5/18-19 STREAM SIDE REPORT

I started the day about 7am at Evening Hole. As I walked down to the water I startled two does out for a morning drink. The river was loaded with nice size fish. A few seemed to be feeding on emergers. Action didnt start building up until later in the morning. There were less fisherman than I expected, but it was still pretty busy on the river. Everyone was respectful of space but every hole had someone in it.

There are hoppers on the banks now and Baetis hatching through out the day with light Sulphurs  in the mix. Although I had no luck with RS2s or BOW dries for some reason It might have been because there were so many naturals on the water when I tried it out. Also beware snakes are out in force. I saw a few dead ones on the road and one in the river. I didn't get close enough to ID it. Leave them alone and they will leave you alone!

After lots of trial and error and maybe the passage of time helped too, the fish started biting. I had lots of looks and passes on a San Juan variation, but finally hooked up. It was clear that I was getting close to but they just werent into it. I switched to high sticking the normal nymphs and dropped midges, but still no luck with typical go-to flies. I switched to a Caddis pupa I came up with after reading about the green rock worm pattern on here a while ago. The trout loved it. I hooked up on the first cast three times in a row. I still hadn't seen anyone else catch one around me so I gracefully moved on to take my new trick to the deeper holes on the Spillway.

Unfortunately I couldn't pick up any bites with the Greenie. Maybe I still wasn't getting it deep enough, I'm not sure. I was too distracted by several small rainbows taking something off of the film on top. I tied on a size 18 Elk Hair Caddis and floated into the pool where they were rising. I've never seen a fish stare at a fly for so long. It was amazing. Every one of them would slowly rise to it look at it and lower. I was starting to get a complex about my tying skills, but instead of tying something new on I decided to move to faster water where they would have to make a snap judgement. The strategy paid off. I caught several more on dries until the late afternoon.

More families and fisherman were coming up the trails, so I decided to eat an early dinner and fish later while everyone else was eating. I ended the day with the river to myself. I caught several nice sized rainbows but no browns in 14 hours.

The next morning I decided to sleep in a little longer since the previous morning was not particularly productive. I packed up camp and headed down and fished two more hours. I went back to evening hole again and thought I would try the green rock worm followed by a cream midge, but I wasn't even getting looks at it. After about a half hour the older gentleman next to me caught one and then another. I took a cue from watching him and happily switched to dry flies despite only seeing a few fish rising out of my reach. I caught two more nice rainbows on a size 18 Adams and broke one off trying to keep him out of a log jam. I decided to end on a high note and go grab breakfast for the long trip back.