Fall Fishing Update
Greetings from the Canyon! Fall is here! It’s been a bit since the last river update, we are very busy in September and the first half of October. We had one of our favorite groups last week that has been coming every year since our first season, and it was a blast to get to fish with those guys again and catch up.
As for weather, we saw a whole bunch of precipitation this last week, a mix of snow and rain over two days that melted off soon after. We had a day of fishing that was delayed due to frozen boats, but once we hit the water it was lights out fishing. It's 60 degrees right now but next week we will see highs in the 30s and 40s and a mix of rain and snow again. True fall weather. Despite inconsistent weather, we saw very consistent fishing throughout September.
I’m not much of a counter when it comes to fish. Some people are. I personally think it takes away from the spirit of what we are doing. If we wanted to catch 1000 fish we’d bust out an Ugly Stick and some worms and hit a crappie pond. Some of my favorite days on the water ever were days where we probably didn’t break the ten fish mark. However, I see and appreciate the merit in banging up a whole bunch of fish on a fly rod. And September is a month where this ritual of getting some fish to bend the hell out of a rod is very attainable. The nymph game this last month was pretty outrageous, with some very high numbers of fish hitting the boat. Again, I’m not a counter, but some of my guests who are counters may throw out numbers in the 30s and maybe even 40s. And most of these are in the 16-22 inch range. Talk about bending a rod. One of the only problems with the nymphing has been bending hooks straight and breaking off some slabby rainbows. Dad and I put in some hours on the vise this month. We can hardly tie enough flies to keep up. What a terrible problem to have.
While the nymphing was great in September, there were plenty of dry fly opportunities as well. Hoppers had some really good moments. Fish really started keying in on bigger hopper patterns throughout the month, which made for some really cool eats from some great fish. We also have had some good mayfly action in spots, mostly on pseudos. Pseudocloeon, or pseudos for short, are an itty bitty mayfly that is closely related to Baetis. We see a big number of these in September, and they can be tricky to figure out. Sometimes the fish don’t seem to put in any effort to eat them, and other times the fish will gorge on them. While the natural bug is a size 24 or 26, we usually try to make them eat a 20. Any smaller is a war of attrition where seeing your bug is half the battle. While challenging, there were some great days to be had fishing for these picky pseudo eaters.
Temps are cooling rapidly and there is one thing on all of our minds here at the Lodge: Baetis. Blue-Winged Olives. The Spring/Fall bug. We are watching water temps like mad men, waiting for that number to drop into the magic zone. 56 degrees and under is the magic water temp zone, and that’ll happen any day now. Baetis might be my favorite hatch, whether it's fall or spring, it doesn’t matter. While the Baetis dry fly fishing is less reliable than our summer bugs, the days it happens are unbelievable. Fish just get stupid. I’ve seen rainy, overcast days where you see what looks like an actual carpet of BWO’s floating in a big back eddy. And in this carpet of bugs is about 30 trout noses gorging like it’s their last meal. It is one of the greatest sights to be seen on a trout stream. After an August and September of seeing itty bitty mayflies, the BWOs awakens an eating response in our trout that makes them throw caution to the wind. And that makes them a little dumber, and we love dumb fish. The whole river just has an awakening when the BWOs start emerging, it’s like the fish know winter is coming and they need to get their calories in ASAP.
As the season starts dwindling down, we have a few exciting items on the docket. We have our Wet Fly Swing Podcast Dry Fly School approaching, so that’ll be a great trip with a huge dry fly focus. Fly fishing is all about learning new skills, so having a trip dedicated to learning the ropes on dry fly fishing the Mo’ will be a fun experience for everyone involved. If you really want to learn how to throw dries or sharpen your skills, tailoring your trip to that is something we love doing. Don’t be afraid to ask us about doing a dry fly only trip when you visit, it is what makes this river so special and it is what we excel at guiding. After the Dry Fly School, we will be ending our season at the end of October this year. Then we have our sights set on the Florida Keys for some R & R. Dad is doing some trips down there this winter for flats fishing, which is a ton of fun for anyone interested in some salt water fishing with us. Hope everyone is enjoying their autumns and getting some fishing in. We sure are.
See you when you get here!