Getting Close

By this time last year, we were seeing epic midge hatches with hungry browns gulping feverishly; river wide blanket hatches that pretty much brought every feeding fish to the surface. Pods of 18 to 20 inch browns were there for the taking. This year is has been very different to this point but it's getting close. Mark Tinsky and I floated down to Cascade thinking the water may be a little warmer, which might bring out more bugs and thus, more fish. There were also rumors of skwallas--not a ton of them but anytime a fish gets a taste of something that big, they start craving it. It's kind of like the October caddis hatches. You see a few hovering around and you wonder if the fish would be on them but just tie on a big stimmie and wait. You will find a few looking for these mammoth bugs and typically, you'll find some good ones. We didn't see any skwallas. We saw a few BWO's and a bunch of midges so we threw streamers most of the day and landed a dozen or more good fish. We did see a couple pods of fish working and at one point threw a skwalla at them and sure enough, picked two off and missed another. We did get one on a midge as well. All the fish we saw up were very small so we didn't spend much time on top. Instead we targeted the big boys in slow deep water and although we didn't get anything over twenty, we got a lot between 18 and 20. It was a good day but not epic. It should happen soon though. Keep 'em where they live.