We got hit this week with a snowstorm which quickly turned into A LOT OF SNOW. Shoveling and running the snow blower took time away from the vise where I’m working on several orders. For some reason, my brain wanders as I’m outside for an hour or two. I was thinking how lucky we are the snow fell to help with river levels this summer. And you guessed it…I began dreaming of summer fly fishing.
I recalled the great fly fishing last year on East Lake, the Madison River, and the Metolius.
Fishing has been great the last few years on East Lake as the tui chub were controlled and Rainbow and Brown Trout began gorging themselves on the abundant Callibaetis mayflies. We timed the Callebaetis mayfly hatch perfectly last year. It was the best dry fly fishing we’ve ever had up there. I wrote about our fishing trip Early Season Fly Fishing on East Lake in June 2018.
Here are a few memories from that day.
And yes, an occasional double!
Remember our spontaneous trip to the Madison?
I had read a Blue Ribbon Flies weekly newsletter on Facebook and told my wife how good the fly fishing was supposed to be. We’ve usually made our fly fishing road trips in late July and August and stopped at fly shops to get the latest scoop and hear the following words – “you seem to be between hatches”.
My wife said “we should go and fish when the fishing is supposed to be good”. So we did!
I wrote about it in the blog post – Fly Fish the Madison River in Early July.
The Green Drake hatch on the Metolius was spotty for us last year, but we did manage to catch some nice fish. We fish the Met quite a bit. It’s our home river. I’m thinking of rising fish.
I feel much better after writing today’s post! I have some more day-dreaming to do and the snow is waiting!
Enjoy…go fish!
I’ve been dreaming too, John. Have even tied few flies (Beetle Bailey’s) I hope they look like yours.