Great day on the river, lots of bugs hatching and fluorescent green new growth everywhere, with all the rain and snow things are now growing fast. River temperature was 59 degrees and a comfortable 72 degrees and no wind on the river.

Fished my 2wt dry fly rod with CDC Caddis, Adams and blue wings. When I tie up caddis I always tie the four flavors of CDC for the driftless, Natural, BWO, Iron blue dun, Black.

I really need to study some on possible bugs hatching because I usually see new stuff and with lots of bugs its sometimes really difficult to figure out what some trout are feeding on, they all were not feeding on the same things. I also determined I need to take bug pics for later study and color charts.

I saw what looked like different sizes and colors of mayflies coming out of the river, large caddis escaping from the surface, little bouncy bugs that skipped around on the surface and the usual midges and what looked like little black stick caddis or stoneflies.

The bulk of my fish came on caddis, and after I saw a nice head and I grabbed a fly out of the air, it looked blue possibly a grey drake and there were not hatching in large numbers at all, so I changed to a long Iron blue dun CDC Caddis in size 16 and caught a very large fish and a couple others like him.

I saw a few really large brook trout feeding on something but I could`nt get them, I only caught two small brook trout, one self released and the other was just 4" and stunning in color.

Lots of fish from all year classes, which is always great to see on a wild fish river, and its always good to see some fish that's been around awhile, a couple with net marks and one nice fish looked like it was hooked recently with a treble but was healing up nicely.

Since I started really refining my dry fly presentation and using a bit lighter rig, I`ve caught a lot of larger fish and more fish on dry flies which is my favorite form of fly fishing, I love to swing and skate flies, nymphs are good sport but for me nothing matches surface action, and I got a lot of it yesterday, the clicker was screaming from noon till the end of legal.

A comical thing that happened and my largest fish of the day took place on cast one.

I stepped up to my entry point a safe spot to wade in and observe without spooking fish, its not great fish holding water, but it is fast and knee deep in a long run. So I am standing there, I view some bugs hatching and a few risers up and down the river, I see BWO and caddis and midges and flies. I decide to use caddis to start and in the BWO color CDC, I figure its good for prospecting.

I tie on, wade out a little bit and I had a bunch of slack out to avoid getting tangled up I flip the line upriver and stow my fly box in my vest and close zippers when out of the corner off my eye in the flow a giant brown comes up from the bottom in the fast water and hammers my fly.

The fish takes off and there is a bunch of fly line around my legs and out in the river, I start stripping and reeling, the fish is running and jumping and its big, eventually I get him on the reel and after a good battle I get him in my net and he is 20" or so. Of course my phone is in my truck. I pull the fly admire the large fish and dump the net, with a good chuckle.

The largest fish landed in a while, by accident, no skill required. I also wondered why the fish didn't spook and apparently knee deep fast water in bright sun at noon is good holding water for large browns. of course it all might have been an anomaly.

I`m back to using my fly vest, I missed it and on the last two outings it serves me better than any pack. I also picked up a fishpond magnetic net holder and bungie, I need a net on my back to feel comfortable. I guess I`m old but I don't care what the young hip fisherman like.

My pack is for long hiking trips and steelhead. Vest for everything else.

And with that said on to the pics......



















Not all of them are big



A 12" fish scrappy fighter



Plenty of nice ones





Time to call it a day.

beautiful pics and nice fish. what 2 weight ( model/ manufacturer) were you using?
i have coveted a 2 weight but with several 3's - have not pulled the trigger yet.

Thanks guys, its fun to share my/our passion of fly fishing. My 2wt is a Redington classic trout 7`6", I really like the rod, using the new airflow line and it really presents excellent. The 2wt is a small fly rod, it doesn't like casting anything big, its my dry fly rod, any fly a bit larger or streamers I go up a size, also the 3wt handles wind better.

For dry fly fishing on a calm beautiful day, its nice to use the 2wt.

Very good write up and pictures. Thanks