EVENINGS ALONG THE STREAM (part 20)
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| Part nineteen can be found here |
July 18th the Yellowstone River is dropping but is still far from fishable and continues to set records for the flows on this date. [July 2011] I arrived on DePuy's Spring Creek at 6 p.m. the air temperature was 88 degrees and the winds were SSW at five to seven miles per hour and dropping (I hope). I went to the scene of last night's victory; the culvert above the house pond, and I waited for Neil and hopefully the wind will drop and the spinners will dance. Now there was an occasional rise; maybe to caddis, or midge or even a late PMD for I have seen all of them on the water. But tonight I am here for the spinners. The gurgle of the water, the evening songs of the bird, watching the twist and turns of the hunting swallows all brings peace to my soul and joy to my heart.
Four baby skunks just came by the picnic table stopping briefly within ten feet of me, but they must have had a late appointment for they didn't linger to chat, thankfully. Neil showed up and tried the section but tonight the winds would not leave us and the spinners returned to the grass to possibly come down in the early morning hours. Today was the hottest day of the summer, so far topping out at 98.4 degrees as the sun finally dipped behind the ridge line and the temperature quickly cooled to 76 degrees. We moved to the house pond to see if we could find any activity, and we did find a few trout feeding but they had no interest in the PMD Spinner, so I dropped off a size 18 Miracle Nymph ten inches behind the dry, but still they showed no interest until I twitched and moved the dropper.
The first take was nothing but a brushing and flossing of the trout's teeth, and then I got solid hook up and promptly jumped and threw the hook even though I had bowed to the fish. Then I went to just the Miracle Nymph and greased the upper half of the leader and twitched it with a slow retrieve, that finally got a nice spunky 13 inch brown trout, that was full of midge worms.
Neil had also switched to the Miracle Nymph and had taken a 14 inch rainbow and hooked another trout that jumped four times heading upstream with a strong run and soon gained its freedom. By then darkness had descended and another evening was over and consigned to the memories of the anglers and the pages of my fishing journal. A little Brown Bat showed up to bid us farewell.
I still am not convinced that we ever figured out exactly what the trout were doing and I know the angles of presentation were wrong for the greased leader midge method.
They might have responded to a small streamer or a very flush midge emerger, but alas those flies were in the truck and not on my person. But that is ok, because I didn't want fish streamers tonight anyway. I will leave that for another evening when I wish to vary the methods I am using. As we were departing the winds were still blowing and the trout had all but stopped their activity. Now it is back to the tying room to complete the notes and watch a couple of DVD's a Swedish angling friend left for me one on fishing soft hackles and one on streamer fishing; both of which I will review for FAOL.
On the 19th of July there was no evening fishing as the winds howled at 20 mph, however on the 20th of July Neil and I will spend a full day on Armstrong's Spring Creek so I spent the evening ensuring that my fly boxes are fully stocked. As I work the excitement builds, I guess with all the time I spend on the spring creeks I should be calmer but I am first and last a fly fishing junkie and each new day brings new excitement and challenges.
| Sysadmin Note |
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| Part twentyone can be found here |