Monday, July 14, 2014

Chub O' Licious

 
 
It's hot so everyone and their brother is getting out at the crack of dawn to get a jump on happy trout. Tricos were going off like crazy and in the afternoon, big browns were eating the big stuff until everything shuts down at around 2 o'clock. I spent three days with Freddy here and we hit the ramp each day well before fish quit eating; at least that's what I thought.

You'll notice, Freddy has a jacket on. A few days ago, the high was only in the 70's and we were actually wearing jackets until afternoon. That, along with the river dropping considerably, contributed to the water temps never really coming up throughout the day. The fishing was stupid good as long as you didn't go deep and stayed big. We never changed a fly the entire day.

The next day, I had a father/daughter duo. Unfortunately, the daughter got stuck in Denver and couldn't find a flight out until late the next morning. We didn't get on the river until 3:00. We all thought we might get a couple fish here and there but it wouldn't be great. We were wrong. It was stupid good and we threw the same rig as the day before.

Everything lined up for the fishing to really suck; it was hot, it was late, and they dropped the river by about 1,500cfs that day. Again, the water temps didn't come up that much so caddis were popping all over the lower canyon. Fish were fricken happy and eating anything and everything. Terry and Haley looked like rock stars. Haley even had a bruise on her arm from fighting so many fish. I couldn't imagine the next day would be any different...

The next day was different--very different. Given how good the Lower Canyon was the night before, we decided to check out Cascade. The tricos that had been blanketing the lower river disappeared. There were some caddis but not crazy. The pods of fish that had been gulping also disappeared and the big stuff? A few fish were eating big but not a ton. The weird thing though is our best fishing was the last hour at around 4 to 5 when it was the hottest. Just when you think you have it ALL figured out...

Keep 'em where they live...

No comments:

Post a Comment