Friday, March 9—You Gotta Check Your Fly

DATE: Friday, March 9, 2012

TIME: 1:45 PM TO 3:30 PM

WEATHER: High 60s, mostly sunny, light breeze

WATER CONDITIONS: 0 units

LOCATIONS FISHED: Norfork River, Mill Dam Eddy

FLIES USED:

#18 olive Norfork River scud, #20 red/silver zebra midge, #16 green caddis, #20 olive Cockleburr, #20 Kay’s Grey, #20 Dunn’s Dun

ROD USED: Winston 8’ 6” 5-weight WT Joan Wulff Favorite

HATCHES: Midges, caddis

OTHER: Kay and I fished Mill Dam Eddy on a whim, hoping the caddis were coming off and that fish were keying on them; it wasn’t happening.  We found this area to be void of fishers, though a solitary fly fisher was walking towards the riffle from upstream; when he saw us he turned around and returned upstream.  Kay fished a gray Norfork River scud and a red/silver zebra midge, and I tied on the small olive scud with a red/silver zebra midge.  I missed a couple of fish, then hooked up with one.  Working both upstream and downstream, I tried midge emergers and the caddis, but it was a fish on a fly, then nothing.  Changing flies would result in a catch, then nothing, etc.  For a long period I fished a Kay’s Grey really hard with absolutely no results, then pulled the fly in and found that it had pretty much disintegrated; you gotta check your fly once in a while.  I ended up with less than a half dozen fish—caught nothing on the caddis—but it was fun fishing with Kay.  We looked for scuds on the river bottom, but did not see any.  The river in this area continues to change, very slowly returning to pre-2011 flood conditions and geometry.