Jim and Michelle booked a 2nd trip 10 days ago and we got lucky with a short-but-sweet calebaetis hatch. They caught most of their fish on zebra midges and soft hackles, but Jim landed a pair really nice, 19" Lava 'bows, his first ever trout on dry flies, on one of my favorites, a very realistic extended body baetis.
I fished 4 days last week with Portland dry fly nuts Robert and his 88 year old Dad, David. It was an important and perhaps their last big trip together, and frankly, I was a little concerned about only fishing dries. Ah, but not to worry . . . the Trout Gods smiled and there was a sporadic baetis hatch every day that made for pretty consistent fishing. Of course, it helped the #s that they weren't above stripping zebra midges with soft hackle droppers on dry lines -- they drew the line at indicators -- when there were no fish rising, but I'm sure they'll both deny having gone to the dark side. All kidding aside, it was very nice to be a part of their "last buffalo hunt", and I am really glad that in addition to pretty good fishing, we spent a couple of mornings watching 2 very nice mule deer on the shore, and that we had an osprey work within 100' of us for nearly 10 minutes.
Since I hadn't actually fished myself in a week, I took a "busman's holiday" with my fishing partner BC on Wednesday. Early, the indicator fishing was zippo-zilch-nada and there was no hatch. Uh-oh! Fortunately, a very few calebaetis popped late morning, we went dry and, at one point, landed three 16-19 inches on 3 casts sticking and moving along the bank. Then it went quiet, so we moved, anchored up, and almost immediately got into a school of fat and healthy 14 to 17s on large (size 12) red Copper Johns. The bite lasted nearly an hour until the wind came up and blew us off station. We never found the fish again, but it had already been another great, "best buddies"s day on the water.
Right now, the Lava 'bows are in great shape and in the air and pulling hard as soon as they're hooked. The forecast is for warm weather coming up, so now is the time to get up close and personal with them before it gets hot and they go deep. Tight lines - Jeff
