A glorious June for big fish
04/08/26 17:32
8/4/26.
I haven't made a blog entry since arriving in early June. We will be here until late August, so a few weeks left for flyfishing. To summarize, it's been the best year I've ever had for catching big browns. For a while, I caught one almost every trip to the river (100 yards downhill) from 16-21." I counted nine browns and one rainbow over 16" which is very good for me, if not for most people on this kick-ass river.
The most I've caught in one evening is only three, so it's been a low-catching summer, as usual. This is not a numbers game, it's about having a good chance of catching a trophy fish every time I'm out. I've hooked a couple of truly large fish, but both pulled the fly after giving me a near heart attack with their power.
The hatches have been modest, perhaps because the river froze over this past winter. We expected the hatches to suffer, and boy are they off. I keep expecting more robust sulphur and olive hatches, but some evening recently have been devoid of hatches, although the suphur spinners have been thick after dark. The hatching has been much better in the upper section, but not much here. The fish rise on some evenings quite aggressively, but the duns have been few and far between. During June and early July, I had good action on sulphur emerges patterns, but not always the same fly. The browns shift in their preference without notification, of course, and have been fortunate to stumble upon the right fly on several otherwise puzzling occasions. More recently, spinners have been more effective. I've tied several different different patterns, but it's been very tough nonetheless. The rainbow action, which has been pretty phenomenal in a certain section of the river the past two years has been slow to develop. I'll post when there's any significant changes.
The most I've caught in one evening is only three, so it's been a low-catching summer, as usual. This is not a numbers game, it's about having a good chance of catching a trophy fish every time I'm out. I've hooked a couple of truly large fish, but both pulled the fly after giving me a near heart attack with their power.
The hatches have been modest, perhaps because the river froze over this past winter. We expected the hatches to suffer, and boy are they off. I keep expecting more robust sulphur and olive hatches, but some evening recently have been devoid of hatches, although the suphur spinners have been thick after dark. The hatching has been much better in the upper section, but not much here. The fish rise on some evenings quite aggressively, but the duns have been few and far between. During June and early July, I had good action on sulphur emerges patterns, but not always the same fly. The browns shift in their preference without notification, of course, and have been fortunate to stumble upon the right fly on several otherwise puzzling occasions. More recently, spinners have been more effective. I've tied several different different patterns, but it's been very tough nonetheless. The rainbow action, which has been pretty phenomenal in a certain section of the river the past two years has been slow to develop. I'll post when there's any significant changes.