Last night provided an opportunity to get out and fly fish my favorite “little river,” during mid to late evening hours. For some reason, I have not gotten out in that golden part of the day much, in the summers. A shame, really, and I will have to make an effort to correct this.
Heading out, the air temp reading on the dashboard came in at 86°, so I was looking forward to a bit of relief as I drove up into the mountains. True to form, I ended up with an air temp drop of 8°, even before the setting of the sun continued that downward trend.
Arriving at the river, I rolled up to this:
A little better shape than the previous outing, with the water flow now down to around 465cfs and the water temp settling in at 54°. Not bad, but still not low enough in volume that I can wade across in the usual places (which ends up meaning I cannot wade to the far side, anywhere), so near-side wading and some casting from the banks was in order. I didn’t start in this location, choosing instead to back up one bend, and try that other riffle-into-pool section, just to see if it was starting to provide better smooth sections.
Yeeeaaaah…no.
Still about 50% wider than it would be at a more reasonable flow, meaning lots of pooling with return flows and the deep trough on the left is still not really accessible. I did manage to get a few attempted takes in a seam of that fast inflow, but I had to cast into a relatively calm section between two tail flows, and the conflicting currents kept the fly drag-free for roughly 3/4 of a second. So, I assume those attempted takes were either young trout, or I am subconsciously getting better at slack loading on those casts.
Yeah…probably just young/dumb trout.
Anyway, I will keep trying this section, each visit, until it gets back into it’s more traditional shape.
Soon…I hope.
After this section, I worked my way back to the original spot where I had pulled up, casting into the long runs between these two sections, along the way, but with no real success. Some splashy refusals, but no takers. At this point, I was alternating between throwing a fat Stimmy and a #12 mayfly, as I kept seeing the same cased caddis on the riverbed and airborne mayflies that I had encountered on the previous trip up.
Returning to the original point, I worked my way past the fallen tree, and upstream to the riffle/pool/run at the bend (that is just out of view in the first pic, as the run takes a bit of a right bend from that point of view).
The riffle-into-pool at that point can be a great jumpoff/wade-across for a long wade upstream in a section with no visibility from the nearby roadway. I have often had nice successes in that stretch, but could not find a safe pathway across the near half of the river, to get into position to do this, yet.
Wading back down to the vehicle, I thought I would try that same pool I had ended up in, last time.
Unfortunately, there was a family with kids there, and the kids were doing that age-old combination activity called “going-to-a-river-so-I’m-pretending-to-fish-while-throwing-rocks-into-the-water.” Glad they are raising their kids to enjoy trips into nature…but I also knew that this would likely put the fish down for a long while, even after they eventually left (probably with the “why didn’t we catch fish?” look on their faces).
Bypassing that stop, and moving down two more pull-offs, I came to a spot I had not tried much, previously. Rocky river edges leading to a rapid drop in depth make this stretch one for much lower water volumes, but the large rocks also offer some bank casting platforms.
I was setting up to take this picture, with my Stimmy just dragging in the semi-calm water behind the rock on which I stood, when I heard a splash behind me that did not fit into the normal river noises. Turning around, and high-sticking to get just the fly and leader on the water, I was able to get a pipsqueak of a trout to launch itself out of the water as it attempted to eat that Stimmy!
It could not have been more than 3x the size of the fly, but it sure was amusing to watch him try.
When I turned back and moved to another rocky perch, a bit upstream, I had a moment to take this pic.
At this point, I noticed that a cloud of insects was starting to gather in that last corridor of sunlight, to my right.
Shifting to the next upstream rocky perch, and noticing the van that had been parked at that pool passing me on the road, I was able to get this shot as the sun was shifting lower.
I waiting, playing with the tiny fish hiding in the current shadow of the larger rocks, for a few minutes, then headed back to the Nissan and made my way up towards the pull-off next to the pool.
Indeed, it was empty!
I geared back up, and made my way around and down to below the eddy pool, to cast a few into the waters of the fast run that tails out from both the pool and the main flow of the river that rubs against the pool, on it’s way past. No luck with the faster section, I but as the sun left the surface of the churning pool, I saw the same mayfly type rising off the water, as well as larger one’s that appeared to be arriving to bounce off the surface and lay eggs. Then, despite how recently that family had left, I saw the surface takes start to happen.
It was on!
I moved into a closer position, half behind the root bulb of the downed tree, and began casting in close.
As with many hatches, the naturals got the vast majority of the attention. Not to say that I didn’t catch fish, as I did, but the frequency of takes may have ended up being 30 or 40-to-1, with naturals beating me out…as they should.
I worked through 4 different flies, in that pool, just to try to try to match what I was seeing in the air. The Stimmy had some success, with a Sparkle Dun and a smaller Parachute Adams sharing second place. The tiny mayfly-tailed Adams I tried got a few splashes, and nothing more, despite seeming to be a closer match in size to what I was seeing.
Just proves I don’t have the eyes of a trout, I suppose.
On one of the last casts of that tiny fly, though, it came back to me appearing to be tangled in something. Pulling it in close, to clear the hook, I found that this was the entanglement.
Clearly, this was one of those “why didn’t I think of that??” moments. I was confused at first, thinking this would be a Mayfly except for the lack of tails, then finally noticed that there appeared to be a loop of tails at the bottom of the insect, that then curled back up and got entangled with the wings.
Sure enough, I had no Spinner patterns that would come close to this in size and color, and was close to running out of enough light to keep going, anyway.
Next time, I will be ready.
Still, some success, a chance to visit 4 different sections of this lovely river, a few fish caught, and a new tying project. Not a bad evening, at all!
Preparing to leave, I grabbed one final view of the water that rushes towards the rocks above that pool. I know this view gets a lot of play in my blog posts, but it is a great gauge for how full and fast the river is, on a given day.
Yeah, it’s a bit dark…but by the time I had stowed all my gear and gone back for the view, it had gotten fairly late. Later in the season, there will be dry rocks lining both sides, with the left side usually showing a 5-8′ wide portion that can be walked on.
I hope everyone is wrapping up an excellent weekend. Take care, all.
Tight lines…