Been On A Bit Of A Bow Kick

Typically I don't get to hung up on rainbows but this has been one crazy couple of weeks. The Bows are all up to spawn out of the reservoir and that has made for some interesting if not retarded fishing. 

It all started out at the beginning of may when I had a client catch a beautiful 17.5" bow out of the river, easily setting the standard for how big and beautiful of a bow I could expect to catch out of the river.

Then a few days later we all decided to go fishing at a little creek called Jones Hole. This turned out to be one of the most enjoyable days of fishing I had partaken of in quite a while. I started the day fishing a small black stimulator which I was able to get quite a few fish to eat, and bring even more to hand.  I then broke off the last of the two Stimi's that I had in my arsenal and began to fish the Cicada (as I had seen quite a few in the area as well as heard them.) This fished very well and I landed a few more. Then as the day wound to a close. I went to the bridge and cast towards a fish that I had fished towards every time I have fished Joners. And after little success on the dry I then tied on a small neon nightmare and sight nymphed. Success!!!

Later on that same week we decided to chase some of the very obscenely large bows coming up out of the reservoir to spawn. We only did this for a very short time. But it was insane. We caught so many big fish.  I felt kind of bad about catching these fish while they were getting prepared to spawn but it made for some intensely good pictures.

PS. The Terrestrials on the Green are coming. I have been hearing more and more reports of good terrestrial days. I can't wait to get out there and verify the rumors. Stay tuned for more updates.

Welcome to the new season; Blue Wings and Midges

The 2008 season is finally swinging into gear. I have put a number of trips on the water in this last week all with fairly productive days. 

The mornings have been fairly slow with a lot of midges on the water, the fish will rise on occasion but the most productive days will be had nymphing. I have been using a deep nymph rig set at anywhere from 6' to 7.5' to the first fly. I have had the most production from using two bead head flies with 2 to 3 split shots above. The most useful flies have been zebra midges in brown, black, and red; sz. 18. But yesterday I found a small gray rs2 worked very well (sz. 20-22).

In the afternoons, we have been seeing a fairly pronounced baetis (Blue Wing Olive) hatch that has brought large amounts of fish to the surface for fairly productive dry fly fishing. The patterns that I have been using the most regularly have been hackle stackers and different variants of cripple patterns. As with most fishing on the Green the fish are more drift selective than pattern selective. I have been fishing with different dun patterns of Blue Wings, trailed by a small hackle stacker or a small cripple. 

Morning dry fly action has been happening for some of the guides up here by fishing really slow back water with some sz. 18-20 highly visible midge pattern followed up by a sz. 24-26 no see um bug. This seems to work well when targeting the so called scummer trout that rises regularly, because these fish have a long amount of time to inspect the proffered bug and likely have seen a little of everything that every passer by could offer. 

There is good news however for the Terre

strial lover. I have fished dry dropper with a large para cricket and have seen a few good eats on the larger dry. Some guides that I have talked to are fishing dry dropper with cicada patterns and are seeing a few eats on the Cicada. I have heard reports of seeing a Cicada on the water.  So this is really good news. Meaning we might not be too far away from the beginning of big bug season on the Green.

Good luck out there, I'll see you soon.