Greetings from the canyon!
It’s November 1st, temps are in the 40’s, and it’s raining. Whatever leaves that are still clinging to the branches are soon to be shook off. We’ve seen rain, sleet, and snow already (plenty of the latter). This was a cooler October than last year, and it feels like winter is waiting to swap out fall any day now. The brisk air, low sun angles, and early evenings this time of year always make me a little melancholy for the fishing season that has come and gone. They are always somehow much too short and way too long. Such is life.
October was as advertised this year. Cooler water temps, great Blue-Winged Olive action, and some nice streamer days to be had. There were some banner dry fly days out there, and the nymph game was just downright silly some days. A cool aspect of October here is the versatility. If you are a numbers guy, and want to bobber up all day and rake up a bunch of fish, this is one of the best times for that. If you are a streamer junky, and want to strip flies till your arm falls off, it’s either October or the spring. And if you’re a devout dry fly enthusiast, come later in the month for the cool weather and late afternoon Blue-winged explosion.
I had some really special trips out there this fall, so I’m going to use this blog as a sort of documentation for one of those trips
October 8th-10th
It was 70 degrees when Dave and John showed up to the lodge. Just way too hot for October. Hot days in the spring are awesome, because we want the water to warm up. Hot days in the fall are the bane of my existence. Early in the month of October we are crossing our fingers for cool downs to bring that water temps into the magical zone for the Blue-Winged Olives. 56. 56 degrees is pretty much the magical number for water temp this time of year. Well, the water was 59 when these guys showed up, so we were praying for a miracle. Dave had visited for the first time Memorial day weekend this year, and towards the end of that trip he was talking about coming back in the fall. The plan was to strip some streamers, thump a bunch of fish on nymphs, and hopefully get some BWO action if it presented itself. This 70 degree day stood in the way of the latter. Thanks nature.
Day 1: 70 degrees; I figured it was best to not force the issue, and play the nymph game I had been tuning in the last couple weeks. That was the right call. We went to the upper river and got absolutely rocked by big rainbows all day long. It was ridiculous. No wind, hot weather, and very cooperative fish. It was the type of day that makes you feel bad for the fish. We had a blast.
Day 2: High 60’s and windy; this was the day that I figured would be the toughest of their trip. We had some very stiff gusts of wind all day long. Winds in excess of 20mph make fly fishing pretty tough in general, especially when it is sunny as well. We persevered, caught some nice fish, and had a good day on the water. Towards the end of the day Dave started feeling pretty sore in the elbow. This was a problem, because tomorrow was going to be the streamer fishing day. We started discussing the possibility of fishing with the other arm, switching reels, and trying to make it work that way. We were going to cross that bridge when we got there.
Day 3: High of 56, over an inch of rain, and some wind. This was the day. The high temp was at 12am, and the low temp would come at midnight that evening. When we hit the water, it was a cool 45 degrees and raining. We bundled up like crazy people at the lodge, putting every possible layer on our bodies, shoving clumps of coats and base layers into our tighter-than-ever waders. I waddled into my truck, feeling like the kid from A Christmas Story, while Dave and John looked like cousins of the Michelin Man. Dave had already prepped his sore elbow with some sort of medicated patch, hoping to make it throughout the day ahead of us. I decided to fish the canyon, as it is my favorite streamer water, and we had the Lodge halfway into our float as a safety valve if we got too cold.
We started by stripping streamers, and after about 200 yards of fishing, John got thumped by a solid rainbow. Spirits were high. We scooted down a couple banks and got blown up by a couple more great fish. Things were really looking up. Then the real rain came. We got poured on in a way that is hard to describe. The first time I went to the Florida Keys, we got rained on while we were throwing flies to Jack Crevalles. It was a tropical type of rainfall that felt like you were standing under a warm waterfall. Unrelenting. Heavy. Refreshing. It was so memorable because I don’t remember feeling a rain that heavy before that experience. The rain we got pummeled with this October day was not much different in weight, but it was so deeply cold. Bone chilling. Brutal.
We were getting colder, but the rain was slowing up a bit at this point. Dave’s elbow was really hurting now from chucking streamers, so I thought it was best to go to my short nymph rig to save his arm. There was a stretch of water I wanted to fish this way anyway, so the timing was perfect. As soon as we threw the rigs out, it was on. The fish could not eat our rigs fast enough. At one point, Dave had hooked a fish, so I dropped the anchor to net it. As we were trying to net the fish, John had already hooked a fish of his own, so we now had to navigate a double. This double dance happened a few times in a row, and we had ourselves a real rodeo on our hands. The uptick in hookups warmed us up better than I think a fire would have, so the weather really wasn’t a factor anymore.
I checked the clock, and we were an hour past our lunch timing and not really close to the lodge yet, which was the halfway point. We genuinely had to stop and net so many fish that we were late. We decided to push through some water as we were cold, and the rain had returned, along with some wind that made it pretty unbearable. We made it to the lodge for lunch, and decided to take our time and warm up. As we sat at the table and looked out at the river’s edge, the rain stopped. This would seem like a miracle, except for the fact that the rain had stopped because the snow started. Woof.
We drug our feet on the way to the boat, but with some HotHands in our pockets, and some warm coffee in thermoses, we braved our way into this winter wonderland. We floated down with the nymph rigs, hoping to save Dave’s elbow for the prime streamer water at the tail end of our float. As we crossed under the bridge by the lodge, I saw a couple of fish rising in a slow pool. Since we were just cruising by, we decided to throw the nymphs at them, and they obliged. After netting a fish, I stopped and looked for more noses. As we saw some more fish surface, we decided we’d throw a couple dries since we had the opportunity. Dave immediately put a shot right on the money and landed a really nice rainbow. As we sat a bit longer, I saw it. A Blue-Winged Olive. The first of the season. Then another. And another. And then a thousand more.
We hit it just right and there were thousands and thousands of bugs on the water, and the trout went absolutely nuts.
Describing a peak BWO hatch is complicated, but I’ll try to paint the picture. The water on the Mo’ is slow flowing for the most part. The microcurrents in this easy flowing river direct bugs into specific lanes, and the trout sit on these lanes hard. When a hatch really goes, especially if it is wet and cold, this stacking of bugs in these lanes compounds. You eventually get what we call Mats. These mats look like large squares of shag carpet floating down the river. Thousands of BWOs, all on top of each other, floating down the river in giant mats. Some of these mats are a foot wide, while others can be close to 10 feet long. Just an unbelievable amount of insects. The trout will find these mats in slower, circulating water. Like giant back eddies. And in these giant back eddies, you will see hundreds of fish following these mats around and eating the BWOs on the surface. It is like a scene from a nature documentary. Pods of ravenous trout feeding like it’s their last meal. The trick to catching these fish is to fish the edges, where there are less bugs to compete with. Another trick for success is to size up to make you stand out from the endless smorgasbord on the water.
The hardest part of this day was seeing your fly between the snow flurries. We followed the pods of fish around, taking turns plucking out a rainbow or a brown on the surface. We stayed in this same section for probably 4 hours, chasing pod after pod. It was just perfection. I don’t think Dave’s elbow felt very sore either.
We stayed in this section of water for so long, chasing risers, that I eventually just had to row the boat back up the lodge and let them out at the end of the day, then row my boat to the boat ramp alone. When I got to my truck, the thermometer read 32 degrees.
The beginning of the fall BWOs is one of my favorite times of year. It usually comes in a big rain event, so it feels like a big climatic hatch when it finally happens. The early fall, September-Early October is great for other things like crazy nymph numbers and streamers, but the reemergence of the BWOs later in the fall really makes my dry fly heart happy.
Our season is over now, year 4 is officially in the books. I’lll have a blog all about this year in a few weeks. November we’ll be chasing upland birds with Blue, our Brittany. Blue got his name from the Blue-Winged Olive, which makes it kind of poetic since he also makes a big emergence in the fall. He gets crazy this time of year. Every time you stand up, he thinks it’s time to chase birds. He is an amazing bird dog who runs big and has a great nose while being a great family dog as well. He also got into the garbage last week. Nobody's perfect. He turned 10 this year, so we are really savoring the hunts we get to go on with him.
Thanks to everyone who came out this fall and this season in general, it was the best year yet! We are officially in the offseason, which is also our booking season. If you have specific dates in mind, give us a call or email. We’d love to get you on the calendar for next season. We are getting a lot busier now than our previous seasons, so if you need specific times or have bigger groups, the sooner the better.
We’ll see you when you get here!