Well they finally shut off some water and the river was down. I have
been down with pneumonia for several weeks and was itching to get out of
the house. Denny Conrad got here on Friday and we were visiting. Wading
through a load of hackle he brought for the Sowbug, I found one saddle I
just had to have.
By about 10 am, it really got nice and warm so we decided I needed to
get on the river. The wind started to come up pretty good.
It was dead calm earlier and the trout were dimpling all over the place.
By the time we suited up and got the boat out of the dock, the wind was
blowing pretty hard. Motored up to Tucker shoals, 1/2 mile up from the
house and noticed the water was not totally down. This had a stronger
current at the shoal than it would have if totally shut down. Between
the wind blowing and the stronger current, I did not have much hope for
a good day on the river. I tied on a Sowbug and started casting to the
seam between the stronger current and the slower flowing water. It was
getting almost impossible to cast the little sowbug. Needless to say, I
did nothing in the first half hour. Dennis had a Chili Pepper on and had
a couple of light bumps that resulted in long line releases.
We were ready to pack it in but decided to try it for another half hour
or so. I gave up on the sowbug and tied on a sz 8 cone head Chili Pepper
to buck the wind. I normally don't fish a fly this big.
On the first retrieve, I felt a good bump, thought I just bumped a rock.
I lifted the rod to shake it loose and lo and behold, I had a small
rainbow on. It was a quick release. Moved up to a good seam in some fast
water and things came to life. I caught seven trout in the next 10
casts. It was like magic. Denny had moved up river and I did not know
how he was doing. I was getting hits and hooking up on about every third
cast or so. One trout was a hook nose Rainbow that totally filled the
landing net. I had a total of 11 trout that were C&R. On my last cast, I
had a hit and SNAP went the tippet. The wind kept increasing and there
were white caps on the river. I saw Denny working his way back down to
the boat. When he got down to the boat, he said he had had enough of the
wind. I felt the same way. Denny said he got seven or eight trout, one
was a nice Cutt. I had just tied on another pepper but we decided to
leave. As we got ready to shove off, two other fly fisherman came around
us and pulled up on the shoal. We introduced ourselves and chatted a
bit. This was their first time on the White and they wanted what fly to
use. I reached down and broke off my Chili pepper and handed it to one
of the guys. Denny did the same.
We then headed back to the dock directly into the wind. The white caps
were breaking over the bow if I went any faster than a slow crawl. Rene,
you know what I am talking about.
We were out just about two hours and in spite of the wind, it was a
good day. The reason for the higher flow at the shoals, one unit had
been turned on early that morning. The water was just getting to the
shoals when we got there. I have found many times if I am fishing the
"SURGE" the fish really get turned on. I think this is why we did as
good as we did under the bad conditions. The water was just reaching us
and that turned on the trout. In any case, it was worth fighting the
wind and we were satisfied that we had a good day on the river.
Tony
