Mary Ann was on the river guiding today so I went out on my own. I hit a favorite spot on the Salmon River, and had the hardest time finding any fish willing to look up for dry flies. The water looked good, and there were olive stoneflies, caddis, and golden stoneflies out on the water. But, I only managed a entice couple of 10″ rainbows to my dry flies. Whitefish were very happy to take nymphs, and I picked up 12 or 14 on stonefly nymphs and prince nymphs. After 4 hours of fishing I was just about to call it a day. But, instead, I worked upstream to deeper water, still trying the same dry flies that I had been trying earlier in the day. Surprisingly, from 3:00 PM to 3:45 PM when It was 98 degrees, I picked up 6 nice cutthroats on a #12 olive bodied Elk Hair Caddis and a #8 Yellow Crystal Stimulator. I’m not sure why I had this success late in the day, but I was certainly happy to finally find some cooperative Cutties! Here are a couple of photos for my day:
Slower, deeper water upstream by the rocks.
A nice cutthroat that took a yellow crystal stimulator.
Nice fish Dave. It was worth the wait! I noticed in our neck of the woods( North Central PA) the fish are very shy mid-day and and don’t show themselves until the sun goes behind the mountain.
Thanks for sharing.
Best, Larry
Hi Larry,
Good to hear back from you. Yep, sometimes, it’s a late-in-the-day game!
Dave