It’s that time of year again, only this year there are actually fish to catch! After a couple pretty dismal winters, the Fall has some fish that appear to be holding over this year. Today I found fish in all the usual spots. The Blue-Winged Olive hatch was skinnier that I’d hoped. By noon there were a few little bugs around. Most of the rising fish were eating just subsurface. I fooled several under a Parachute Adams with an Olive Micro-May #20. One of the better fish of the day ate the Adams as it began skating at the end of the drift. The natural fly the fish were most keyed in on was the little winter stone, which moves around a ton on the surface. A #14 dark-bodied Elk-Hair Caddis WOULD have worked, if I’d had one! I’ve been up there for that hatch before and it can be really fun skating the fly around rising fish. That hatch is normally found higher up in the river by the way. The #20 Sparkle Dun rose a few fish. Most were refusals. One actually ate it, but I blew the set.
I also had one fish clobber a swung olive Ruby Leech. Sometimes it’s easier to fool a fish that way when the hatch isn’t in full swing. So on days like today if you don’t want to bang your head against the wall, try a bugger or leech and swing it through the slow runs where you’ve seen fish occasionally rising.
This time of the year the fish are moving a little slower and really inspecting each fly. I was using 13-14′ of leader and tippet down to 6x nylon for the dries and the same in Fluoro for the leech.
The river will continue to fish well through the winter provided it doesn’t get too much colder so get out there!