Adapting To The Situation

The trout went in the river on a Friday afternoon.  That evening the rains decided to ramp things up a bit.  When daylight broke on Saturday morning and I was able to get my first look of the river after the rains I saw a constant and rather raged stream of chocolate milk flowing downstream and my hope went the same direction. As I stood on the bank with little hope at all of capturing fish my mind drifted to my mental fly box and the image of the bugger brown appeared.

When conditions are not in our favor it comes time to adapt to the situation and that was what it was going to take to catch trout on Blue River that how now turned brown.  Dark patterns in off colored water is the rule I've always employed.  The color rusty brown has yet to fail me in off colored water.  Black is another must have choice. 

It's not just the color that we choose, but more importantly the water we choose.  Look for the calm waters on the fringes, the shallows, the soft patches and soft seams and place your offering in these structures.  Fish will move out of the violent currents to conserve energy and that is why exploring the fringes is so vital to capturing fish under adverse conditions.

My first two outings produce eleven trout on Sunday and the majority of them came on the bugger brown. I had the pleasure of fishing with Ken Norris on Sunday and Ken was also capturing trout with brown patterns.  On Monday seventeen bows would come to hand and again primarily on the bugger brown. I fished with Ralph Fullenwider on Monday and met a fine gentleman and fellow jarhead Tom Leonard from Madill. Tom was fishing with glo-bait and had only found one trout.  We scrounged up a water bubble and tied on a bugger for him, but as hard as we tried we couldn't get a trout to hand for Tom.  He had several strikes, just couldn't get the hook-set.  Tom was having surgery the next day and will be out of commission until January when he plans on coming back and when I plan on getting a fly rod in his hand.

When Wednesday rolled around the river had cleared significantly.  Early Wednesday I got to fish with Jeramy Sellers for about twenty minutes, but worked called Jeramy away. Wednesday was a grand and fun morning fishing the bugger brown under an indicator, stripping the bugger brown across the faces of the trout full well knowing it would be to much for them to endure.  Then the soft hackles came out and were placed in the calm rifles where surface activity was revealing the hiding trout.  The partridge soft hackles would also be more than the trout could bear and they went into a frenzy of slamming the flies as they swung at the end of the drift. 

Later I would break out the small stuff like the TS midge and drift it through some runs.  I cannot overstate the importance of eliminating drag, including micro drag when drifting flies.  It can make the difference in capturing fish or not.

Scott Dittner and Ralph Fullenwider joined in on the fun and all of us were capturing trout, all of us were smiling, and all of us were feeling good. 

Scott Dittner

Ralph Fullenwider



A bow I caught at the pool I call 17.