June 26, 2013

What a giggly action day on the dries!….Dries All Day!

Our shuttle crew turned over some rocks yesterday and this is what they found. Holy Cow! 2013-06-25 14.45.35SM 2013-06-25 14.45.40SMThere are Salmon Stones under there ready to pop like crazy. As of June 26th evening, the Adult Big Bugs were spotted in the Upper River and the heaviest between Ruby and Varney.

My girlfriend Jeanne who owns Rainbow Valley Lodge and I were blessed today with theIMG_0352 SM IMG_0353 SM
best day off in a very long time for both of us. People in our jobs don’t get any time off over the next few months, so this was a real treat. We had a dilemma as Jeanne hurt her knee, had knee surgery and is still not fully repaired and in pain. To make it easier for her, I fished with Gunnar the first half and we met her for lunch and Jeanne joined us on the second half. The first part of our float started off slow for maybe a half hour, then the action started. We fished Dan’s Secret Salmon Fly, A Smaller Royal Chubby Chernobyl, A Delektable Twisted Baby #14 Orange, then later in the day we switched to Dan’s Secret Golden Stone and never changed flies after that. We did try one or two caddis patterns that they bit, then quit and changed flies earlier in the day. The fish ate all our flies.

The hatch activity was incredible with Salmon Flies, several different caddis sizes, thanIMG_0355 SM IMG_0358 SM more salmons, then Goldenstones, then Yellow Sallies, and more Caddis. The bugs were crawling all over us. Needless to say, we were screaming with laughter from the action and from the bugs tickling us. All the fish we caught were chubby and healthy from eating so many bugs.

Once the action started, it continued most of the day with short lulls. The fish were biting IMG_0363 SM IMG_0369 SM
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in lots of IMG_0365 SMdifferent locations but especially liked the riffles and where there was structure underneath. It was funny because you couldn’t predict it then they would swirl up and nail the fly. We had so much action with bites, misses, takes, lands, and what I call drive bys. You could see the trout under the fly, taking a look and thinking about it but if you pulled up too quick, you missed the opportunity but saw the trout look. The visual fun was really cool because you could see the fish go after it in a big way with some leaping after it.

The best technique was to twitch the fly and tease the fish. They would go after it hard if
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twitched. This really worked for Jeanne because she had to keep her leg up and sit. So once she got the fly on the water, she could just dabble the fly and the fish would suck it down.

What a fabulous and giggly fun fishing day with my IMG_0392 SMfriend, Jeanne. Thanks Ed and Dan for covering in our absence. Thanks Gunnar for the great guiding.

Nancy

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