Why they call it fishing (and not catching) TR

After 3 weeks of seeing a lot of beautiful rock formations (but not a whole lot of water) on the Colorado Plateau, I figured it was time to pinpoint the pinhole leak in my right wader foot, and maybe find a few fish looking up. Reports of blanket hatches, a veritable bug Cornucopia, got me thinking my timing was good so I headed for a section of river I've passed numerous times but never stopped to fish.

Not quite the crack of dawn, but early enough

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a few scattered showers (that became much less scattered rather quickly) but hey, the fish are already wet and mayflies love crummy weather, right?

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nice water

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rainbows here are hot, had a couple decent (but not overly large) fish pop me off; they grow weird bugs here - I have yet to see a purple mayfly, but that's what they wanted

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thunder and lightning decided to join in the fun; since death by electrocution is not on my to-do list, I headed away from the deluge and found another nice piece of water.

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Again reports circulating of massive hatches of every know aquatic insect; I saw a few golden stones and the odd caddis. Got a few fish (one on a foam stone, the rest on a purple Convertible), didn't slip and wreck my knee (which I did a few miles upstream back in '92), so I considered the day a success.

Headed back out the next day, a little closer to home base. Water was in great shape

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me, figuring these lesser fished-for fish would be pushovers (hah!), went right to the purple Convertible; got a brown fish right away

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then nothing else

switched to the foam golden even though this didn't look too much like stonefly water (there had been quite a few skwalas in May); picked up a fish here and there

drove down to where the water was a little faster, wider and deeper

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lots of golden stone shucks on the rocks but none in the air (Miss Sally was out in force, though); this place seems to go off a bit earlier than other water so maybe I missed them

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last hole I fished had a nice 'bow pop up and take a long, hard look at a tan Carnage stone but no dice; lost the fly to a willow trout on the next cast which I took as a sign to call an end to the day (that plus the 25 miles of gravel road in various state of disrepair I had to maneuver in the Dodge)


Regards,
Scott

Great report and I enjoyed looking at the pics. Beautiful country and the river looks very inviting. Congrats on the trout you caught and finding the fly that they wanted.