Those that can, do; those that can’t post a lot of tying SBSs. Figured it was time to try out some of the stuff I’d been tying to see if it really worked. Torn knee cartilage ruled out most of the freestoners so headed to a land where the submerged rocks are few and far between (at least the 8 mile stretch I fished).
On the road; wanted to be across the pass before Dawn showed her crack so I didn’t get shotgunned by the sun, also wanted to be there early enough for any tricos that might still be coming off/falling in (as it turned out there were some but they didn’t generate a whole lot of interest)
the best way to see Browning, slightly out of focus
heading in the right direction with the Rocky Mountain Front on the starboard side
wild country out here
Haystack Butte
magic number (need to clean the bugs off the windshield)
grabbed the last campsite in town along the river, stopped at one of the shops for the latest info (word was that fishing was “pretty good”) and headed out to a spot that’s been generous in the past
downstream
upstream
as it turned out they were interested in hoppers
came down here for the evening; struck out on the fish but scored some sights
and the next morning
found some early morning bank feeders, had a couple brief hookups with trico spinners, then the wind kicked in and that was over
switched back to hoppers, no dice; added a rainbow Czech dropper and back in business
bald eagles and redtails took turns using this as a navigation point while riding the updrafts
little bit of weather came in the evening; we had a bit of rain, the had snow in the Park
next morning, no wind and it was back to the bank feeders
popped off 3 good ones on a Trico, midge emerger and a Parachute Adams (black Congo Hair post made them soooo much easier to see), then spent the rest of the day guessing wrong; finally connected on a purple Lightning Bug with the only brown I saw in 4 days
last morning
sight-casting to feeders, hooked 10, 5 of which broke me off and the other 5 bored into the weeds and came off (6x tippet doesn’t give me much say in the discussion)
back across the Divide with just enough time to fish an old friend; lots of rocks, but not much algae and I know my way around it pretty well (besides the cutts are suckers for floating things)
managed 24" trout (in 3 8" increments)
stones; no surprise
back home (I really need to clean the bugs off the windshield)
Oops, poor wording on my part. It was a rainbow Czech nymph dropper off the back of a hopper (I’ll have to poke around a bit and see if there are any Czech hopper patterns).
Is that old friend you fished on the way home the one that has a few snakes along it? We were over that way last year and almost checked it out till I remembered what someone said about the buzzworms.
