This Is Fly #57

Get it HERE.

Trout Lake Report: At the Last Moment

It's a hot, windy, beautiful evening. You fish a new golden muddler, sometimes by itself, sometimes with a trailing nymph or tiny dry. You cover a lot of water. For a long time, the time is not right. Then, at the last moment, with the golden muddler breasting the waves, you find yourself once again right at the point at which the time is right.

Good Reading

Moldy Chum puts us onto some good reading. Find it HERE.

Trout Lake Report: When the Time Is Right

The dog days are here. Temps have been peaking near the 100 degree mark. You go to the lake to cool off.

The south end campground is deserted now. Time to see what's going on down here.

You know with each trip in this heat that the odds of getting skunked are high and probably getting higher. Especially if you insist on fishing mostly muddlers on top. You tie on a muddler.

You work the shoreline for awhile, but you see rises--individual and sporadic--out in open water. So you turn the tube away from the shoreline and cast out into the vast spaces. It has occurred to you that fishing to these widely scattered and unpredictable rises is the trout version of whack-a-mole.

Except in this case the trout do the whacking. The muddler is floating on the calm surface when a fish comes up ten feet behind it. It comes up again with a lunging take of something. It's a hot fish, and it's coming your way. You sit tight...and it whacks the muddler.

Nice. The time was right. And all is still right with the world.

After that the evening is infused with possibility, and every cast filled with anticipation.

You don't catch another fish. But you know the next fish is out there, and you'll find it--when the time is right.

Bighorn River Tricos

Little bug. Big fun.

Bighorn River Tricos from Bighorn Trout Shop on Vimeo.
Fly fishing on Montana's world famous Bighorn River. This footage was taken during the trico mayfly spinner fall in August of 2016. Tricorythodes are a species of mayfly that hatch in great numbers during late summer and fall on the Bighorn River. These tiny insects bring pods of fish to the surface and provide superb dry fly fishing opportunities. Anglers come from all over the world to experience this hatch.

"Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." Henry David Thoreau

Cosmos, Jungho Lee

From The Wood Between. Check it out.

S.C.O.F. Summer 2016

Throwin' down HERE.

Trout Lake Report: Grace

It's another new muddler for another day at the lake.

You work the channel shoreline, especially John's Cove, but nothing doing.

You kick back out of the channel into the north end. You're drifting the muddler behind you. As you leave the channel you decide to strip in and change flies. You're stripping the fly...

And the fly yanks back. A fine, heavy fish has grabbed it and wants to play tug of war.

It's the best fish you've seen in a long time. Out of nowhere. You weren't even paying attention!

How do these things happen? Luck? Serendipity? You think it's pure grace. Grace: receiving something good even when you don't deserve it and didn't make it happen.

You decide to keep the muddler on the line and head north, working the weed beds and shoreline. You're inspired.

After awhile you switch to the natural deer hair marabou muddler that the troutlings at the inlet liked so well. No sooner do you cast it out than a troutling here makes a fool of himself over it.

You keep going. The old familiar casting rhythm feels good, and it has been awhile since you worked this shoreline. You have happy memories of good fish taken along here.

You go all the way to the big Ponderosa.

This used to be your north lake parking spot and access point.

You're close enough that you could kick over to the inlet without much trouble, but you turn and head back south.

You've seen some cinnamon ants struggling on the water, so you tie one on as a trailer behind the marabou muddler.

A yellow leaf drifts by. It seems like a harbinger of things to come. You will make the most of the fleeting days of August.

With the coming of dusk you hope the wind might die down, but it livens up. Single fish are coming up in the riffles, though. You watch closely for a rise within casting distance.

You find one. You cast your tandem rig to the rise and wait to see which fly, if either, the fish will take. It takes the muddler. You set and work the fish into the net. You're surprised to see that you brought him in thanks to the ant hooked in his nose. How did that happen? Luck? No. You think you just got graced again.

You fish to the take out but find no more fish.

But you're really happy with the big, beautiful fish you caught--or were given. You're grateful, and you're humbled.

Grace. It makes you feel like saying grace.