Chapter 58 Day 40 - Trout Season

A Baker's Dozen

It's hard to believe that today day forty of trout season arrived.  It seems like the season just started yesterday.  At this clip, we will be half way through trout season at Blue river before we know it. 

It was a gorgeous day on the river today.  Not arriving until half past mid-morning, the weather was still crisp and somewhat nipply, if you will. 

Pushing the ponies across the river at Hughes Crossing we turn into the campsite overlooking Horseshoe Falls and Ted's Pool.  Once there, I didn't know whether to slap leather hard across the ponies backside or to pull up on the reigns and stomp the foot-brake.  Within the campsite were a lot of tents, vehicles, and people. 

Deciding to stake my claim in the water no matter what, the ponies were pulled back and hitched.  A trail was struck to the water and to my utter amazement there wasn't a soul on the river at Ted's Pool.  Either folk had fished early or not fished at all because of the cold morning temperatures. 

On the tying desk last night, I found a pink woolly bugger... yes pink.  Can't remember why I tied a pink bugger - probably to torment pan fish or something, but, I grabbed the fly because I wanted to see if a trout would bite this... uh, not your usual fly you want to wade around the river when others are watching. 

I tie it on and send it sailing into the stew.  Damn thing catches a trout.  Send it sailing again and there is a hard strike followed by a hard hook-set.  Trout gets flies, fly fisher gets empty tippet end. 

Then an olive bugger goes on and this boy goes to work right away.  Today, it was much of the same as it's been on the last several outings - deep in the column, slow to little action on the fly.  The action wasn't hot and heavy and the pool was worked from the right to the left.  Then however, I shortened the distance and about six feet off a ledge was a remarkable little pocket.  A pocket where the trout were waiting. 

After ten trout were brought to hand the bugger is cut off and retired.  Prince Nymph hasn't seen any action on the last several trips so he goes into the stew. 

Funny thing about the Prince today - the fly had to be fished deep and a dead drift by itself wasn't producing.  After a long dead drift a little twitch was needed to get the fish to react.  Prince didn't do nary as well as the bugger, but, the two fish the fly took were significantly larger than the fish the bugger took. 

Never again will I complain about my feet being numb while fly-fishing and here's why.  It wasn't long after the second trout was taken by Prince that I heard voices behind me on Horseshoe Falls.  The voices had distinct Hispanic flavorings and as I turn to look I see a family of four with pant legs rolled up and barefooted, wading across the falls.  Barefooted!  This had to be the toughest family of all time!  Here I was in waders with neoprene booties and heavy duty wading shoes and I was already going numb. 

Leaving Ted's Pool I go to Scotty's to get a beer and run into James Russell.  James has been gone from Blue River for about two and a half years and it was good to see him.  He had his friends Jack and Bruce with him and they had been fly fishing around the crossing early. 

After they had lunch we met up downstream at Glory Hole to fish again.  However, the afternoon was terribly off as far as fishing.  After about an hour I bid goodbye to James and friends and headed to the prairie home. 

I left the river with a baker's dozen of trout to hand. 

Chapter 58 Day 19 - Trout Season

An Improving River
Blue River is trying desperately to return to the color and complexion that many of us consider normal.  This morning the river had improved immensely and is now what I call a tannin color.  It's my opinion the river is tannin-colored because of the muddy conditions caused by the big rain ten days ago, along with the runoff capturing much of the burned debris from the wildfire in the north wilderness.  Then if we add the hundreds of thousands of leaves that have found their way to the river we get tannin. 

If you are a fly fisher and sought out the shallow runs this morning at Blue, the river could have been very rewarding to you... as it was to me. 

I went downstream and found a shallow run and tied an olive bodied bugger with a bi-color tail of olive and yellow on the tippet.  The trout liked it.  Then I switched to the red ass bugger, which has been the talk of the river lately, and again the trout liked it.  However, my best friend of this morning's outing would be a size 14 Prince Nymph.  Ol' Princey boy produced a lot of trout. 

There were a lot of people on the river today - a lot of people.  I guess they were thinking the same way I was, which was to take advantage of the 65 degree weather and try and get some good fishing time in before the big rain comes late tomorrow - a rain that is sure to blow the river again.

After catching so many fish in one spot I tend to get a little bored so leaving the downstream water a course is set upstream to the water below the Crossing.  Here there are fly fishers, spinner fishers, and bait fisherman. 

I stand in the river a good thirty minutes intently watching the other anglers.  With the exception of one spinner fisherman who caught one trout while I was there, no one else caught any fish.  When I first stepped in the river I tied on the Olive Zonker Minnow I spoke of recently.  Casting it upstream and panic stripping it back, a trout absolutely slammed the Minnow.  I got a hook set, but after about twenty seconds it was the old quick release and the trout said, "Goodbye cowboy." 

Then, tying on the red ass bugger I found the only trout I would catch at this particular spot.  It was near noon now and my prairie home called. 

If making the river is possible tomorrow, think I will give Bubble Boy a run to see how he does. 

Today was a rewarding and beautiful day on the river Blue.  I give thanks and return to the bunkhouse. 

Fly Of The Week

Although the Prince Nymph is not one of my favored flies, I have indeed caught a good deal of trout at Blue River with this pattern.

Having a body of peacock herl, in my mind, makes this fly an effective pattern. Peacock herl is simply buggy looking. Then there are the goose biots and they too are pretty buggy looking causing this fly to have the profile of a stonefly nymph.

Fly fisher Chris Adams loves the Prince Nymph and has caught all kinds of species at Blue with the Prince.

It's a fairly easy tie...just a little time consuming and placement of the biots can at times be a little trying.

Usually I fish this pattern with a gold beadhead to get it down in the column.