Sunday, Bloody Sunday! It will be mid week.

Post Lost Creek Fire

I met him this July (2012) on a stretch of the Crowsnest river (Crow) I haven't been on in 8 yrs. He was in his late 60's maybe even 70's. I estimated his age by how he waded which was cautiously and often supported by a wading stick. It is hard to tell the age of someone in full fly fishing gear: waders; sunglasses; bandana; floppy hat. He did have the distinct look of someone who has fly fished for a long time. Don't ask me the specifics of this look, it is more a Gestalt thing.

His back was to me. I called out from some distance so as not to spook him which I did any way. We ended up speaking for one half hour about the Crow.

He said he had been out for 6 hours and that there were no insects. I agreed things were slow. I had only been on the water for one half hour and spent much of this time hiking to the pool I met him on. I was going to wait there for an hour or two to see if I could spot some nice fish rise before darkness. It was already 7:30 pm. The night before this strategy worked well on a different section as a moderate PMD hatch occurred at 8:30 and two very nice trout slid over to a shallow bank where insects get funnelled and started to feed rhythmically. I told him to "hang in" for the next hour or so as I explained I saw fish the night before. He didn't seem convinced.

He told me he had fished the Crow for 18 years and that since the Lost Creek Fire of 2003 the PMD hatch has never been the same. He said the fishing prior had always been amazing, and he figured that that would go on forever. He wanted it to go on forever. He reminisced about the good old hatch days and I listened. He spoke about black ash flowing down the river during the fire and seemed convinced this had affected bug production.

I said I had fished the Crow for 11 years and that my first season on it was the summer of 2001 in July and that PMD hatch had been a very good one. I felt that since then the hatch had never been as strong, even 2002 the year before the fire
.
There we were knee deep in the Crow trying to figure it out!

We spoke about our mutual interest in fishing small mayflies and also about dry fly rivers elsewhere, including ones in Montana where he fished regularly. I told him about my favourite river south of the border. He said he would check it out.

Eventually we parted ways. He slowly moved downstream to fish closer to the B&B he was staying at. I focused on the pool we had been standing in. I spotted no rising fish in the next hour or so. Thunder began to rumble. A serious storm was coming my way. While walking back to my car I spotted a good fish rising to a PMD and landed it before heading home. Success... post Lost Creek Fire!