After a good soaking of rain, thunder and lighting on Friday I flew up the hill early Saturday morning to meet Dan for a glorious day on the Middle Fork Feather. The rains brought the river up about 6 inches from the previous day and the water temps started out at a cold 48.6 degrees. We fished the water around the town of Graeagle and after hitting 3 runs with not a bump I recommended we go to another spot, adding the time traveling will be to our benefit to let things warm up and get going. When we arrived at our our new spot the water temps had already climbed to 51 degrees. I also noticed there was not a fresh foot print to be seen at our new location - "This is a good sign" I said to myself.
Right away Dan was into his first of at least 30 hook ups today, to be honest we lost count - It was that good! Yellow Warblers, Western Tanagers, and many other song birds gave us an orchestra of delightful melodies the entire time on the water, it was the perfect setting for an angler's first time on the MFFR. Dan possessed some serious fly fishing skills which enabled us to really decipher the runs and riffles, breaking it all down and presenting our flies to the correct water. We high sticked nymphs under an indicator with a little lead. Effective flies were PT flashbacks with a clear bead #16, Z Wing caddis emergers #12 in olive, and the San Jaun worm in earth color.
There were so many different bugs out like this March Brown above, PMDs, Green Drakes, BWOs, Little Green Stones, Caddis, and Midges were seen hatching throughout the day. To my delight Ameletus (the brown dun) mayfly nymphs were actively swimming about in the side water, for a bug connoisseur like myself it was the icing on the cake! A few risers were present, but those rainbows really wanted it underneath today.
This is your average sized wild rainbow of the MFFR, fish today ranged from 10-14 inches and full of fight. We had multiple aerial displays right in front us with many fish leaping out of the water more than once.
The fish are stacked up in pods at the tail outs of runs like this one above that had sufficient holding water with depth associated with it. We found different runs produced better than others, often times giving up 3-5 fish in a very small piece of water that would measure 10 x 10 feet.
Today was one of those days where your client can do no wrong, a day I will remember for a long, long time!
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