Got away for a few days to beat the heat, drought and hoot owls, looking for bugs and fish looking up. Word was caddis (egg-layers) in the early morning, PMDs a little later and caddis/spinner falls in the evening. Drive south off the interstate was solid rain, something I hadn’t seen in 3 weeks and this greeted me at the turnoff to the campground (must be a good sign, right?)
Crack of dawn I found some noses poking up in the slower water and managed a nice 'bow on a soggy CDC & Elk
One or two other rises but things turned off pretty quickly, so I started roaming a bit, seeing what I could pound up (nothing but a few swirls) and taking in the scenery.
Got chased off by storms rolling off the Gravellys but they stopped early enough that the bugs were back out and the yellow warblers were singing in the willows.
Only a few scattered rises, though and a handful of fishes, 50/50 between the caddis and rusty spinner; blind squirrel luck, no clear pattern. Next few days saw even less bug activity and the PMDs never materialized. Plan A was to head into the upper end of the Park and see if the early summer had dropped the flows to fishable levels but storms had muddied them up so on to Plan B. Scored a streamside campsite in town but instead of trying to find a spot on the river amongst the hordes (lots of 4 plates and I certainly wasn’t the only 7) I headed for some alone time on a nearby creek 'till the evening bug events. Although they weren’t pushovers, the fish weren’t nearly as picky as their relatives just downstream and foam things worked as well as anything.
Evening brought out the bugs
but only a few of heads; even so I managed a couple so goodness.
